When I first met Carmina, I also met all her friends. One our first date, we we’re accompanied by Alma and her three daughters, Kayleigh, Nicole, and Dagny. I’ve known these bright, funny, intelligent, beautiful girls for going on 5 years now, and it has made my life even “more better” watching them grow up and being a part of their lives. When I introduce them to friends of mine, I refer to them as my “daughters”

Nicki is just finishing up her first year at UC Santa Cruz (um, go banana slugs), majoring in film. She sends Carmina and I links to her videos from time to time, and last night we got the latest. This one is a short little ditty, which she decided to put together because she was “bored”.

I wish I was bored like this girl. See for yourself.

Time to dance,

James

Microsoft has released two sites with tons of free training. Yup, I checked it out and it's free.

"Ramp Up", http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/rampup/default.aspx, covers topics from moving from ASP or PHP to ASP.NET, ASP.NET, Mobile Developent and Sharepoint.

www.msdev.com has tons of webcasts and training materials, geared towards solution providers, however the content is available for all.

Check it out.

James

Having faith when life is going well is easy. Keeping that faith when its not a bed of roses is hard. However it’s the difficult times which shape us, hone our character and make us who we are.

For me, this past month has been one of those difficult times. Laid off at the end of March, going through the ups and downs of finding a job, offers changed at the last minute, sitting across from IT managers who could be my son, answering esoteric programming questions, dealing with lost paperwork at the unemployment office, being tested in various situations, and, battling to keep the faith in both myself and the Universe.

I am happy to say, it has all paid off. I have come through this period stronger, smarter, humbled, blessed, and most importantly, employed.

Say hello to the new Senior .NET Developer for EnerPath.com. I will be handling new development and will be working with a team to build even better energy management systems which EnerPath is famous for. The company is cool, everyone is happy, laid back, and insanely intelligent. Some of my new co-workers are members of the IEDOTNETUG. And best of all…wait for it… the office is 15 minutes away from my house. It is close enough, I could ride my bike to work – well, ahem, after some conditioning time.

I start tomorrow.

Thanks to all my friends who got me through this.

Sloane, Erin and Kevin at Job Spring Partners, who worked with me to find what it was I wanted, taught an old guy how to interview, and did not treat me like just another commodity. If you need a job, or want to test the waters, call these guys. Seriously.

Geoff, David, Lynn, Matt, and Mike who made sure I wasn’t curled up in a ball eating ice cream, but was keeping busy and upbeat.

Volkan, Cigdem, and Rich who worked their butts off making sure I was ready for whatever interview question came my way, and being there on a moments notice when I needed a hand.

And most of all to Carmina, who not once showed an ounce of doubt in her eyes (even though I knew it was chewing her up inside). She is my consejero, my friend, my sounding board, my partner, my wife. Usted es la luz de mi vida. va a querer para siempre.

Time for a haircut.

James