Jim Schley

Our summer vacation took us first to Maui, Hawaii for a week with the rest of the Schley family for a spectacular trip. Maui is an absolutely amazing place with some of the best snorkeling I’ve ever seen. We were in the water almost every day and swam with sea turtles along vibrant coral reef, colorful fish and rays. We took Surfing Lessons and tried out Standup Paddleboarding and had a blast doing both. We enjoyed a cool Luau and had some great meals. Some of the natural sights were like nothing I had ever seen– scrambling around lava shelves that extended from the coast out to sea, swimming in green olivine tidal pools, and ascending a 10,000 foot volcano to watch the sunrise above the clouds (or not). Driving the Road to Hana was like visiting the end of Earth, traveling down a narrow winding road hugging the mostly uninhabited and picturesque coastline. Along the way, we found waterfalls, crazy flora, and beautiful beaches.

On our way back to Boston, we stopped off for a few days in Sonoma County, California to enjoy good weather, good food, and of course the great wines. We visited the Dry Creek Valley, Alexander Valley, Chalk Hill, and Russian River Valley apellations and packed in visits to Ridge / Lytton Springs, Saghesio Family Winery, Simi Winery, Bella Vineyards and Wine Caves, Sbragia Family Vineyards, Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery, Trentadue Winery, Jordan Estate and Winery, Stryker Sonoma, Lancaster Estate, and Robert Young Estate Winery. We enjoyed delicious box lunches from the Jimtown Store and had excellent excellent dinners at Santi Tavern in Geyserville and Bistro Ralph in Healdsberg.

What a trip! Photos are up on Flickr.

One of the interesting aspects of my daily commute into Boston for my new job is delving into a shadowy subculture of suburban Massachusetts of which I had previously only heard sketchy stories about. I’m referring to my fellow daily commuters who ride the MBTA Commuter Rail into Boston every morning and back home in the evening. Danielle is a good guide to this subculture since she’s been a card-carrying member since 2000 and is firmly entrenched in it. I can best characterize their behavior as extremely obsessive compulsive. I was awestruck on my first day to see at least thirty people (adults) in a large crowd waiting for the train who simultaneously plugged their ears with their index fingers as the train approached with brakes squealing. I was even more surprised to see this same behavior at every train station I observed, day after day. Danielle prefers to make fun of these people rather than take part in their ritual, but she shares many other obsessive compulsive practices with them. When I took the same train as Danielle in the evening, I saw what I think is very bizarre behavior and seemed localized to her train that departs at the height of rush hour (I didn’t witness this on my later train that seems to have a more relaxed atmosphere). It starts as the passengers, who according to Danielle, all sit the in the same seats on the train, day after day, chatting with the same people, stand up out of their seats as the train departs the penultimate station before their destination, and they wait in line in the aisle. They stand there in the aisle for several minutes jockeying for position, and as the train arrives at their station, they rush to jump off the train as soon as it comes to a halt and sprint in their heels or dress shoes into the parking lot, racing to their car. I had witnessed this in the past at times that I had come to the station to pick Danielle up from the train, and I never really understood what was happening. It turns out that it’s a race to escape the absolutely horrendous parking lot traffic snarl that would otherwise prevent these people from getting home to their suburban families in a timely fashion. Actually, that’s not true. The traffic is not really bad at all, and I have no idea why they do it. Other behaviors are somewhat more understandable, like standing in the exact spot on the train platform where you believe the door to the train will be when it comes to a stop. I find myself doing this already. Other things I’ve noticed probably don’t need elaboration here, ranging from rude cellphone usage to obscene body odor to bizarre and farfetched schemes from lonely old married men to try to seduce young single women. These things are probably not specific to train riders.

I’m searching for a Release Engineer to work with me at Bullhorn. Here’s a synopsis:

Release Engineer, reporting to the Manager of Software Quality, will be responsible for administering, packaging, and deploying source code for internal and production use. The Release Engineer will be part of the engineering team delivering industry-leading, mission critical, On Demand Software. In addition, this person will be also be responsible for developing and qualifying software installation procedures and collaborating with the Software Development, Quality Engineering, and Technical Operations teams.

Full details here. Let me know if you’re interested or know somebody else who might be a good possibility.

