Gid showed us this video at Vox:

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

It was pretty moving as I think we can all connect with the pain of loss. Sometimes it’s good to cry, ya know?

The Bazaarvoice crew lost one of our young implementation engineers this weekend to a stupid hit and run. If you have any information, please contact APD. I didn’t know him very well, but from the small bit of time I worked with him, I know the loss of Andrew Runciman will be felt at BV, so I can only imagine the loss felt by his friends and family. Prayers to you all.

In a week or so I will be transitioning to a new position at Bazaarvoice - Labs Engineer. I’m really excited to face a new set of challenges/problems and am comfortable that there are more than capable engineers in Technical Services to fill in for me. I have no doubt that the team that has been built there will continue to push the boundaries on delivering our products and I hope to be able to help from the other side of the building. =)

I took the job switch as an opportunity to update my LinkedIn with a slightly better job history at Bazaarvoice, lest I forget what I did… haha. I also updated my Twitter avatar and I think I need to make a new custom background, but I haven’t decided on what to do yet…

November is the first month of our new quarter, so BV flew in our international team for our All-Hands. Because they were here, we also had an early holiday party at the Austin Music Hall. I don’t have pics of the latter event, but Anne-Marie was there in photographer capacity so I’m sure she’ll post awesome photos shortly. =) Here are some of my shots from our All-Hands featuring new BV band, FEEDBACK:

Also, congrats to the culture award winners, especially the TS folk!

On Saturday, we played an early game of ultimate so that Simon could join us. We ended up playing for around four hours because the weather was so awesome and Jonney brought us Krispy Kreme donuts to fuel us through the game. It was pretty awesome, but now I’m sore. Luckily, my shins aren’t too bad this week so I guess they’re getting stronger. =p

Sunday was not all that eventful except I met up with the Tings and co for brunch at Tacodeli to see Alex again before he goes back to California. After that, went around eating/snacking with peeps then throwing frisbees around. I think my throwing technique could still use some work…

Oops, I just realized I didn’t make my obligatory weekend update post. Well…

• We played ultimate again and it was splendid weather and had some new comers that were pretty good. Enjoyable! My shins feel a little sore now though… recovering…


• Didn’t do much for Halloween… for work, my team was Office Space themed, but I forgot to bring my camera, so I don’t have photos. If I get unlazy, I may track down some shots other people took…


• Watched UT lose to Baylor. Good. They deserved it. We should not be nervous our guy can’t catch the ball on kick-returns. I swear, I probably watched UT botch this at least once every game I’ve watched this season.


• I finished A Game of Thrones, but I’m not sure I’ll continue with the series… we’ll see. So far, I’ve read about five or six books that start series but have not yet read the next yet. I guess I’m kind of noncommittal.

I didn’t do much this weekend except play ultimate I think. There was great weather and we had a good turnout, so it was a lot of fun. I’m kind of sore still… I think I gave myself some minor shin splints again. =)

For some reason I was reflecting on one of my past work experiences. During one of my rotations at Freescale, I spent a few months at Metrowerks. Back in the day, they were known for CodeWarrior and dominated the Mac development scene before Apple started to release their own tools for free. At the time I was there, they provided the development tools for Nintendo and Sony (maybe still do… not sure) and even had a development Wii at the time (this was before the Wii was out). I got to play with a pre-release Wiimote by moving a bunch of dots and lines on the screen. How exciting! ;)

Anyways, I ended up not getting an offer to stay full time from the group primarily because I didn’t put in a lot of effort into meshing with the team there. I basically did my own thing siloed away and though I completed my project with positive reactions, the team ultimately decided that they’d hold off on the full time offer because they wanted me to integrate into the team more. Although they did a lot of cool things there, I wasn’t exactly convinced it was the right fit for me, so I wasn’t too disappointed with the outcome of that experience. However, I did learn the lesson that I need to engage at a level other than just delivering what’s asked of me to be successful in certain environments. I’m glad I didn’t get the job offer as I’m not sure I would be where I am today if I had. I look back at my rotation there positively, influencing me for the better, and helping me to be successful at BV.

So, here’s to you, Metrowerks. RIP.

At Bazaarvoice, we like to think we’re changing the world by making the “voice of the customer” readily available when you choose to spend your money. We’ve seen that having content such as ratings and reviews have many positive impacts both to business and consumers - lower return rates, higher conversions, etc. We may not be as media facing as the likes of Facebook, Twitter, etc. but due to the sheer number and caliber of clients we have, we actually serve our good share of user generated content.

