marianne.masculino

I just got back from my very first Automattic Offsite a few days ago in Breckenridge, Colorado. As you may know, we announced our acquisition of PollDaddy during this time and it was great to have the team from Sligo, Ireland join us for the week. Also on hand, were the guys from IntenseDebate who were acquired in late September.

It was a awesome to finally meet (almost) everyone who we worked with on a daily basis, but only knew by IRC or Skype handle or by their Gravatar icons. The week was filled with great people, amazing food and beautiful views of Breckenridge. We had a chance to break up into groups to work on little side projects and that was a good exercise working with new people and a chance to do something a bit different than the norm. [Oh and there was also a bear sighting!]

Here’s a nice little family portrait we took in front of the main lodge(we’re a pretty good-lookin’ bunch if I say so myself!)

Photo courtesy of Donncha O Caoimh

Here are some more pics I took on Flickr and also check out the Automattic Flickr Pool.

I’ve got a ton of stuff to write up on for the past few weeks. Namely the conferences/events I’ve gotten a chance to attend. Look forward to posts about:

• Got Social Media? Conference – Houston, TX
• BarCampTexas -Bryan, TX
• Bay Area Geek Girl Dinner #1 – Mountain View, CA
• Customer Service is the New Marketing Summit -San Francisco, CA

Oh, and my new job as a happiness engineer  here

Well, here we are…the last hours of 2007. It’s been a wicked, crazy year and I loved every minute of it(mostly). Despite the personal ups-and-downs, 2007 treated me pretty well. The biggest item was my move to San Francisco. I’m loving my new home and discovering new places, events, and people of course. I truly miss my Houston folk, because without them in my life it would’ve taken me much longer to get to where I am now(if ever). I’m looking forward to taking on 2008 and hopefully achieving a few (realistic) goals through the new year.

Without further ado…

1. Kelsey has told me time and time again, I need to blog more. Yes, I will try. What to write about? Who knows?
2. Learn and develop something in some sort of programming language. I will most likely tackle Django first.
3. Travel more. I love airports, flying and packing. I should do it more often.
4. To go along with #3, I plan to participate in more Startup Weekends. They are addictive.
5. Take more photos and learn more about photography
6. Bust out my wacom and improve my drawring skills

Here are a few highlights of my 2007

Ayo, Rene and I talking on our shoes.
(more…)

I’m moving to San Francisco finally and starting a new chapter in my life in the next few weeks. I have been wanting this for a very long time. When I returned home from my SF vacation this summer, I just motivated myself to go back for good. I worked extra hours in the office, at home, & on weekends to learn new stuff, make myself to a smidge of awesome and did some job-hunting. I started in mid-July and by the beginning of August, I started getting a few responses and interviews. I found an awesome job with a global travel marketing start-up firm and I’m in the midst of apartment/house hunting. Leaving my family, friends and job is bittersweet, but it’s very exciting.

I’ll be documenting the next few weeks/months with tweets on Twitter and save the longer blog entries for when I’m settled into the new life.