My Job in Japan (Dec 9)

Again, this another installment of post-dated blog entries representing the past few weeks worth of events.


So December 9 was my last day as an employee of Google.  Film at 11...




Yes, it's with great trepidation that I must turn down the very generous offer to join Google Japan in Tokyo.  As cool as it would've been to be paid in yen, contribute to Chrome and work in such an exciting city, it just wasn't meant to be.


The daily routine would have required a big juggling act to get Nathan into daycare, Tina off to the hospital and me to the train station, where I would begin my two hour commute into Tokyo.  Tina would have had to pick up Nathan from daycare in the afternoon and I wouldn't have been home until almost 8 PM, well past when Nathan's bedtime.


Plus with a weekly limit of 25 hours allowed for part-time daycare and Tina's occasional 24-hour on-call shifts, I would have to work from home at least two days a week.  Until the normal full-time daycare were available.  Even then it wouldn't make the commute any shorter or the time apart from my wife and son any easier.


The commute is just too far and the work visa process would've left me without Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) protection while in Japan.  SOFA is what allows me to be here with Tina; without it I would have been in Japan under a normal work visa.  If anything happened to my employment/sponsorship, I could be deported.

So after two years at Google Santa Monica I am proud to have been a part of Google's effort to release Picasa for Mac OS X.  One of the big highlights during my tenure was working the Google booth at Macworld 2009, where we publicly announced the Mac version of Picasa.  I was even interviewed by USA Today (article | video, my part is towards the end of the video)!


My primary contributions to the Picasa product included the camera import and disc burning features.  A lot of my work also made its way into the cross-platform code shared with Picasa for Windows.  Of course I didn't do this alone, I worked with a very talented group of world class software professionals, who always made time to have fun at the office.  I even made of point of participating in the our office's photography club, where I got to talk shop for hours and share tips with fellow Google shutterbugs.  I will miss working with these friends.


But most of all I am very proud to have been a part of a product that is used by.... well, I'm not allowed to say the exact number, so let's go with... a huge number of people every day.  A product like Picasa allows people to organize their photos, relive fond memories and enjoy the faces and places of life's adventures.  That's pretty special.


I may no longer be a Googler, but I will forever act Googlely.


And what about my new job you ask?  Well, I am diving head first into a new career as a stay-at-home dad.  Nathan seems to be appreciating it.  There's plenty of work to be done right now.  Besides I have some programming ideas up my sleeve (I don't want to ruin the surprise but my ideas revolve around a certain fruit-named electronics manufacturer).


Whatever does happen, I'm sure you'll read all about them on this blog.  Wish me luck.