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It Goes Fast
I recently left my job after four years of working at FactSet. I worked with a lot of really smart and awesome people, made some new friends, learned a ton about how to be a software engineer, wrote some horrible code, wrote some slightly less horrible code, and ultimately (I’d like to think) wrote some decent code.
After leaving FactSet, I had two weeks off. I spent the first week at home working on the design/planning stage of a few personal projects, trying to get into some good mental habits (blogging, reading, etc), and generally relaxing with friends who I won’t have a chance to see every day from here on out. The second week, over the July Fourth weekend and the couple days after, I spent driving out to Indiana, where I grew up.
I stopped in Elkhart and visited my friend John, a classmate in middle school and a suitemate in college. I crossed the St. Joseph River the following day and visited our family friends Jim & Mary, who have a son my brother’s age and a daughter my age— our families did a lot together growing up. I saw fireworks from the riverbanks. I drove through cornfields, distant horizon and huge sky two things I hadn’t seen in a while.
I visited the town where my brother and his wife live and got to see the house they just bought and are moving into. I visited Indianapolis with my family and saw the city’s fireworks from the steps of the state courthouse. We visited museums and saw Bill Callahan in concert. I hadn’t been anywhere in Indiana in a year except for a brief visit to the Chicago suburbs over New Year’s Eve, and it was a good week. I hope to have another chance to see people in other towns across the state before too long.
Now I’m back in Connecticut, and tomorrow I start a new job. I’m going to work for Gilt Groupe in Manhattan. After reading about all the cool stuff they’ve been working on and talking with them, I think it sounds like a really exciting place and I can’t wait to get started.