KELVIN SMITH LIBRARY

Entries for May 2005

One Week Later

First off, I'm only a little surprised that I'm still able to login on the Case network. I'm assuming for now that the lockout will happen immediately after payroll is processed at the end of the month. So, for now, I figure what the heck. Why not post an update?

I'm finishing off my first week here at Infiniti Systems Group with my nose already deep into one of their core projects. My first big move here was to jump right into billable hours on a project. If you're not doing something that drives revenue you need to evaluate the criticality of what you're doing. Anyway, those years of writing PL/SQL packages on the KSL Tech Team are now paying off.

The drive from North Olmsted to Brecksville is actually very smooth. If I don't hit the road early enough to be ahead of the crowd on I-480 it is very convenient to pop down to I-80 and enjoy a ride with practically no traffic at all. Then, when I arrive at the office I have the pleasure of parking within 30 feet of the front door in a FREE lot!

For those of you who give a flying hoot, my (marginally obfuscated) email here is khiggs at myisg dot com.

Time to write some code.

And the lame duck says: "Quack, Quack!"

Counting down the last hours of Case employment. Aside from checking that the server shutdown I scheduled for later today actually happens as intended, and attending the farewell event they're putting on for me this afternoon I've already completed all of my official to-do list items for the day. I guess it's time to start purging my desktop of my multiple gigabytes of MP3 files.

Continue reading "And the lame duck says: "Quack, Quack!""

KSL Needs a Webmaster -or- 'Goodbye CWRUel World'

Yes, I'm going over the wall. As of end-of-day on Friday, May 20 I will no longer be employed by Case. I've accepted an offer from Infiniti Systems Group in Brecksville to be what they are calling a Project Consultant. I won't go into the talk about what they do because you can follow the link to their site and see that for yourself.

What lead me to this? Let me say right here that my decision to leave Case has nothing to do with any individual. People always speculate that so-and-so is leaving because he was finally fed up with ... That is not the case here. The Tech Team works hard and plays hard so there are the normal, occasional conflicts but nothing that leads to a long term decision to pack up and leave.

This is more from my need to stretch my legs now and then and do something different. I'm a creative person who needs to express that creativity now and then. So, as you can guess, the Case branding does play a part in this decision as it does a certain amount of creativity squelching. I'm doing more and more of the same things on a day-to-day basis and that is not a good thing for me. So, I put the resumé up on a couple of boards and waited for the right opportunity to find me.

That's right. I did practically no active searching for job opportunities. I put up a resumé and let the head hunters find me with offers based on it. I have a perfectly good, stable job that has a lot to offer and there's no need to jump ship irrationally just because of a few fixable leaks.

At any rate, for all of you web development geeks out there, polish up your resumé with emphasis on all of your web coding languages and database work because the KSL Tech Team is unique on campus as a place to write code. Have a look at the student job description on the KSL web site to get an idea of what to expect.

P.S. Jeremy, you're going to want to archive that post about branding your departmental blog.