Getty?

What a shocker Friday when I heard that Getty was in talks with A. Meckler to buy JupiterMedia. Alan must be pretty desperate...the offer is contingent on a 3rd party buying the JupiterWeb division of the company, but he's offered to buy it himself if he can't find another company to buy it. I wonder what Moffley's thinking now? When he sold the company to Jupiter, he mentioned that he had taken offers from Getty, but didn't want to sell to them because they were going to close down the Peoria office. Hopefully that isn't the case anymore, but I feel for everyone out there that will no doubt be negatively impacted by the acquisition.

I loved working for Dynamic Graphics, and would still be there had it not been sold. I didn't love working for Jupiter, mostly because of the new constraints put upon us by Sarbanes-Oxley (I'm totally on board with Alan M's view of it...it's a horrible waste of money and typical government overreaction). Still, when I had the opportunity to go back on a small consulting project, I had fun and was happy to see everyone again.

I'm starting to think I'm a cancer to companies...or at least, me leaving is somewhat foreboding. My first company, CyberDesic, sold and closed within a year of me leaving for CGN. Shortly after leaving CGN they let go most of the people to reorganize and refocus. From there I went to Foster and Gallagher, who closed their doors 6 months after I left for Affina, who laid off 85% of their work force shortly after I left. From there, Bradford and Galt at Cat...Cat laid off their consultants and I'm not even sure if B&G is in Peoria anymore. I know they went from having about 6 or 7 people in their office to 1. From there, Dynamic Graphics...left there last May, though I hope it's still around in May of '07, that's no longer guaranteed.

Pearl is doing well, I'm somewhat sure that if I had to leave here they'd survive, but I think people may be freaked if I quit. (If anyone at Pearl reads this, don't worry...I have no plans to leave!)

Stupid Computers

Okay, so anyone who knows me knows that I have very little patience...and if something doesn't work the first time I'll generally give up on it. Well, I spent about 20 minutes this morning typing up a post, but my computer locked up and I gave up. But, lucky for you (ha!), I am bored stupid at work right now and I'm going to try to post it again, though this will no doubt be much less involved as my last one.

Went to Texas last weekend to watch Rex Grossman live up to expectations and *literally* throw the game away. I also learned that when it comes to Devin Hester you bet that he will return the opening kickoff for a touchdown instead of proclaiming, "If he runs this back I'll buy you a jersey." I mean, come on...that was a lose-lose for me. If he runs it back I have to go shopping, if he doesn't the Bears don't start with a 7-0 lead. Still, that was one of the more exciting first halves of football I've seen in a long time, so many fumbles...

Got back on Wednesday (my Tuesday flights were cancelled due to snow, it was 70+ in Texas) and had to scrape 5 inches of snow off my car. Made me want to go back. Oh, and I could..it's getting harder to say no to Dell. They're offering more money than I'm making, I'd be able to work from home, so I wouldn't have to move to Austin (which is good since Keri and Sam have both said they won't move with me), and there is definitely more money at Dell than at Pearl. Yes, I love my job at Pearl, and I'd hate the job at Dell...but working from home for more $$...that'd be sweet.

Installed Vista this weekend, my computer is much less happy than it was before, but since it updated the Media Center software on my XBox 360 when I connected to it, it was worth it. It makes moving around the 360 much easier, to the point where I've bought an HDTV card for my computer so I can stream it to my TV thru my 360. Keri says I can't buy more 360's so I can stream it to other TV's in the house, but it may not be her decision.

Not much else. Looking forward to the Untamed Shrews this weekend, Bliss has said good things about them in the past, though I'm going with some couple I don't know, and since I generally don't like people, I don't have high hopes.

Since I'm at work, I guess I should wrap this up and go back to sleep.