Humility and memories of fun times at WBOL
From about 2000 to 2005 I worked at Warner Bros On-line (WBOL) over at 505 N Brand Blvd in Glendale. I was finishing school and trying to find a place to land and grow as a computer programmer. I found it in WBOL.
There I felt surrounded by talented, outgoing, and fun people.
This week I had a chance to reconnect with many of them, in however an indirect way, with LinkedIn. I made an effort to send out invitations for connections with my fellow exWBOLers, and 'wow' comes to mind as I see how they have progressed and grown in their careers.
Some people I knew as beginners, just like me, in their careers. As Web Developers, Application Engineers, Webmasters.
Today Lisette, that collaborated with me on fun subsites of the WBOL site and parts of the Matrix Online MMOG site, is now a Manager within Warner Brothers. Patrick, who was working on interesting stuff like multimedia for cell phones, is a Director within Warner Bros. I still remember working with Ha, when she was new, to improve his Java Swing application for autocreating scaled images with watermarks for a project for the Art group, and she is now a full Application Engineer. I remember working with Joya on CartoonMonsoon when she did web development, and getting to learn on voting algorithms and an efficient way to calculate them for the rankings. Joya is now a Senior Online Producer over at NBC. Oh heck, the characters there, and how they have progressed. Both Matt B and Matt N. James, John K and John M, Chuck, all the folks in Art.
I remember getting to use Linux everyday as my workstation. I brought my personal copy of RedHat and installed it on one of my two workstations. It is strange to then not even know just how special such an event was at the time. Looking back I see just how special it was. What, now in an age of corporate locked down PCs, where nothing is allowed the user to play with on their own.
I remember getting to have Lan parties of Unreal Tournament and fragging for hours. Going to happy hour at Milano's (now also gone), walking down to the Border's bookstore to get Java and SQL books.
I remember being very scared and then proud that I got to be a major creator of the system WBOL used to send newsletters. On one hand it was a very modest system of a small box connected to a powerful database and set of mailservers. On the other hand it sent out newsletters for harry potter and many other WBOL sites for years until I left in 2005. I started my professional life at WBOL. I started my family at WBOL. If it wasn't for WBOL and their generous benefits in health insurance, I may have never had a family of my own. Thanks to them, I did, that and a whole set of good people for the invitro my wife and I did to have our daughter and son.
Shortly after I left, WBOL was dissolved, absorbed back into the corporate IT world of Warner Bros. But I will have fond memories of that part of my life
There I felt surrounded by talented, outgoing, and fun people.
This week I had a chance to reconnect with many of them, in however an indirect way, with LinkedIn. I made an effort to send out invitations for connections with my fellow exWBOLers, and 'wow' comes to mind as I see how they have progressed and grown in their careers.
Some people I knew as beginners, just like me, in their careers. As Web Developers, Application Engineers, Webmasters.
Today Lisette, that collaborated with me on fun subsites of the WBOL site and parts of the Matrix Online MMOG site, is now a Manager within Warner Brothers. Patrick, who was working on interesting stuff like multimedia for cell phones, is a Director within Warner Bros. I still remember working with Ha, when she was new, to improve his Java Swing application for autocreating scaled images with watermarks for a project for the Art group, and she is now a full Application Engineer. I remember working with Joya on CartoonMonsoon when she did web development, and getting to learn on voting algorithms and an efficient way to calculate them for the rankings. Joya is now a Senior Online Producer over at NBC. Oh heck, the characters there, and how they have progressed. Both Matt B and Matt N. James, John K and John M, Chuck, all the folks in Art.
I remember getting to use Linux everyday as my workstation. I brought my personal copy of RedHat and installed it on one of my two workstations. It is strange to then not even know just how special such an event was at the time. Looking back I see just how special it was. What, now in an age of corporate locked down PCs, where nothing is allowed the user to play with on their own.
I remember getting to have Lan parties of Unreal Tournament and fragging for hours. Going to happy hour at Milano's (now also gone), walking down to the Border's bookstore to get Java and SQL books.
I remember being very scared and then proud that I got to be a major creator of the system WBOL used to send newsletters. On one hand it was a very modest system of a small box connected to a powerful database and set of mailservers. On the other hand it sent out newsletters for harry potter and many other WBOL sites for years until I left in 2005. I started my professional life at WBOL. I started my family at WBOL. If it wasn't for WBOL and their generous benefits in health insurance, I may have never had a family of my own. Thanks to them, I did, that and a whole set of good people for the invitro my wife and I did to have our daughter and son.
Shortly after I left, WBOL was dissolved, absorbed back into the corporate IT world of Warner Bros. But I will have fond memories of that part of my life