End of the Year Update

First off, Happy Holidays!  So, it dawned on me that I hadn’t written a blog post for ‘Gatelife in at least a good 5 months.  Whoa.  Apologies for that.  There’s really no excuse other than I have been quite busy, and it seems I’d always get sidetracked whenever I intended to write a blog post.  So what’s been up with me?  Well, as I mentioned in my last entry, I started working for a social network called Ning down in Palo Alto, California.  I was a bit nervous about the commute down to Palo Alto although I’ve come to find that I actually rather enjoy the commute from San Francisco.  The morning train-ride is about 35 minutes, it’s relaxed, spacious, and I can actually get work done since I have a wireless card.  Ning pays for my pass on CalTrain, which pretty much sweetens the deal.  In San Francisco, my house is across town from CalTrain, and now I drive to the 22nd Street CalTrain station.  Door-to-door, I give myself 30 minutes to drive to CalTrain, so a one-way commute rings me in at just over an hour.  It’s taken some getting to used to, but I like it.

At Ning, I work under the Advocacy umbrella on our Policies & Abuse team.  Our team focuses on helping out members and Network Creators (people that make networks on the Ning Platform) with harassment issues, reports of questionable content that may violate our Terms of Service, and enforcing our Terms of Service.  My team is absolutely awesome, and we all work long hours—though it’s totally worth it.  The Advocacy team as a whole has so much energy, and I work closely with so many driven, smart, enthusiastic, and amazingly nice people.  I truly couldn’t be happier with in my role and at Ning.  Humbly speaking, our product is awesome, and I’m at the center of my passion for social networks.

Given the sad state of the economy, you might be asking how I’m fairing.  I can safely say that I’m doing A-OK, and Ning closed a huge round of funding earlier this year, so on the financial front, I feel lucky to be here.  In what seems like a reality check, Cake Financial, the last company I worked recently had two large rounds of lay-offs in October and November.  My position was axed, so I’m very thankful for deciding to come to Ning back in August before the economy took a turn for the worst.

What else?  Well, my sister got married in August.  The wedding was in one of the most special places for my family, Sun Valley, Idaho, which is also where Senta and Angus got engaged and where we’ve gone for years as a family.  The wedding was awesome and so much fun, and my sister made for a beautiful bride.  Lots of ’99 ‘Gaters attended.

I made a trip out to New York City back in October to visit close Colgate friends.  In particular, Allie Weinreb ’07 was back in the states for a few weeks from Israel, so we had a mini-reunion in New York City.  As always, I had such an awesome time seeing close school friends, and I left New York exhausted.  I’ve gone to a few Colgate functions including a Men’s Basketball game playing at UC Berkeley yesterday.  We got creamed, but needless to say, it was great to cheer on the Raiders, even in California.

For the Holiday, I’m off to go skiing in Sun Valley tomorrow.  I'm incredibly excited to hit the slopes with my family and friends.  Though the ski season has been off to a late start, I have high hopes that there will be a ton of snow up there over the next two weeks.  My goal this season is to get my ski-on.  In addition to the Holiday break, I have two more trips to Sun Valley, a trip to visit a close high school friend in Colorado, and a few more trips to Tahoe—one of my buddies got me  a season pass to Heavenly, so I’ll pretty much take any excuse to head up there.  I’m looking forward to it.

Though I can’t say when my next blog entry will be, perhaps I’ll make it a New Years resolution to update more often.  Until then, take care, Happy Holidays, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Cheers,
Jason