As mentioned in the about page, I’m not only an amateur / hobbyist astronomer with a high-tech telescope, I’m also a software professional. I graduated with a computer science degree back in the mid-90’s, and pretty quickly got into management. I’ve been a software manager / leader for more than 25 years, and many of those were with Amazon (almost 18).

I’m no longer at Amazon, but I’ve started writing about my thoughts and experiences. To date, I’ve mostly been posting on LinkedIn, but I’ve decided to start archiving them here, as well. That means, about once a week, there’s going to be a post about leadership, management, my experiences (and displeasure) with Amazon, and what I think others could learn from those experiences. I’ll still update this site each time I have new and interesting photos from the telescope, and I’ll keep categorizing those as “Space on the Back Porch” – you can select just the pretty space pictures by finding the “Categories” section on the right side of the page, and choosing that header. And the individual pages for Galaxies, Nebulae, and so on will also stay.

It means there’s going to be a spate of posts – basically, the first 5 that I’ve already posted on LinkedIn. But after that, you should expect about one a week. I’ll probably put all five of them up over the weekend.

The leadership posts will have a different category title. For now, I’ve called it “Being a Good Leader,” because that’s pretty much what I want to write about. I could try to stick with the theme and call it something like “Speaking From the Front Porch,” but that’s kind of corny. I do like the idea that “space on the back porch” also implies making room for people and welcoming them in, like at a barbecue. Sharing thoughts over a beer, chatting about whatever, and enjoying the company. So I’m going to keep the overall title for the site (at least for now).

Let me know if you have thoughts or ideas. Everyone is welcome here, and I’m glad you came! Pull up a chair, grab a beverage of your choice, and let’s chat.