Wow - what a week this was... I have been through quite some ups and downs, and that is not even mentioning the fact that the U.S. got a new administration.

Bad news first: not only did I have a mild form of food poisining (not that there was anything 'mild' about it, but I heard it can be much worse), but I am also affected by the workforce reduction at Sun. Yes, that's right... after a meager 11+ years I am on to new adventures elsewhere. To all those that I have been working with: it was a very interesting and mostly fun ride. I really had a sense of being able to work on something big and accomplish a lot, but the energy and the creativity at Sun was very inspiring. I met a lot of smart people there, and I hope that I will have the chance to continue working with them, one way or another.

Going forward, I see myself continuing on the themes that I have been dealing with for a while now: interoperability, web-centric (now cloud) computing, and the related identity and security aspects. There is a lot of work ahead, and I am quite determined to continue contributing. 

Since my age-old email at Sun will cease to work soon, you will now be able to reach me though an interim alias: work-at-removethispart.beuchelt.com^[1]. I am also on Facebook and LinkedIn, so please feel free to connect with me:

http://www.facebook.com/people/Gerald-Beuchelt/615829807

http://www.linkedin.com/in/beuchelt

With more time on my hands for now, I will also start spamming your RSS readers... just kidding - but I will write more here now, so stay tuned.

But now for the good news: yesterday my application to become a U.S. citizen was approved and - assuming all goes well - I will take my Oath in early March. Contrary to its horrible reputation my experience with USCIS (formerly INS) was actually quite good: yes, they are bureaucratic (you should have seen the piles of files they had on me), but overall the process was quite efficient and fast: it will have taken less than 6 months from sending in the application to my Oath ceremony.

Interestingly enough, my becoming a U.S. citizen will also open new doors on the job market: as of March I will be able to get a security clearance, work on certain government contracts, etc. The timing could not have been better.

tags: identity management naturalization workforce reduction

[1]Sorry for putting the "removethispart" subdomain in - obviously it is only beuchelt.com after the @ sign. 

UPDATE: Many thanks to Tim Bray for highlighting this note in his (most unfortunately rapidly growing) Stray Sunbeams series!