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LagunaGeek Posts

From OC to the PNW

Published by LagunaGeek on July 31, 2026

Moving On, Slowing Down, and What Comes Next

Well, it finally happened. I’ve officially joined the ranks of the modern workforce transition. Due to recent budget cuts (and, let’s be honest, an AI automation tool that requires significantly fewer coffee breaks and snacks than I do), my contracting role has come to an end.

While navigating a transition like this is always a bit of a plot twist, looking back fills me with a lot of gratitude.

When my wife and I made the decision two years ago to relocate to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to family, the team at Irvine Company didn’t just give me a polite nod; they completely backed the move. They smoothly transitioned me into a contractor role so I could continue to contribute from my new home base. In a world where corporate flexibility can sometimes be more talk than action, they truly stepped up and supported me through a major life milestone.

I leave with nothing but respect for the people I worked with and a deep appreciation for a workplace culture that genuinely valued delivery, accountability, and its human capital.

⏸️ Pressing the Pause Button

So, what’s next? Honestly, the first order of business is to breathe.

Instead of diving headfirst back into the 9-5 grind, I’m viewing this unexpected exit as a well-timed intermission. For now, my priority is shifting inward. I’ll be focusing on my health, spending quality time with family here in the PNW, and simply enjoying a slower pace of life.

As for my professional future, I’m in no rush. I want to take the time to carefully evaluate the job market and wait for a role that is a truly perfect fit. I’m looking for a team that values work-life balance, clear boundaries, and collaborative cultures just as much as I do.

☕️ Exploring the “Alternative” Paths

This break also gives me the space to explore some alternative career strategies I’ve kept on the back burner. I’m looking seriously at semi-retirement options that might allow me to take a break from climbing the corporate ladder and move instead toward lower-stress, fractional, or freelance work just to cover the basics while letting my investments do their thing.

There is something incredibly liberating about realizing that the next step doesn’t have to look like the last step. Whether it’s a perfect-fit corporate consulting gig or a shift into a more relaxed, semi-retired lifestyle, I’m excited to see where the road leads.

If you’re a fellow professional or former colleague who wants to swap AI survival tips, talk financial independence strategies, or just recommend the best coffee spots in the area; I’d love to connect.

You can reach me directly through the contact page, or find me over on LinkedIn.

Onward, upward, and at a much more leisurely pace!

Call me, IrvineGeek

Published by LagunaGeek on July 22, 2019

After leaving DealerSocket, I focused on spending more time with family and friends as well as integrating healthier eating and exercise habits into my daily routine. I also decided I needed to take extra care in selecting my next challenge. And, after some extended deliberation, I decided it was time to step back into a more of a leadership role like those I had at 2Advanced and Bad Juju Games.

Irvine Company

I decided that my next role should continue to be focused on Mobile Software development, which has been a central theme of my career for the past decade. But, I didn’t want to focus on a single application or product. I was extremely fortunate that my search coincided with an opening at Irvine Company. Their position aligned perfectly with the kinds of challenges that I relish.

The Solutions Architect role in their Applied Innovation group allows me to continue to be heavily involved in the constantly evolving field of mobile application development. However, it also gives me to opportunity to work with other evolving technologies like Robotics, Machine Learning, Internet Of Things and any many others. I am also able to get hands on and continue to contribute code from time to time.

Being in charge of the mobile applications for most of the markets (Apartments, Office, and Retail) that Irvine Company is a market leader in really allows me to pull from all the skill sets that I have learned in my career. I am able to bring the UI/UX expertise from my years of running a world class Design Studio as well as my experience in developing Enterprise level front and back end code from my time at DealerSocket.

I am excited to have this opportunity with The Irvine Company to continue to evolve my skills as a Bespoke Solutions Architect.

Time for a new challenge

Published by LagunaGeek on February 22, 2019
Wild Ride

My time at DealerSocket has been quite the wild ride! Within my first few months at the company I was able to convince the CTO to create a team dedicated exclusively to their Mobile efforts and give me the Scrum Master responsibilities. Fast forward to today and that team is still going full steam ahead, creating the next generation of their Mobile applications using Native toolkits (Swift for iOS and Kotlin for Android) from a complete rewrite using Clean Code and the very latest best practices.

However it has become more and more apparent over time that in order to move my career forward, it is time to look for new challenges outside of DealerSocket. While I love the team I have worked so closely with (as well as all the other talented and exceptional people I have had the joy to work with over the last four years) there are no available opportunities within DealerSocket that will allow me to continue to innovate in the hands-on role that best aligns with my “Maker” sensibilities.

