I just wanted to give everyone an update as to what's been happening in my family over the last 6  months.  Back in September 2006, I was working for a hedge fund called HBK Investments in Dallas, TX.  I was the technical manager for the back office development team.  HBK was a great place to work, and I was very happy.  However, one late night at the office I got a call from Brendan McGoogan.  Brendan's an old business acquaintance of mine that I'd worked with on my first tour to Switzerland.  In 2004, I had gone back to work directly for Brendan, and I enjoyed quite a bit of success in the six months I did jobs around Europe.



Anyway, Brendan was calling to ask me if I'd be interested in opening a new office for his company, Convergent (www.convergent.ch), in Singapore.  Singapore has long been one of the places that I've been interested in working in, so I had to listen more.  The offer was quite compelling, and in October I left HBK to pursue a new job.



October, November, and December were a bit challenging.  Rather than going directly to Singapore, I went back to a Convergent client in Zurich for a few months while we worked on the Singapore strategy.  Because of the sudden nature of the move (and all of the winter holidays), my wife and kids stayed in Dallas, and I was home about every other weekend.  In January Ai, Jonathan (3 years old), and Julian (7 months old at the time) moved to Zurich.



Things have continued to move along at a good pace.  I brought in Joe Phua (an old PeopleSoft buddy and Singapore native) to help me plan the move.  The first week of February we took our first official trip to Singapore.  While there we finished off the company incorporation, met with lawyers, accountants, bankers, customers, candidates, and real estate agents....  If anyone knows Joe, ask him about his dealings with the mobile phone dealers...



Now, I've been back in Zurich for a week, and I can feel the pressure of the upcoming move.  In the next few days, Ai and I are trying to decide whether or not we will take a trip to Japan over the first week of March.  If we do, that means that the kids will have jet lag in Japan, Zurich (after we get back), a few weeks later in Dallas (as I'm done in Zurich sometime in March), and again a few weeks later as we finally move to Singapore.  However, if we don't take the trip to Japan, it'll be a bit sad as Ai's family may not get to see Julian before he turns 1.  We're leaning towards skipping the Japan trip, but if I can find a way to squeeze in a couple of days in Singapore, it might be worthwhile.  That would give Ai the chance to see first hand what I'm so excited about, and also let her help me find an apartment...



Alright, I'm going to try to do this on a semi-regular basis.  We'll see who reads this!