It was never actually supposed to be a full time job, and its been a pretty good run actually; luckily I've found another project to jump into the middle of, which is also exciting. My wife is especially glad, considering we have another rug-rat on the way. I think she's gotten used to it in any case (I changed jobs right around the time each of the last two boys were born), or perhaps she understands that my identity is not tied to my job; but whatever the reason, it is a nice thing to have a wife that is calm as I weather this transition.

It does help somewhat that the economy is back, and Java hype has long since crested so that people can go back to using other tools like perl and C++ where they are appropriate. Its not that I can't write Java, it's just that the kinds of thing that Java is good for aren't that appearing to me. Give me: bare to the metal, runs forever, resource use is an issue, all the performance we can get, C++ anyday. Its a bonus that the new project has lots of 3D graphics, and we're required to do our testing in a MMOG. Also, the VPE is very cool (that's him dressed up in fatigues for a publicity shot for an article in SFWeekly), and had no problem having me start weeks before I'm going to disappear off the planet, tending to my wife in the hospital.

Still, the caliber of the people on games grid was phenomenal. I've never worked on a project before with a group of programmers that understood technology, software engineering in general, and C++ specifically; to the same degree. I haven't always agreed with the designs and decisions of the others, but I've always respected their choices.

The group also sports an impressive background, having known each other through times at Apple, Taligent, Palm, Be and Netscape. Red even reached a certain level of infamy as the manager of the billion dollar DTS (Apple Developer Technical Support), a group of guys who went on to create (or help create) several billion dollar business and products, such as Pierre starting EBay (with another alumnus, PT Helme), Rob Tsuk helping launch the iPod, Steve Maller a million dollar tech gun-for-hire, and Jor Bratko heading up developer relations for Palm, and Dean Yu heading up Yahoo Gaming. I just hope his luck continues to hold, as Gordon was one of his employees, and it would be nice if Games Grid became yet another billion dollar business (and made me rich in the process).

So a fond farewell to Max, Gordon, Chris, Red, Buzz, and the rest of the gang as I head out (back to my little cubby in Flagstaff), and on to bigger and better things. I wish GamesGrid the best of luck, and will be looking for that check in the mail.