A new chapter

Two years ago I accepted a position with a company called Interface21. At the time this was a small multi-national company and I was the 4th employee in North America. When I accepted the position I knew there would be quite a bit of travel. How much though, I'm not sure I could have ever predicted. Over the next year and a half, I spoke to training classes both public and private, spoke to conferences both large and small, did consulting, and even managed to write a little software. The flip side to all of the exciting work, was that I spent a lot of time on the road. To give you an idea, this image shows the key cards of every hotel room I stayed in during that time.


In addition to lots of hotels, I spent lots of time in the air. In my first year I accrued over 30,000 air miles, while in my second I accrued over 100,000! In two cases I actually went for more than a month (5 weeks in both cases) without ever going home. This meant that I paid rent on an apartment that I never entered and a lease on a car I never drove.


But am I ever glad that I did the travel. Sometimes all the airports and planes could be a drag, but then I'd think back to all of the things I saw.

Things like the CN Tower in Toronto.


Niagra Falls.


Chicago.

Seattle


The Ferrari Factory.


More snow than a Floridan should ever need to see.


More than one aquarium.


The world's largest plane.


A volcano.


And even Stonehenge


But really, two years is a long time to travel the way I did and I decided that it was probably time to start looking for something a little quieter. Around this time, the company changed name to SpringSource, we picked up venture capital, and a new development group was created. I got the opportunity to take a job doing more development and less travel (well less business travel and more personal travel I hope) and I jumped at it. One small hitch though, the job wasn't in Florida... it was in the United Kingdom. And that's where this story begins.