We also have our Bazaarvoice Foundation that is focused on doing community service, matching donation contributions, etc. However, I don’t really intend on talking about how Bazaarvoice as a company in changing the world. Rather, I’d like to do my part in sharing about how individuals at the company I work at try to improve the world we live in. Andrew Geonetta, a relatively new project manager on the team I work on sent out this email on Wednesday of this past week:

Hi all:

I’m pretty amazed by the number of people at BV that are compassionate and seem inclined to lend a hand when it’s needed. I’m hoping to make a difference here for a pretty devastated local family that could really use a hand.

On Monday, my wife Christy, a 2nd grade teacher at Del Valle, was driving home from work. She saw a wreck on the side of the road so horrifying that it seemed impossible there would be a positive outcome. A car had come off of an exit ramp, ran a stop sign, clipped one car, swerved and t-boned another vehicle. The devastation to the vehicle that got t-boned was absolutely unbelievable.

Her feeling of dread was not unfounded. Later that night, Christy got a phone call from a teacher at school telling her that one of the students she taught for two years had gotten killed in a car wreck. His name was Francisco Baccera, and he was 8 years old.

I’d stop there because that’s pretty horrifying by itself. But that’s not quite the end of it. Driving the car was Francisco’s mother who was also killed. Finally, his his older sister (11) and his older brother (13) were passengers. The sister was killed and the brother was thrown from the vehicle. He has thus far survived, but is in a coma at the hospital.

There’s the 13 year old who is now without his mother and his two siblings. And there’s the father who has had his world completely devastated.

These are not well-to-do people. Del Valle is a fairly low-income area. It’s a very small community in southeast Austin, and the majority are blue-collar workers that work very hard to support their families. Unfortunately, most of these families don’t have access to some of the things we take for granted, like good health insurance, 401K savings plans…or life insurance. Such is the case here.

The father now has not one but three funerals to pay for. $10,000 is a huge sum of money for anyone, and the reality is that this is what he has to pay to bury his family. Until he is able to pay that amount, they will not be able to be buried.

I’ve decided that I’d like to try and help.

As most of you know, I used to play music quite a bit. I moved to Austin from Cincinnati and wasn’t able to continue on with it, but I still have a box of CDs left.

I would like to ask you for a donation to help pay for the cost of the coffins. I will be happy to take whatever you can give, but if you donate at or above $10.00, I will give you / send you a CD. I will also make sure that the father knows the contributions came from Bazaarvoice.

You can click here to go to the Paypal site I set up: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=UZYTMKEDJGSRA or you can just come down to my desk where I’ll have CDs for you.

I appreciate your time and whatever you can give. Every once in a while, we’re given opportunities to make a direct and immediate difference for someone who truly needs it. I believe this is one of those times.

Thanks for your time!

Andrew

This Saturday evening, I got an update email from Andrew:

Hello friends:

I hate the fact that I can’t respond to each and every single last one of you personally. I guess this is a good problem to have because it means there are so many of you that have donated that I’m a little overwhelmed!

I want to share with you an e-mail that I wrote to my wife on Wednesday morning of this past week. This was after I had written my message on Facebook on Tuesday night around 10.30 or so:

This morning, I woke up to $330.00. That doesn’t include the generous donation from Brett (our CEO).

I think we can make more than $1000.00 [sic?] no problem!

It’s now Saturday…not even a full 4 days after writing my note…and we now have a little over $8000.00. You’re reading that right…$8000.00. That includes a very generous $2500.00 matching donation from my company Bazaarvoice.

Besides the donation I received from employees at my company, I’ve received donations from as far and wide as Ontario, Canada, Colorado, Phoenix, New York, San Antonio…

What’s amazing is that the ingredients here were not that complicated in order to make a serious difference. It was one e-mail, one Facebook post, Pay Pal, some sharing of info…and most importantly…a lot of caring, love, empathy and compassion.

All of this for a person you don’t even know. That takes immense amounts of courage, trust and ultimately, humanity.

Today, I am very, very proud to be a human being. That sounds ridiculous, but sometimes it’s hard to watch the news, hard to watch some of the awful things we do to each other, hard to listen to some of the manipulative, awful things we say to one another, and not feel a little bit ashamed.

But these past four days have been very, very different. You’ve proven that you can and will make a difference to a man and his son that need it so badly.

And for what it’s worth, I’m so very proud of you.

He and his son will know who his benefactors are. I promise you this. I’m already working on it, and I will let you know just the second I’m finished. And from there we can come full circle and you can know exactly who and how you’ve helped.

Again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Though we don’t know a large number of you, it doesn’t feel at all strange to say that we love you.

Don’t forget what you’ve done, because this is the stuff that changes the world.

More to come!


