I rant and rave around here a lot, so I hope you'll indulge me a few moments of smushiness so that you can see, maybe, I do have a soft side, too :-)
There are many days over the last year or so that I've felt truly blessed. Of course, I thank God for this, but I also thank Cold Fusion. I thank God, and not CF, of course, for my wife, who loves me more than I probably deserve and treats me like a king. We have our bumps in the road, like all marriages, but we are best friends as much as lovers. I am entirely grateful for this. Of course, CF allows me to take better care of her. I spent most of my adult life in shit jobs. Even after I started writing HTML, I spent about three years bouncing around and not making much money and getting shit on a bit. About four years ago, I switched from writing Lasso to Cold Fusion. Let me tell you, no single decision has impacted my life any more or any better. For a little over two years now I've worked for a division of E.W. Scripps. When I saw this job advertised, I knew it was perfect for me -- they needed a guy who had experience, if not mastery of, HTML, PhotoShop, Javascript and either Cold Fusion or ASP. The pluses I had going for me were my journalism background (this was newspaper) and my entrepreneurial and business experience (this is a small shop, so you've got to think big). Some things I now about the hiring process -- after my interview, they stopped interviewing other candidates. My salary request was about $5,000 over their budget high for the position, but I got my mid-range salary. In the two years since, I've gotten three raises, including the largest the company currently gives. I have received recognition for my contributions to helping the company make money from throughout the company. Even the CEO knows my name. Now, I don't want to toot my horn too much -- many of the ideas for the code that I've written have come from my boss. But the applications that we are developing are being used throughout the company today and making a significant contribution to the bottom line for our company, with great potential for more. So, I've got great bosses, the best I've ever had. Great pay. Great benefits. Great recognition and appreciate for what I do. A great satisfaction of feeling like I'm doing something that is making a difference, not just for my company but my entire industry (newspaper publishing). I have a great wife. I live in a great location (three blocks from the beach). You all saw my bitchin' guitar that I'm actually learning to play! (It was bought and paid for by CF free-lance work.) I've got great cats. The one real negative in my life is a pretty heavy debt burden from my old business ventures, along with some bad spending decisions. So, I look at all these blessings, and I know I must thank God. But I also know I must thank Cold Fusion. I wouldn't be where I am or be able to do what I do without it. There are other languages that would allow me to write solid code, but not as fast as CF. And I also think CF just suits better the way my mind works. But without CF, I'd be making about half as much money, probably at a lesser company and not getting nearly the job satisfaction I get now. So, I've been feeling pretty loyal to CF these days. I do want to expand my programming skills, but as long as I've got a CF server to run my stuff, I think CF will always be my primary programming platform (of course, five years ago, I said I would always on a Mac and not a PC!) H. ______________________________________________________________________ Your ad could be here. Monies from ads go to support these lists and provide more resources for the community. http://www.fusionauthority.com/ads.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
