Jeff Smith

Resume Broadcast

Well, after an absense that was entirely too long to be called temporary, From Away is back in full swing. As you can tell from this post, I was a bit disillusioned with the whole web industry and decided that I needed to give myself a bit of a break from maintaining this website and extra-curricular web work in general. But, in light of the events of the last couple of months, I’m back and quite refreshed.

The New Gig

My biggest motivating factor for getting this website back up and running again has definitely been my new job. For the last year or so, Derek Featherstone and I had been talking on and off about me doing some contract work for him during my freelance time. Timing never seemed to be quite right for either of us to jump on a project together, but around Christmas time Derek and I had a discussion about me leaving my full time job and spending my time working on projects for his company, Further Ahead. We both decided (based on Derek’s 80% rule, which I also base a lot of decisions on) that it was time. I gave my notice at my old job the first week of February and started working with Further Ahead on February 19th. I’ve really been enjoying the work that I’ve been doing so far, and hopefully before too long we’ll be able to take the wraps off some of the projects that Derek and I have been working on together the past few weeks. This job has really renewed my enthusiasm in my career, my stress levels have never been lower, and my productivity has never been higher. So many thanks to Derek, I’m very happy to be a member of the Further Ahead team!

Web Directions North

I was also lucky enough to be able to attend Web Directions North. It was quite an experience, this being my first conference. I found it a bit overwhelming at first because I knew absolutely no one there previous to the conference. But, once I got over myself, and started meeting people, I had a great time. I ran into Daniel Burka who is the designer for Digg and is also a former Islander. We got to talking about the old school music scene on the Island and found out that we knew a lot of the same people and ran in a few of the same circles of friends. I also had a great roomate in Jon Snook who I tagged along with on a couple of occasions and introduced me to lots of great folk. I met so many other people during the four days that I was in Vancouver that I had trouble remembering names, etc. So, my apologies if we me and I didn’t mention you here. Being at WDN also gave Derek and I a chance to sit down and get to know each other a bit over a few beers and some great food. After chatting with Derek and his wife for a couple of hours, I knew that had definitely made the right decision about my employment situation.

Up to Speed

So that gives kind of a whirl-wind tour of my life from the last few months. Posting will once again become a regular thing around here. I’ve got two or three posts lined up that are Mac related and I’m sure more will come along with time. Make sure to keep an eye on my Ma.gnolia feed on the front page as I post a couple of links every day via Ma.gnolia rather than reblogging them here in the main stream of consciousness.