I’m not exactly sure what that next challenge will entail, as I am getting multiple inquiries daily and it will take some time to find that next perfect challenge. Some of the more interesting ones center around using Machine Learning or continuing to grow my Android development skills. However, I am sure that whatever I do finally decide on – it will be something that challenges and excites me!

I am… Automotive

Published by LagunaGeek on February 15, 2015

DealerSocketSo, after taking some much needed time to spend time with family and friends, I kicked off my job search at the start of the New Year. And, after considering all my options I have chosen to accept a Developer role at DealerSocket located in beautiful San Clemente, CA. The Bonus is that I won’t need to leave South Orange County, where I have lived and worked for the last 25+ years. I will also be working in a more hands-on role. Something that was a critical factor in my decision to accept the offer. Over the last decade or so, my day-to-day role has been much more managerial than hands-on. And, I’ve really missed the challenge of creating the code to bring an idea from a raw concept to a fully working product. Plus, I will be able to leverage my experience with C#, Flex and MS-SQL – which have always been my core competencies.

With the recent capital infusion from Vista Equity Partners, DealerSocket is going to be growing massively. Already a strong player in the competitive automotive industry, they are kicking off an aggressive expansion effort. This is a company to watch, and I am excited to be a part of this innovative company.

Time to find what I love

Published by LagunaGeek on June 1, 2014

Lately I have been putting a lot of thought into a quote from Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford University.

“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Full Transcript Here

If I am completely honest with myself, when I ask myself that same question lately the answer has regrettably been “No”. And it has been that way for quite a while. So, it is with a heavy heart that I have decided it is time to move on to a new chapter in my life. The biggest change being that it is time to leave behind the companies that I co-founded with my close personal friends Tony Novak and Eric Jordan, and move on to the next challenge. While both 2Advanced Studios and Bad Juju Games are still going strong, and have a wonderful team of talented people who I helped in part to assemble; those companies are no longer where my heart lies.

Over the past decade and a half the industry has been transformed, for better or worse. While innovation abounds, the standard client service nature of an agency really prevents one from being allowed the freedom to truly innovate. Profit margins are too slim, and clients want it their way; and of course they want it yesterday. And in the interim I have poured all my energy into the companies, to the exclusion of all else. Just ask my ex-wife, or my friends and family whom I barely ever see. I’ve lost my spark, and it’s time to find it again.

So, it’s time for some honest “me” time. It’s time to see my friends and family who I have ignored. It’s time to leave the iPhone and MacBook at home, and spend a day at the beach – or the mountains – or anywhere else inspiring and beautiful. It’s time to discover who I really am, possibly for the first time in my life.

Filling the void

Published by LagunaGeek on June 15, 2011

Well, it’s been over a year and a half since my last post — and it’s been a super busy time for me. I can now reveal that the major project that has consumed most of my time has finally been announced by Activision Publishing. Call of Duty®: Elite will be launching its public beta test within the next month, and I think that most of you that play or have played any of the games in this world record setting franchise will be extremely excited.

There has been a lot of confusion about what this project really is, and while I know a bit more about what the long term plans are. Your best resource for finding out about the service would be to check out Dan Amrich’s constantly updated FAQ about Elite at http://bit.ly/codelite.

I look forward to possibly sharing some tips and tricks about the service once the public beta has officially started, however in the meantime — it’s time to get pumped!

Heading back to 2Advanced

Published by LagunaGeek on January 1, 2010

After taking a working sabbatical to recharge my creative energies and renew my hands-on experience with current web technologies, I am happy to announce my return to 2Advanced Studios!  My focus will be on building a new business unit to act as an incubator for new web/mobile opportunities.  I will also be acting as needed to assist with the normal ongoing business activities of the Studio.  I am most looking forward to working with the awesome team we have assembled at 2Advanced, as well as my close personal friends and co-founders Tony Novak and Eric Jordan.  Keep an eye out for some of the new exciting initiatives 2Advanced will be launching in the next year!

I’ve Got a Pocket Full of Internet

Published by LagunaGeek on September 9, 2009

Check out the article I wrote for Rhythm Interactive’s September 2009 issue of The Source.

I recently attended a week-long iPhone Training Boot Camp, during which I was reminded of an interesting fact – when the Apple iPhone originally launched in June of 2007 it did not have an App Store. It wasn’t until almost a year later in March of 2008 that a SDK (Software Development Kit) was released to allow developers to use anything besides the custom JavaScript library built into Mobile Safari to leverage the power of the iPhone. Of course, now the App Store is the basis of their whole iPhone sales campaign with its popular “We’ve got an App for that” tagline.

