As is my tradition, I thought I would review my progress at my 2010 goals.

• Gain Weight … Err, Eat Better and Exercise – As of this morning, I have lost four pounds. My progress to actually gain weight has been a roller coaster. I was up about ten pounds pretty quickly. When I started biking, I lost 15 pounds in three weeks. I have gained that back in my leg mostly. I probably wont fight to get to my, now, 27 pounds by the end of the year. I will keep trying though.

  My real goal of eating better and exercise is working though. I virtually bike everywhere. I lift weights. I could be better at this though. I eat like crazy. Without being anal, I have almost cut red meat, pop, and candy out of my diet.

  I feel great. I think there are two times in my life I have been in better shape. The first was late in my high school running career (about 16-7 years old) when I was running 60 miles a week. The second was my last summer working construction (20 years old). I was lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, jack hammering, etc 30-50 pounds for 60 hours a week.

• Updated Net Worth – I am a little behind the original 126.3158%. I have a 55% change thus far which puts me at 110% by the end of the year. I had a couple large purchases which impacted the progress – bike, rain gear, and Wisconsin trip. I might be able to cut some costs in the last half of the year to catch up.
• No House – I have not bought a house, but I did move to NE Portland. Double win. I do want to own a home but still do not know if Portland is where that will be.

The rest of my life is going well. I am still working at Conducive Technology and our FlightStats project is growing like crazy. I still have the life goal to start my own company and Conducive is teaching me some powerful knowledge which will pay off one day. Unless a business opportunity comes a knocking, I plan to stay where I am.

Perusing the Internets, I found a couple opinions of its definition. Generally, they fall into one of two categories:

• Of or relating to the software created for an enterprise. Otherwise known as, an organization’s software.
• Bloated, excessive, unnecessary – in all meaning of the words.

The former is basically saying enterprise software is just software. The latter is just annoying.

Unless you are lazy, you would probably not find these definitions representative of your career.

Without getting into too much flowery marketing mumbo jumbo, there needs to be another answer. Here is mine:

Software architected to support the breath and depth of its users needs while producing a minimalistic footprint on its own and neighboring systems. This system should not only be easily created but, more importantly, well maintained.

Well that is the definition I have come up with today. This might change over time but will a good start.

I am curious what you all think.

In case you were wondering, my favorite gun manufacture is Nerf. It is the ideal manufacture for fighting tyranny, terrorism, or defending any future fort I might build. I posted a picture of my fabulous creation below.

Instead Google has two goals:

• Put pressure on other browsers to produce more efficient, standardized features.
• Incorporate it with Chrome OS and (hopefully) Android devices.

Today we are seeing some of the results from the former. IE9 produced JavaScript benchmark results compared to other major browsers. The graph below shows the results.

If comparing IE8/IE9 or Opera 10.1/10.5 are indications, this goal is producing some nice results. This not only makes my job creating web apps easier, it also will produce new challenges to make more fancy apps. Additionally surfing the web will just be better.

Now if only we could kill IE6.

I bought a bike and started bike commuting. I might be the only person dumb enough to take a bike from Vancouver to downtown Portland, but I have never been much for fitting in. Actually, I do not ride the entire 11 miles. I grab the Yellow Line in North Portland.

I get a Tri-met pass for work, so minus the cost of the bike, my commute is now free. Woohoo.

Going over the Interstate Bridge in the rain, wind, and dark is less than my favorite activity in the world. Otherwise, I enjoy my commute better than sitting in traffic.

Next step, move back to Portland.

In the third quarter Google had an ad. You can watch it below. They called it Parisian Love. Between seconds 36 and 40 search of ‘AA 120′ is made (a flight number). This referenced my employer, FlightStats.

There has been a ton of chatter in our office the last couple days, but in general we are all really excited. One of our marketing people said he would never be able to top an accidental Super Bowl ad appearance – career over.

I do have to say it is nice working for a team and product with such high credentials.

I found a problem though. After looking and looking, I could not find a map of the locations. If my normal lot is full, I could not find an alternative easily without skimming the list. On the weekends, I want to find a location close to the weekend activity of choice. So, I made a map. I hope somebody out there finds this as helpful as I think it will be for me.

View PMC Parking Map in a larger map

• One of my best friends passed away
• I worked 16 hours on my birthday
• Took family trips to the San Juan Islands, Arizona, and Wisonsin
• Lost my job and got a new one
• Dreamed about owning a house and new car

As far as years go, this one was ‘meh’. Good-bye 2009.

I am now a Software Engineer at Conducive Technology. Conducive, among other things, runs FlightStats.com which tracks flight data (arrival time, status, delays, etc).

I will be on the web/API/Web Service team, creating and maintaining the tools and various user facing apps. The other half of the team works on the data collection/validation process.

Conducive is a small company; I am about number 18 with options to add maybe five next year. It is located right downtown Portland. I am pretty excited about my options here.

Pros

• They are profitable, VC backed, stable, and an industry leader.
• I love product development (as opposed to service development) – always have. I am just more passionate about what I am creating.
• Flight Stats is a pretty big site. Page views and hits are measured in the many millions. This is a huge upgrade from many thousands. By this time next year, that number will be close to 50mm.
• In addition to having many visitors, the site is planned to go into multiple international markets.
• Much less structure allows me to have flex hours and making my own hours really.

Cons

• The commute to downtown Portland is about four times longer than the 20 blocks I did before. We will see how this goes.
• I am now an engineer where I had been an architect for the last year and a half. This I saw coming. When I moved into my architect position, I knew I would not be able to maintain it if I left Formos. Nobody would hire somebody so young into an architect spot, rather one needs to be promoted to it.
• Being an engineer and at a product based company, there will be little client facing interaction. This had been a large portion of my work at Formos.

With five weeks of doing nothing, I am very eager to get back to it. Here we go.

Yep, I am unemployed. Friday, I and five others were informed our services could no longer be afforded. I have joined the couple hundred thousand (million?) of my closest friends on the unemployment line.

Honestly, I saw lay offs coming. I did not think six of the 11 local staff would be leaving so soon though.

After the announcement, I traveled to the company kitchen to take one of the remaining beers and drank it while saying the good-byes. My boss followed this by going to the store and purchasing more beer.

I greatly enjoyed my time at Formos. Matt Tunnell is a terrific leader. I learned a ton about making web applications, software team management, and business development.

So, now what?

I have had a couple days to think about the next step. Here are a couple thoughts:

• Business School – I have always said I wanted an MBA. Is now the time? Probably not – due to costs. Some day though.
• Ownership – One of my career goals is to start/run my own company. Some (at times many) have asked if now is the time. This question actually comes up regularly among some crowds. Each time, I say someday I will. I am not quite sure if I have the experience I want before partaking. I feel I am emotionally though. If the right opportunity came up, I would jump. I have a couple ideas; research will need to be had.
• Career Change-ish – Day to day software development is not for me. I want to move more into an operations, engineering management, product management, or financial position. The ultimate goal is business ownership, so I want a range of perspectives before getting there.
• New Job – This option is probably the most likely. I have a couple of contacts that do work very similar to what I have already been doing. I love the web sector, so any software I do will stay in that area. The search has begun.
• Freelance – Eh, might be fun.

Things not for me include: clergyman, Peace Corp, daily naps, World of Warcraft, or knitting.

For those worried about finances, I should be fine. After two years of saving and semi-searching, I decided not to buy a house about two months ago. I should be good for a couple months worst case.