How Time Flies…
It’s been a while, I know. Here’s the bridge between "when we left our hero" and present day plot… I found out on New Year’s Eve that the stealth start-up company I had been working for ran out of cash. I immediately went on the offensive, and over the next 12 days I sent out 10 resumes a day, rode innumerable trains, buses, and walked to parts unknown in search of a corporate soul mate.
On January 15th, I started at Zivity, a premium social network for mature audiences, as their first front-end developer. Since, I have helped Zivity push two beta releases, turned 30, begun paying back my debts, saw Griddle at Cafe Du Nord, and funked out to Maceo Parker live at the Fillmore.
Working at Zivity
Working at Zivity has been amazing! Everyone here at Zivity is very intelligent, interesting, passionate about their work, and open to new approaches/ideas. I was able to step in right away and make an impact improving the mark-up, converting the Prototype/Scriptaculous javascript over to jQuery, and helped implement a new UI on both the beta and public websites with John and Dustin.
At the same time Matt and Alex were upgrading the application to EdgeRails and simultaneously making a gluttony of new pages and features actually work. It’s been a wild ride!
It’s very exciting to work for a fresh young start-up with the profile of Zivity. My first week we had Forbes shooting in the office for their print coverage of Zivity and the Crunchies where Zivity was nominated for "Start-Up Most Likely to Succeed" (losing to WordPress!) Today, Zivity is in the news again (at Financial Times and TechCrunch) after the announcement that we’ve secured "$7 Million in Series B Funding from BlueRun Ventures, Founders Fund". Soon we will announce world domination!
Critical Mass
Critical Mass Snakes Around Union Square in San Francisco
I attended my first Critical Mass on on the 29th here in downtown San Francisco. Alex Choi and I had just enough time to finish deploying Beta 5, toast our comrades with IPA, and ride up to Market Street before the Mass began. After letting it pass us for a few lights (not wanting to ride in the very front) we dove in! It was an amazing way to see the city! Riding a bicycle as leisurely as you like through red lights in downtown San Francisco is thrilling, is that a surprise?
I’ll quote myself from twitter: "There’s something connective about critical mass. People having fun, looking out for one another, imagining a world w/o cars… rad!" Of course I also said, "One thing I don’t miss about biking around - the sore ass!"
