The DonnaBlog: Home to Home to Home....

I've written quite a bit about the need for a sense of "home" over recent months. It remains a significant life-force and motivator.

This is the first week that I can remember in my life ever being in perhaps the 3 places that most contain that feeling of "home" for me. I spent the beginning of the week in the Phoenix area. I flew across country to South Carolina yesterday. And I'm in the middle of flying from Charleston to Rochester.

Admittedly, the time in Charleston was a blur. I arrived after 10 last night, was in bed at midnight, and spent most of the morning taking care of "stuff" that needed attention after having been gone for the past week. I unpacked/repacked, and all seems as though it's going smoothly. As I type this I'm in JFK airport during my layover.

I'll admit the JFK is not my favorite airport for layovers. I'd avoid it if I could. But in this case I can't. I've got a couple of hours here and my only hope is that everything goes smoothly. Otherwise I could get stranded here for the night which would NOT be cool.

The week has pretty much worked like clockwork. Kinda scary, actually. Flights yesterday were uneventful and on time. Weather has been great. I got lots of what I wanted/needed to get done (in terms of Plan B) in Phoenix, and by the time I packed up to fly back east yesterday I had finally acclimated to the time change. No matter. I'm back east again so it's time to de-acclimate.

I've got enough to keep me busy. I'm studying for a test. As odd as this might sound, I enjoy taking tests. I always have. This is a difficult test and the study guide I've chosen is a big, clunky book but I'll find the time to work through it all over the next couple of weeks.

I've alluded to something big coming after this trip. Unless something unexpected happens (which I always expect) I'm at a fascinating crossroads in my life and in my career. I have no more to say about it than that right now, except that when I get back to Charleston early next week I'll already have my eyes on what happens next. This particular thing will affect every aspect of my world, so it's no small thing.

The path of a career is a fascinating thing. On a resume, it's a story. My own career has been pretty much in IT for most of my life and I've been very fortunate to have been able to do some interesting, worthwhile things. When I was hired by Dell and went to Austin in 2001 I didn't realize I'd be making a decision to change lanes from being a technical lead to Project Management but that's what happened. There was no fanfare, no drum-roll indicating the fact that a decision had been made and that something had happened that would change the direction of my career. I naively expected it'd be a temporary thing, but at this point I've become type-cast and I'm ok with that. The key is to find interesting projects to manage....

Anyway, for a number of reasonsI feel like I'm at a similar crossroads that will set the direction of the next phase of my career. Once I start down it...it will become re-defined. That might sound odd to admit for someone at this stage of their lives but it's true. And I'm not afraid to make the decisions it will take...if things continue on their current trajectory the decisions have actually already been made. All that's really left is the logistics.

Of course, logistics can get fairly complicated. But the logistics of my life have confounded me for years but always seem to work themselves out and I'm confident that this will be one of those times.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Over the next few days I'll be with family, in the place where my son was born and where I've still got 15+ years of wonderful memories and good friends. I'm looking forward to it. But I must admit that part of my attention is focusing on what comes next. Specifically - the logistics.

Gotta run. Flight getting ready.