Sleigh Ride

On October 6th, Jim Vincent posted that Nationwide Insurance had an opening for a VM systems programmer. Having been a "systems programmer" in a previous life, and having a perpetual itch for such work, I made application. Come to find out, a lot of serious V12N work is happening at Nationwide.

Now Jim's team-mate is Rick Barlow. I figure that an excellent way to shake things up is to have another guy on the team with the same first name. It's great! Someone hollers, "Rick!", and I turn while he ignores them. (Since most people don't know THIS Rick, they're after the senior guy but get me instead. Hah!) I do so enjoy causing confusion.

So I loaded up the Toy and hit the road. This sleigh is silver, not red, but it did the job and got me into the snowy land of Ohio. (Well ... compared to the Gulf Coast, Ohio IS measurably snowier.) Jay Maynard may be interested to hear that I drug along a Proliant 5000, but Rob van der Heij will be disappointed to know that it was not powered up during the trip. (No RV this time around, Rob.) I started at Nationwide on the 12th of December.

And here we are. It's a different place. We're in a strange land, but it's good. My better half drove up in the Detroit machine about three weeks ago now, with children and a four-legger on board. The kids have gotten to see real white stuff at least once thus far. It has been an amazing adventure so far. It's hard to believe that I'm working with Rick and Jim.

-- R;