I guess some who have known DX for over 4 years might remember me, but for the many who don't my partner Julie and I both joined DevExpress in Las Vegas in 2002 and left in 2006 to move back to our Native Australia. Julie headed up Customer Services and I was CTO - during the pre Road Map/DXperience/Blogging/Twittering and very productive Bucknall era ;)
What was not publicly known at the time was that at 39 I had acquired
Type 2 Diabetes thanks to a previously unknown genetic predisposition coupled with several
decades of too many calories and not enough nutirents, excercise and
sleep, and so when I left I semi-retired from software development to
focus on getting my health back under control.
We've had quite a journey since, which included a Winnebago trip around Australia ... which it turns out is big ... really big, and full of funny stories (which is one reason I am starting to blog).
We have since found a nice place to settle down in called Batemans Bay about 4 hours south of Sydney, and we both work with a local charity that finds people jobs all over Australia.
I am happy to be able to say that with a lot of excercise (some of it in the garden growing vegetables, and cycling, gym work, and even a little Kung Fu), I have been able to lose over 30kgs (60lbs) since that photo taken at Uluru in pretty much the center of Australia. Anyway with my weight loss, I have no sign of Type 2 Diabetes and as far as anyone can tell I am no longer even insulin resistant.
But I do miss DevEx and have made several trips back across the pond to hang out with the gang during Tech-ed. You might have noticed me hooning about on the Segway here at Tech-Ed 09 .
In future you might see me around a lot more as a roving Technical Evangelist for DevExpress working in a mostly Australian time-zone (twitter.com/dxram) and on this blog, and maybe I'll get a chance to also talk about some of the funny things seen from a Winnebago, in the meantime I have just enough time for a quick joke;
Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?
A: A Stick.