Liberty

This is my first week at a new job with Liberty Mutual Insurance, Agency Markets.

I am very much going to be getting back to speed as a full-time developer for the first time in five-plus years. In recent years as an architect, instructor, and coach I've always found ways to remain hands-on and not too enterprisey for stretches at a time. It's not the same thing as working with a small group with a singular purpose.

That's something I've missed greatly... and so I've joined Mike Herrick's team here in Portland. They're just getting started on some extremely interesting open source ideas and new relationships in the open source community. You should read his blog, Panic From Fuzzy, as these things develop. I imagine I'll write here about OSS generally as I dive in, but much less so about the specifics of this new project unless I explicitly state so.

Portland is a hotbed for open source, and this group is going to be carrying it even further into the business world and specifically the very interesting world of insurance.

A Fine Artist

My uncle, Robert Bard, lives in Jamestown, Ohio with a group of friends who are all practicing independent living in spite of various disabilities. Their organization is Toward Independence, Inc. (My dad is on the board of directors.)

T.I. operates an art gallery, The Inner I, in Xenia, Ohio, if you are in the area. Now they have a gallery on-line and are putting together an on-line store as well.

My uncle started painting a number of years ago and has since received a lot of notice and has been in many exhibits around the state and reprinted on clothing, stationary, etc.

You can read more about my uncle and see some of his work in the on-line gallery.