me

After 2 years, 7 months, and 7 days at Amazon.com, I’ve decided to make a major career change.

May 16th was my last day at Amazon. After about a week of a half of vacation I’m starting all over today at blist.com, a small, early-stage startup in Pioneer Square, Seattle. My tentative job title is “Technical Project Manager”, but my actual work will encompass so much more. I’m looking forward to working with such a young, ambitious company and getting the chance to leverage my skills and experience in ways that will hopefully help make them very successful.

In my tenure at Amazon, I had the opportunity to work with so many awesome people that I can’t count how many people I need to thank. I still love Amazon and all it’s hard working employees, but this opportunity at blist was too good to pass up. They’re small, scrappy, and have a grand vision of the future, probably much like Amazon did when it was starting out. It’s a big jump, but it should be a great ride, and I look forward to being able to accomplish some great things.

Photo borrowed from TheMahers Seattle Lunch2.0 photoset on flickr

Just about anybody who spends any time on the web has to admit that there are way too many social networking sites. You’ve got Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn, and just about a million others.

Although I’ve had accounts on a good number of them, I just can’t keep them properly updated and maintained anymore. Thus, I’ve decided to start “pruning my network,” so to speak. As such, I’ve cancelled my accounts on Orkut and Friendster. I haven’t even touched my Orkut account in about 2 years, except to occasionally accept friend requests from the hordes of (often quite attractive) Brazillian women who seem to try and befriend everyone on Orkut. And I hadn’t logged into Friendster for so long that I couldn’t remember my password. I also plan on canceling my Myspace account soon, but I’d like to notify a few friends on there before I suddenly disappear.

From now on, I plan on maintaining a much smaller collection of social sites:

• Flickr for my photo collections
• Facebook for general friend-networking
• LinkedIn for career networking
• Twitter for random comments

If you want to network with me, you’re best to find me on one of those four in the future.

Update: I’ve notified those people in my MySpace that weren’t already on Facebook and I’ve canceled my account.

Today’s my 26th birthday. Am I old yet?

Well, old or not, I’m off to Bumbershoot to celebrate.

In case anybody noticed my extended absense, I was racing in Whidbey Island Race Week, an annual regatta on an island (Whidbey Island, in fact) in northwest Washington. I was racing on a Choate 27 I often crew for named Allegro Con Brio. By the skin of our mathematical teeth we managed to earn ourselves a third in our class.

I’m slowly adding photos to a photoset in my Flickr account

A week ago, Donna Blake, my godmother and the mother of my pseudo-little-sister, passed away after a hard battle with cancer. Until the very end her spirits were high and she fought with all she had.

From the CQServices.com news site:

Donna M. Blake, 55, of Apalachin, N.Y., passed away on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006 at Lourdes Hospital, Binghamton, N.Y.

She is survived by: her husband of 24 years, Donald Blake; her daughter, Karyn Blake, currently a student at Clarkson University; her brother and sister-in-law, Dr. Jack and Sharon McWatters of Maryland; her two sisters and brothers-in-law, Barbara and Clarence Randall of Towanda and Beverly and Jim Orshal of Sayre; and her numerous nieces and nephews.

Donna was born Aug. 7, 1950 in Sayre, the daughter of the late Harold and Leatha (Traver) McWatters.

She graduated from Sayre High School, Class of 1968, continued to earn her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Clarion College in Pennsylvania and later earned her master’s degree in computer science from Binghamton University.

She was an employee of Lockheed Martin Federal Systems in Owego, N.Y., for the past 30 years, and served as chief information officer for the past two years.

Donna was a great family vacation planner and always enjoyed outdoor activities such as skiing and kayaking with her family. She enjoyed reading best-selling novels, was an avid fan of football and baseball, and especially the Binghamton Mets.

Donna was always dedicated to her family, and was a loving wife, mother, sister, aunt and friend.

A memorial service will be held Tuesday, Jan. 24 at 10 a.m. at Richards Funeral Home, Route 17C West, Owego, with the Rev. William Wells, pastor and family friend, officiating.

Friends are invited to call Monday, Jan. 23 from 6-8 p.m. at the funeral home.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in memory of Donna may be made to the American Cancer Society, the Lance Armstrong Foundation - www.LAF.org - or the Relay for Life.

The Blakes were like a second family to me while I was growing up. They welcomed me into their home and treated me as if I was one of their own. I hope we can all keep Donna, along with her daughter Karyn and husband Don in our thoughts and prayers in this difficult time.