Riptano peanuts

• I had a nightmare that I was back in Europe, paying for metered internet. Over dialup.
  
• My back exploded two months ago while moving furniture. I still can't bend backwards. Odds that Rachel will succeed in making me see a doctor after I write this: 40%. (I put it that low because it I think it is getting better, very very slowly. Two weeks ago standing up straight hurt.)
  
• Some time in the past year Amazon decided that what I really wanted to see on my Shopping List was everything I ever bought there. Thanks for ruining my list of potential Christmas gifts.
  
• While riding shotgun with Matt P, in a personal record for most cables in a moving vehicle, I streamed last.fm
  • to the aux input from my laptop,
  • which is tethered to my phone over usb
  • and plugged into the cigarette adapter for power
  
  
• Matt P: "I guarantee there are less than five people in the state of California who drive a minivan more badass than I do."
  
• Jon H, who is 22: "Quit being so old!"
  
• Tyler H: "I dreamed you assigned me a really interesting bug. It was so vivid that when I got in to work this morning I double-checked my mail in case it was there."
  
• Really, really glad Matt P does the salary negotiations with new hires. That would stress me out. Plus I'd like to be on their side.
  
• Flew enough since starting Riptano to get free Economy Plus seating on United, which means I can (barely) use my Kinesis keyboard on my lap in-flight.
  
• Email roulette: going through my backlog until a song I don't like hits last.fm
  
• I know Matt P's plane must have landed when I have my inbox caught up when I start watching a show with Rachel, and when it's done I have 17 new mails.
  
• Pro tip: when submitting code for a job interview, try compiling it first.
  
• Even our vp of product is mailing me about distributed counter design now. It's the new black.
  
• Tyler H doesn't understand that engineers aren't supposed to make sales. So he just does it anyway.
  
• Took the family out for ice cream to celebrate hiring Ben C. I worked with him years ago at Northface (now Neumont); I've been looking forward to doing it again ever since.
  

Italian Peanuts

• My flight out of San Antonio was so late that I almost missed my connection in Chicago. I would have, except in an amazing coincidence our arrival gate was changed to the one next door to my Munich flight. United had already changed my itinerary to route me through DC, but it turned out to not be necessary. Fortunately, I missed my flight home, restoring cosmic balance.
• The conference sent me two hotel reservations. One was correct. Unfortunately my first stop was the one that was not. The nice German lady at the front desk was starting to get anxious, but once I got online I found the other reservation. ... Yes, the first one had _free internet_, probably the only hotel in Italy. Not that I'm bitter.
• Dude running the conference: "Why are you walking so fast?" Me: "Because my talk was supposed to start ten minutes ago." DRTC: "This is Italy. Relax."
• Talk went okay, modulo the heckler who had too much to drink during lunch. That's a new one for me. Especially since the heckler was the speaker who preceeded me. I thought maybe he just overdid celebrating that his talk was finished, but he was drunk during the speaker panel the following day, too. Then after the conference I saw him at the first cafe outside the university with a beer in front of him. So I revised my hypothesis: he's probably just alcoholic.
• Our lunch table was roughly divided into English (two Americans, a Brit, and a Hungarian) and Italian halves. Three of the Italians got into a spirited debate, arms waving everywhere. When they started raising their voices the English side paused, then smiled. Me: "Nobody argues like Italians." One of the Italians heard, and also smiled. Then he raised one finger: "Greeks."
• One of the speakers had his name on his slides as "Prof. Dr. Martin ..." I thought it was because he figured just "Dr." might leave us ignorant of how special he is, but it turns out this is normal in Germany. Maybe I was overcompensating for being one of the few people in the room who neither had a Ph.D. nor intended to get one.
  
• The weather was great the day before the conference, and the day after. Cold and rainy for the two days I was there. Oh well; I had work to do anyway.

California dreaming

Today I got back from 4 days in the San Fransisco bay area. It was a good trip for Riptano, but a long time away from Rachel and the kids.

Both customers and clients kept telling us that we should move to the bay if we're serious about this company. They have a point: we have about as many clients there, as everywhere else combined. But I had to explain that moving to the bay is not an option for me; Rachel's reaction ranges from "No" to "Hell, no." Probably we will either hire people there, or Matt will move.

We did several pitches to VCs, talked to a lot of clients, potential clients, advisors, and other users of Cassandra, and Friday I did a full day of training. (145 slides, a ton of whiteboarding, some live demos, eight hours to the minute.) I had very little time to type, so I'm terribly behind on code and reviews, but on the bright side my wrists feel terrific.

We're definitely at the point in our pitching that our slide deck is more a hindrance than a help. It would flow better to just whiteboard for an hour. Or, I suppose we could redo the deck but the time to do that has been in short supply. Still, I think it went well on balance, although as Josh said, "Until they give you a term sheet, it's all up to them. You're the girl, and you are waiting to be asked to the dance."

I got some good stories out of this trip, too. Like the lunch with a hotshot 27-year-old executive I will call S:

S: We totally got lucky hiring P. His old boss even called to congratulate me. P is awesome, even if he's kind of reached a plateau in his career. You know, married, kids, goes home at five every day...
Me: Yeah, he's probably in his thirties.
S: Yes, I think he is.

After pitching VC X one morning, we had VC Y scheduled later in the day. We hadn't realized they had offices in the same compound, but I had to deal with a client while Matt took the VC Y meeting, so I went to the lobby in the first building to plug in. While I was there, one of the partners from VC X came down the stairs on his way out (it was past 5:00) and saw me. "You're back?" "Well, Matt had a ... meeting, so I came over here while he did that." Awkward.

After another pitch, Matt wanted to talk in the car on the way to our next appointment:

Matt: Dude, the women in that office were smokin'.
Me: What are you talking about? They've all been hot.
Matt: Yes, but these were especially hot. The blonde in particular.
Me: I guess now that I'm married I don't pay attention to the fine distinctions the way I used to.

Finally, we had a dinner with the Riptano team last night.

Matt: You know, I don't think I've ever seen anyone argue with Ellis as much as Ben does. It's kind of fun to watch.
Matt D: Jonathan has a lot of strong opinions. Some of them are bound to be wrong.
Paul: Jonathan? Opinionated? I've never heard that before.

Working for the man

My last day at Rackspace was April 2. As of the 6th I'm officially the co-founder of a Delaware C-corp, Riptano.

On the one hand, I'm a lot more nervous about this than I've ever been looking for a job. Partly because, with one exception -- two if you count the company that didn't pay me for my last 3 months of working for them -- I've always found a new job before quitting the old one. Riptano doesn't have funding yet, and if and when it does, my co-founder and I have agreed to pay ourselves far below market rate to leave more to hire other people. But I think more because with job interviews, if you don't get an offer, there's always other places to try. If Riptano fails, it's going to be a lot more public.

On the other hand, it's only been a week and I already have trouble imagining going back to working for someone else. (This could be problematic in that public failure scenario!)

We don't have offices yet; we're just working from home so far. In my case I am literally working out of a closet. It is actually a nice large closet, and I will post pictures if I ever clean it up a little more. It has an air vent, so when I need to close the door to keep out marauding one-year-olds I don't bake to death. All it needs now is a mini-fridge.