Today was my first day working for my new employer, Bullhorn. After eight years at Adobe Systems, working in various roles and most recently as a manager in the Worldwide Customer Care department, it was time for a change of pace and to take an opportunity to try something new. I am now working as Manager of Software Quality Engineering at Bullhorn on their industry-leading front office staffing and recruiting software. Bullhorn provides the only completely integrated front office solution for staffing and recruiting firms. It was a difficult decision to leave Adobe after so many years there, but I am happy to have the opportunity to take my career in a new direction.

One of the interesting aspects of starting a new job is finding a new routine and working out the details of the new daily commute from home to work and back. As Bullhorn is located in South Boston, this became an even more interesting challenge as I become a rider of public transportation for the first time in over eight years. I like the idea of using public transportation from the perspective of reducing the carbon footprint, but logistically, it is more complicated and time consuming. Our house in Stow, Massachusetts is 22 miles northwest of the city of Boston as the crow flies and about 35 miles to Bullhorn’s office via the most direct route. With an MBTA Commuter Rail station only four miles away in South Acton, the appeal becomes obvious.

The new commute went pretty well in the morning, starting out with a shared ride to the train station with Danielle in time to catch the 7:18 AM inbound train on the Fitchburg line. I left my bike at the train station knowing it was unlikely I’d be on the same train as Danielle in the evening. The inbound train got us to the Porter Square station in Somerville at 7:50 AM where we jumped on the Red Line subway. Danielle got off at Downtown Crossing to head into her office, and I got off at South Station around 8:15 AM. From there I made a pit-stop at my new gym, Boston Sports Club across from South Station, before making the ten minute walk to the office across the Congress Street bridge in South Boston. The trip home was less successful as I gave myself too much time to get back to Porter Square via the Red Line due to inexperience with the system and timing, only to find my 6:30 PM train running 18 minutes late. My planned bike ride home from the station was less than optimal due to poor planning with baggage and the clothes I was wearing, but wasn’t bad, taking about twenty minutes. I guess the most important thing was that I actually did the trip for the first time, and it will be much easier going forward.

All in all, I’m very excited about my new job and optimistic about the company’s prospects and my career there.

BAE’s GA22 unmanned blimp makes its debut

Danielle playing disc golf, originally uploaded by jimschley.

Danielle and I have been playing disc golf recently and having fun with it. Disc golf is like regular golf but using frisbee discs instead of balls and aiming at a special basket instead of a hole. Sugarbush has two 18-hole courses on the mountain, and we’ve played both of them. This past Sunday we checked out a course near us in Mass on the former Ft. Devens military base. I definitely need some practice, and it can be frustrating at times (just like ball golf), but it’s a fun excuse to get out hiking around.

I’ve been having fun with Animoto and produced a photo/video redux to the 2007-2008 ski season.

I’ve been playing with Animoto, and it’s pretty cool. Check out the short movie I made with photos from our trip to Mexico last Fall:

Memorial Day skiing - Sugarbush, originally uploaded by jimschley.

Ok, ok… everyone knows I’m more than a little bit obsessed with skiing, so it wasn’t that big of a surprise that packed the skis on my back and hiked up to ski the remains of the man-made glacier on Steins Run on Monday. There wasn’t a lot of snow left up there, but it kept staring me in the face all weekend long as we pursued the normal Springtime activities in the Mad River Valley. Late Monday afternoon, I could take it no longer and headed up the mountain. There were three distinct skiable patches of snow on Stein’s, the largest starting from the top of the trail. It was about 20 turns until I had to traverse a small snowless stretch to another small patch for four or five turns. After that I had to take the skis off to portage down to the lower patches, each yielding about 15 turns. It was a lot of fun and a great workout. The new AT equipment completely rocks. The Garmont Axon boots are awesome both for skiing and for hiking or skinning. Now I think I’m really done skiing for the season. Less than six months to go until I’m at it again, and I already can’t wait.

Danielle after the race, originally uploaded by jimschley.

Danielle and I both ran the Stow Run for the Woods 5K road race yesterday. It’s a race that I particularly enjoy because it benefits the Stow Conservation Trust and it’s close to home. Danielle did a great job, setting a new personal record for herself. I somehow managed to finish in 23rd place– the same placing as last year even though I was 40 seconds slower. It wasn’t a particularly fast race for me but I did finish in second place in my age group!