–
Andrew & Christy Geonetta

I know there are tons of awesome organizations out there to donate money to. From a utilitarian perspective, perhaps your money is even “better spent” on other entities aimed at “improving the world.” However, I think one of the most awesome showcases of love and humanity is when we show compassion and grace in unexpected ways and places. This father and son have had their lives devastated in a way that I can’t even imagine. Sometimes, probably even often, apathy gets the best of us. If you didn’t “tldr” this entire post and it moved you to feel like making a positive impact on the world, small or large, feel free to do what you can by donating via Andrew’s donation link.

Cheers!

Woaah, I just realized I haven’t made a post for last week yet and this next weekend is fast approaching!

About the only thing I can remember is I played ultimate. Oh… and I helped Melissa move into her new apartment. I guess that’s about it. I should really write these things closer to when they happen. =P

This past week, we made many more failed attempts at Sindragosa (we’re giving up for now and resetting for next week to try again at a later point). I’ve also been meaning to make some more Samiticus posts, as I have material, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe tomorrow. Earlier today (well, Thursday), BV just had our latest all-hands at the Austin Music Hall and I have some entertaining pics I’ll get up shortly (probably by the end of tomorrow).

With that said, on to photo editing! Tata!

Here are some pics!

“HDR” Bazaarvoice team in front of our new building signage:

And here’re some pics of my room… but Sam ruined one of them.

Today, I played ultimate which was awesome, but my toes hurt and it was hot. It was still awesome though. My face was really red for a while afterwards… I should probably put sunscreen on it next time. After that, we watched the USA/Ghana game and grilled steak (I should say Mark grilled the steak and we ate it). Then, there was a lot of UT2004’ing (I took a nap during a few rounds of that though).

Now, I’m just chilling to some Jars of Clay. Oh, I also did more work on Samitic.us, including an under-construction Sam Ni soundboard (“Samboard”) (warning: profanity).

Tata!

As I’m sure many of you know, Bazaarvoice has a quarterly all-hands where we used to pile everyone into an Alamo Drafthouse, eat, drink, and listen to groups present on how they did during the quarter and what they plan to do in the next. This all-hands was special for a few reasons. One, it’s BV’s fifth anniversary and second, it was the first we had at the Salt Lick because we’ve grown too large for the Drafthouse. I thought this all-hands was particularly enjoyable with great presentations, cover songs by our tongue-in-cheek dubbed “BandVoice,” and topped off by our second Bazaarvoice Film Festival.

Here are a few pics from the today:

I got a new hat! This is good because my old Linux Tux one is a bit worn and it shrunk when I washed it (shouldn’t have machine dried it…) making it not as comfy. One good thing about BV is they don’t get skimpy on their free stuff - t-shirts and now, this cap, are of quality. =)

Tomorrow, more partying at Volente then I fly out to the Keys! Woooooo!

This following photo was from earlier this week on “crazy hat day.” Thanks to Eric for letting me borrow it!

Bazaarvoice’s end of quarter was this past Friday and it was crazy. One part of our craziness is we go absolutely insane with the color green (increasingly more so as the last day in the quarter approaches):

Our sales team rocked it this quarter and whooped their goal on the last day. I had to leave early on Friday, but I hear they got sand and beer to have a boat/beach themed party on the top of the parking garage… haha.

Friday night, I went to Orange & White with Melissa. I figured I would feel old, but that feeling wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be (probably since I had never been to O&W before). I’m kind of a lame date to a dance (especially with an ankle that limits certain movement), but Melissa put up with me. =p

Before the dance, we went to dinner at the Belmont which was okay (I wouldn’t have any urges to go again). Atmosphere was not bad, though. I think the Spazmatics were playing next door, so there was some sweet 80’s music going on. BV would be happy that we were still sporting green throughout the night (okay, that wasn’t exactly intentional).

I hear the dance was scaled down this year and there was only one ice sculture… here it is in all its glory (not sure how glorious it is, but if it has any, it’s all in this photo):

Saturday, I did a lot of nothing. The marketing department at BV gave me a $50 AMEX gift certificate for loaning them my 5DMII, so I headed to Fry’s in an attempt to spend it. I was thinking of getting Entourage, but they didn’t have it. I thought about Curb Your Enthusiasm and 30 Rock as well, but the prices were so much higher than Amazon, that I decided not to. I walked out with the $50 untouched. Fry’s fail. After that, there was dinner and dessert with Ryan, his parents, and some of the BV gang. I took a few pics, but they didn’t turn out so great, so I won’t be posting them. =p

Sunday, I got my hair cut, watched 500 Days of Summer and ate mangos.