Since the last installment, seven years ago, I have continued working at Google, slowly becoming what I had always feared: someone who believes in his employer. It is not that I'm a believer in our product decisions, particularly the increasingly awkward issues around account management, but that I believe that this is where the state of the art in distributed systems infrastructure is being developed, and that that's my calling. The company has treated me pretty well, considering that I'm forging my own weird path focusing on low-level and unloved systems, and I enjoy traveling to offices around the world.
I don't write as much for my own benefit as I used to. It's something I'd like to fix. But the downside of that previous paragraph is that a lot of my energy is going into the company instead of my own projects....
I bought a condo in San Francisco, one block from the apartment I rented for 7.5 years, because it turns out this is the place I want to live.
My cat, Wiener Dog, died in 2007. I have a new cat, Oliver Cromwell.
My brother lives in Bellingham, WA. One sister lives in central Washington; she has two children of whom I am very fond. The other sister lives in southern Washington and works in Portland, OR, but is considering a move to the Bay Area. Both sisters are married to good-hearted men. My parents are retired and spend roughly half their time traveling. For more details, befriend them on Facebook.