Have you ever been back to a place you knew a long time ago? I am travelling this week and am in Northern Virginia. I went to high school here, learned to drive here, generally spent the better part of my teenage years here - with favorite hangouts, cool places to drive and play and all the sorts of things you do as a teenager. After college, I moved back here slightly farther out - it required a long drive through the countryside and farms before hitting the small town I lived in. I moved away to go to graduate school nine years ago and havent been back in the area for almost 5 years when I sold my townhouse.

The place is booming. Lots of building, lots of new Barnes and Nobles and Starbucks and Staples. I spent part of the day driving around today and it was eerily weird. I felt like I knew where I was. Road names sounded familiar, the biggies I definitely knew and remembered how they hooked up. But I contantly felt like I didn't know where I was. As if I suffered from deja vu or amnesia but knew I was supposed to know. So many new roads, housing complexes and townhouse rows and stip malls dot the landscape and have replaced the sweeping vistas of the rolling hills that I used to know, I felt like I really was in some other town. It was strangely disconcerting and sad at the same time. I felt waves of nostalgia roll over me as I passed places where I grew up, where I learned about life and where I moved away from so many years ago. They say you can't go home again - and I guess if family is not there anymore and your friends have all grown up as well and made lives for themselves, you really can't.

Aaack! I have been hacked. My account at AOL has been compromised and shut down until I get my computer blessed by the powers that be. It is a crazy place on AOL. On the Web I never really worried about things - I have a router with a firewall and have set up the correct settings on my PC to make sure people can't get in. But working for AOL, you get all kinds of wacky email - some of which looks exactly like our internal areas. All it takes is a click on a link and boom - you are booted and someone else has your account. I liked to think of myself as a saavy net person, but this is definitely humbling. I am 3 weeks new (again) on AOL and I feel kind of stupid.

Live and learn.

(from April 8 - accidently posted to the wrong blog)
I survived my first week at the new job. Wow, these people have their act together. Very organized, good process and things seem to be done right. That's not to say there are not issues, but coming out of AltaVista, which seemed to be perpetually running around like a chicken with its head cut off, this is a refreshing change. I think the key is to not take on more projects than you can handle and to set realistic deadlines.

I am learning all the terminology and acronyms and have been thrust into meetings already.

I am amazed at how insular groups get with their own lingo and how second nature it becomes. It is only when someone new joins and starts asking what that means do people stop and realize that the terms or the language is not obvious.

I think this will be a good place to be.