Of course, developing for the iPhone brings with it a whole new complicated set of processes. From ensuring that your application adheres to Apple’s strict Human Interface Guidelines, to guiding your Application through the time consuming App Approval Process. And, of course there is the whole issue of making sure you don’t step on Apple’s toes in the process, and duplicate any functionality that is built into the phone like the recent boondoggle with Google and their Google Voice application.

Now that the iPhone proved there is a market for apps, we are seeing the other mobile vendors launch their own App Stores. The Google Android phones are the next most popular, followed by stores for phones based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, as well as stores for Blackberry and Samsung phones. But Apple is the clear leader, having benefited from being first to market. Especially in light of the fact that the market for iPhone Apps was recently estimated to be in the neighborhood of $2.4 billion dollars per year.

With the iPhone’s constant Internet connection and the power of the iPhone SDK, we are finally seeing the mobile revolution materialize. You no longer need to have someone sitting in front of a television or computer to get your message in front of them. You can extend your brand experience to them in a relevant way when they are waiting for a train in the subway, eating lunch at a cafe, or even “answering the call of nature.” Now advertisers are beginning to see the amazing opportunity to have a regular, relevant presence in people’s lives while they are on the go, and many are asking themselves the question “Do we have an App for that?”

The original article is still preserved at archive.org

The Large Benefits of Micro-Blogging

Published by LagunaGeek on March 27, 2009

Check out the article I wrote for Rhythm Interactive’s Blog-A-Rhythm.

As Craig mentioned in our January 2009 issue of The Source , one of the latest trends on the rise is the Micro-Blogging platform called Twitter .  Micro-Blogging is a much more real-time way to convey to your “followers” what you may be doing at a given moment.  This is much like setting your current status on your Facebook or MySpace page, however Twitter is unique in the fact that this is the only function of your Twitter page.  Also, Twitter requires that your updates be no longer than 140 characters — thereby ensuring that your followers can get updates at a single glance to find out what you may be doing or thinking.  Into this mix add the ability to “re-tweet” an update posted by one of the people that you follow, so that your own followers can also benefit from a comment that you may have found intriguing or simply amusing.  This has created a unique community where you may find “tweets” that vary from something as simple as “Getting a Coffee at Starbucks” to something much more profound.

This platform has quickly risen in popularity (Barack Obama used it extensively during his campaign – @BarackObama ).  Even old-school media companies such as CNN (@CNNBrk ) and Reuters (@Reuters ) are starting to jump on board.  So, the big question many companies are asking themselves is “How can this tool benefit me?”  Popular business uses vary from using it like an RSS feed to let followers know when a new Blog or News article has been posted, or even when a new Product or Service has been added to their website.  To something much more complex like keeping people interested in an Alternate Reality Game like the recent London Dead Drop put together by the folks at Adobe.  By using Twitter, they could have allowed people all over the world to follow the progress of the game in real-time — even if they weren’t able to participate (i.e. stuck on a different continent.)

The original article is still preserved at archive.org

Optimized for iPhone

Published by LagunaGeek on October 21, 2008

Check out the article I wrote for Rhythm Interactive’s Blog-A-Rhythm.

As you’ve probably gathered by now from reading some of the other postings here, we have a lot of iPhone addicts here at Rhythm.  So, when getting our new website together it only made sense that we would make sure that the customer experience of browsing the site would carry over to the iPhone as well as it does on a Desktop machine.

One of my least favorite oversights in the browsing experience presented by the iPhone is the lack of support for Adobe Flash.  It’s even gotten so bad that Apple had to pull a proposed TV Ad because of its claims that the phone has the “all the parts of the internet”, with its lack of support for Flash and Java being called out as the reason to call the claim a fraud.

But never fear, all of you fellow iPhone addicts, we took extra measures to ensure that the flash enabled features of our site will also carry over to the iPhone.  If you haven’t already checked out the Our Work or Demo Reel sections of the site and therefore haven’t seen the impressive video presentations our Design Team created to highlight some of our work — please do so.  And check them out with your iPhone or iPod Touch as well, since we’ve also enabled these devices to view this content using the QuickTime playback capabilities of those devices.

As I mentioned in my previous article, mobile is rapidly becoming a large enough market that it will need to be addressed by any new marketing initiative. Not only does it provide new capabilities, but I believe it will soon demand as much attention in the area of Cross-Browser Compatibility as any of the other three major browsers in the Desktop space.

The original article is still preserved at archive.org