Birthday 2013

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me to celebrate?



I've written before about funny bounces and life has just taken another one.



I was just sitting at my desk, minding my own business. Management was away at a trade show. I had been invited to go along with them, but it's inconvenient for me to work away from my desk and if I'm away too long, everything just backs up.

So I get an email. It's from a competitor. They are making a new position and have been asking around our common customers at the trade show that I wasn't at, whom should they hire? They answer they kept getting was... me.

We had some telephone discussions and it was agreed that I should fly out to the company HQ in San Diego to confer, converse and hobnob (as so wonderfully put in the Wizard of Oz) with the company big shots.

Before those plans could be cemented however, there was an emergency with a customer and someone, me, would have to fly to their HQ in Rome to help smooth things over.

What this meant for me was this: The Mrs and I had a wedding to go to on a Saturday. On Sunday, I would get on a plane and fly to Rome, arriving Monday. I would stay there for the week returning Friday night. On Saturday, we had tickets to see the Eagles. On Sunday, I would board a plane for San Diego. Interview on Monday and take the red-eye home Monday night, getting home Tuesday morning.

Work is work. The place I was visiting in Rome was near the outskirts and nowhere near the city center. I spent all day until late at the office. There really wasn't time to see anything until Thursday night when I went out to dinner with the head of the IT dept and the head of the Engineering dept. We went down to the city center (picture above) and had dinner at a restaurant that had been in continuous business since 1906.

 

The Eagles were great.

In San Diego, I spoke to 8 different people altogether and felt like I was hitting them out of the ball park  all day long. They made the offer, I took it and now will be Director of Sales for Novatel Wireless' M2M (machine to machine) Telematics Enfora Divison.

I start on the 21st of this month.

I've read a lot of good books recently. I've begun The Song of Ice and Fire, completing The Game of Thrones and a Clash of Kings. This series is just so huge that attempting to start has been daunting, but I finally took the plunge. It resonates with many of my other favorite books: The Lord of the Rings, The Asian Saga, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Once and Future King, The Baroque Cycle the Foreworld Saga and so on.



I've also read The Dao of Capital by Mark Spitnagel who is a colleague of Nassim Taleb. Also, David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. I recommend The Dao of Capital, Taleb's last book, Anti Fragile and of course, Malcolm Gladwell's new book, David and Goliath..

Three other recent reads that I enjoyed very much:



At home, everyone is doing well. My wife and I are going to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks.

I'm working out and feeling good.

Everything is good.