Blogging Roller

2012 is here and I'm happy that I'm still on the face of this spinning ball of star-stuff that we call earth. One of my resolutions this year is to blog more and I'm going to start with a catch-up post. Here's what I was up to in 2011.

At the start of 2011, I was still working for IBM. During the first half of the year I led the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) Core specification to finalization. I also managed the release of Apache Roller 5 and mentored a Google Summer of Code student who added Mobile Theming capabilities to Roller. Early in the year, I decided to get in shape, bought an elliptical machine and Line Dieted down 30 pounds. I also doubled-down on running and ran my first half-marathon (with my 14 year old son).

In July, I got a call from my former Sun co-workers and jumped at the opportunity to join Scott McNealy's new startup, Wayin. So far, it's been a blast. I've been able to put my knowledge of server-side web development, REST and social software to good use and have learned a hell of a lot about scaling with Amazon EC2, MongoDB, Solr and lots of other interesting bits.

Things have been going well on the homefront too. All three sons are all doing well and the oldest started high school this year. We're pretty busy all the time with extracurricular activities, family logistics, video game additions, etc. and that's mostly good, but we did find the time to get away for vacations in Charleston SC and Jekyll Island GA. So, that's that. You're all caught up and next, we'll see if I can keep this blog active this year.