Swept Away

As of today, it has been 573 days since my last post to this blog. Prior to this period, the most I had ever gone without posting here was a few months, going all the way back to 2005. I have literally never gone that long without blogging in my entire life, dating all the way back to my LiveJournal and OpenDiary days. More than a year and a half has elapsed. And it would be easy for me to say that my job was taking up all of my time, but that is only a fraction of what was actually going on. As it turns out, a lot can change in a year and a half. A whole, whole lot. But I suppose we can start with one very obvious one. My name changed!

It’s amazing how quickly time can fly when you are having fun. Almost fifteen years ago I started working at DealNews as a Junior Developer. I was in my mid 20s, less than two years out of Auburn. I even remember it was mid November because I left my previous job on a Wednesday, went to the Auburn-Georgia Game, then started at DealNews the following Monday. It was just before Black Friday even. I still even remember what that first day was like: I didn’t have SVN access yet and I had to email my code to my boss! To give you an idea of how long ago this was: when I was hired on at DealNews, I announced it to my friends on my MySpace page and my LiveJournal blog. Neither of which exist anymore. Fifteen years is a long time in tech, where changing jobs rapidly is the norm and staying in a position for three years can be seen as a serious commitment to a company. But the only constant in the universe is change. Which is why it is definitely very bittersweet for me to announce that I will be leaving DealNews on September 16, 2022.

I am getting this request more and more often - to the tune of multiple emails a week at this point. It usually starts friendly enough - friendly enough to that I know the sender isn’t a robot, they’ve very clearly looked at some of my pages. But then the pitch starts: “I’d like to contribute to your website an article on X” or “I’d be delighted to contribute to your website on this topic.” Usually promising to do so for free.