First, information gathering. I’m going to talk to many colleagues — ex-Sun, still at Sun, never at Sun — about the state of the computer business: who’s hiring, what’s hot, and how they see things shifting between on-shore and off-shore, US and international, full-time and contract, in-house and consulting, and so forth. At this point, I’m trying to keep an open mind about almost everything. As part of this, I’m flying out to California for a few days at the end of the month. I’ll arrive at SFO on the morning of Monday April 24th, and I’ll be heading on to Denver on the afternoon of Thursday April 27th. I’ve set up meetings with quite a few people already, but if you’d like to chat, drop me a line.

Second, contingency planning. A couple of people have already asked me about whether I’m available for consulting work, and I’d like to try one or two short-term gigs to get a feel for the gestalt of consulting.* Therefore I’ve gone ahead and incorporated Clueweaver, Inc., “just in case”. Could be necessary, unlikely to be wasted.
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* I can’t decide whether or not consulting would be right for me without actually trying it. Apart from two stints at university, I’ve had “regular jobs” ever since 1968. And I’ve been warned by a good friend, who said of his time as a consultant, “The pay was great, the work was cool, but the boss was an asshole.” Point taken.