News:

• 11/95 - I leave Arcada Software to return to TouchStone Software.  I'm tired of working at home these many years - I long for non-virtual coworkers.
• 4/96 - I join Seagate Software (the company that acquired Arcada while I was gone) to work on an unannounced new Internet product in Florida.  It's going to be an exciting, happening project, and incidentally features a hefty raise, and will be well worth the massive disruption that it's going to cause my family. My Dilbert page-a-week desk calendar, which predicts my future and controls my destiny, had this to say two weeks before it happened (page for 3/18/96 - 3/24/96):

• 5/96 - Shortly after our Florida house closes escrow, Arcada President Kevin Azzouz resigns to spend more time with his family. The new project was his baby. I feign nonchalance.
• 6/96 - Vice President of Development Bob Brown steps down for five months to spend more time with his family. My safety net of pre-merger Arcada executives above my chain of command is rapidly dwindling, but at least I still have my boss, Chris Gibson.
• 7/96 - Chris Gibson resigns to spend more time with his family. D'oh.
• 8/96 - As part of their ongoing reduction-in-force, Seagate Software invites me to spend more time with my family.  With three weeks left before school starts in California, we run back home while the getting's good. My Dilbert page-a-week desk calendar, which predicts my future and controls my destiny, had this to say two weeks before it happened (page for 8/12/96 - 8/18/96):

• 9/22/96 - We're pretty much settled here in California again, after the Grand Florida Adventure.   Sean's back in school, the Sunland house has been painted and has new carpeting, the boxes are almost all unpacked, and the last car has arrived from Florida.  The whole Florida nightmare has had a staggeringly high cost (I'm currently guessing 2 to 3 thousand dollars a week), but I suppose I've learned that "you've always got to have an exit strategy!"
• 11/1/96 - We have a new kitten, Tiger Lilly, which is even now trying to stalk and kill the mouse on my screen.  It perches on the top of the screen and hangs over, vulture-like, watching the mouse's every move, and occasionally venturing a pounce. If the rats in the attic come back, I'll be ready. Personally, I think it was squirrels (which, while from a similar family, have an entirely different, and more effective, P. R. department).
• 11/21/96 - Chris Gibson and I have formed a new company: Live Systems, Inc. We'll be selling (big surprise) an Internet-related product. Learn more at http://www.livesystems.com.
• 6/14/97 - My son Sean is now a teenager. Consolation calls have flooded in from around the globe, with the most attractive suggestion so far being to hit him over the head with an omelet pan and lock him in the onion cellar until he's 22 or so. It's not as inhumane as it sounds, because he would have nutritious onions to eat.