Something something adventure update

I've been very quiet on the blog front for some time, and I admit my updates to software have been lacking. I've been on this adventure for a year now, and it's occupied a lot of my attention. I'd hate, however, to leave this blog neglected and unloved indefinitely!

So an update ... I love this adventure. I've been really enjoying Seattle, my team is awesome, and in a year I've progressed from landing with essentially nothing to buying my second car and own home, thanks to very carefully building credit score and taking opportunities as they arose! 

The adventure is not without its challenges. I didn't note it before, but I broke my leg early in the rush to get here, and it never healed properly. Hobbling around Seattle on foot was painful at best, and when my wife visited for the first time, it was a deciding factor in buying the first car, although it simply wasn't big enough to accomodate my family when they are here. As to the leg, well, I have a cane to walk anda car to drive, and it's likely as healed as it will ever get. There was no option for surgery although perhaps I can revisit that down the track. I'm incredibly privileged to have outstanding healthcare here, and although I'm conscious that that's not uniformly the case across the American health system, I certainly find my overall access to healthcare is far better than in Australia.

Being away from my family is difficult, but they have visited progressively over the year - which is cool, it's been a chance to open their eyes to the possibilities that lie beyond staying in the same place for your entire life! My wife and two of our children will finally relocate later this year, and I can't wait! Time zones are the most difficult thing to navigate, and it means I often only have a few hours a day to connect with my wife and kids... but we do manage.

Being at Amazon has been an incredible privilege so far, and I have a great sense of pride in the very visible and meaningful impact that my efforts have. There have been highs and lows to navigate and lead my team through, but overall I think I'm doing okay. 

I do have a few updates to make to my libraries and apps - various dependencies and at least one pull request to merge - which I hope to get to soon. I hope anyone reading this will understand that it's taken a bit of a backseat as I navigated a new life in a new country with a new job at a whole new scale!