New Orleans

So I ended up heading out to New Orleans for an F5 partner summit the last few days -- I hadn't been since pre-Katrina.

It was pretty astonishing to see the damage and empty buildings that we saw on the drive in from the airport, even this far after the event.

I was not at all surprised to see that Bourbon street was still the same hot, sticky, smelly, and sophomoric environment with lots of booze and bad judgement all around... fun, but in VERY small doses.

Sam's first day at MuleSource

As you may know from my earlier post, I recently accepted a job offer at a small startup with offices in San Francisco (much easier commute) called MuleSource. The company sells top-tier support and services to people who are using the open source "Mule" application integration APIs and corresponding enterprise service bus.

For those who have any idea what I do... My job responsibilities will be similar to the ones I had at my last company, Symphoniq, however I'm now also responsible for growing and managing our customer support teams as well.

Coinciding with my first week on the job were visits to Corp HQ from many on the MuleSource executive team (including the CTO and VP's of Sales and EMEA Operations) as well as from a support partner from Australia, so it was a very opportune time to come onboard.

So far I'm thrilled with the enthusiasm and energy of the people I'm working with, and am extremely excited about the opportunities we have in front of us.

Roger Waters with Roger Horwitz

A good friend of mine from work was able to get us a pair of amazing seats for us to the Roger Waters concert in Oakland. I took the BART over from the city (ask me how f*cked up the ticket purchasing process is for both the BART and MUNI is if you want to get me riled up) and met Roger at the arena.

When I got there I was thirsty, and thought I'd be drinking warm beer but it turns out that right next to the beer guy was a fully stocked bar guy. So instead of an $8 crappy beer, I ordered an $8 mediocre scotch and made my way down to our seats.

The show was amazing. The first half they played early hits and a few of Waters' solo songs.

Just before the intermission I received an email on my blackberry. Now normally I wouldn't have been checking my blackberry during a concert, but I was waiting to hear back from a recruiter which I had been working with who was trying to secure me an employement offer from a startup that I was really interested in working at. The email indicated that an offer letter was attached, and that they were willing to accomodate the requests I had made in order to accept the position.

I was on cloud nine!

I went an ordered another scotch, and then enjoyed the remainder of the show -- the full DSOTM album, as well as a few songs from the Wall and again a few solo works from Waters' later career.

All in all a FANTASTIC evening. It was of course tinged with a bit of sadness as I knew that Roger Horwitz and I soon would not be working together any more...