Fall is my favorite time of year. In part, it's because of the weather where I grew up: muggy Pennsylvania summer and late-summer thunderstorms give way to crisp mornings, sometimes-warmish afternoons, and cool evenings. The air smells of wood smoke and dried leaves, and the colors of the sky and the trees are fantastic.

Autumn weather is a bit less epic where I live now, but there's another, non-weather-related reason that I like this time of year: for me, it's a time of new starts. I know springtime is supposed to be the time when everything's renewed, but for me it's all about fall. I was one of those insufferably nerdy kids who actually looked forward to the start of school, from grade 1 through university: new books, new courses, new people (okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch ). That carried through to my so-called adult life as well: A lot of the biggest and best changes in the last decade or two (with two very notable exceptions) have also taken place at this time of year, including the starts of many of my jobs.

Hey look, I'm getting to the point after only two paragraphs! New record! This fall, I'm making another transition: Starting today, I begin the "on-boarding" process at Pythian, as a member of one of their ERP teams. In a way, it feels as much like starting school as it does a new job. This move represents my biggest career challenge to date, and I look forward to learning a ton (and contributing a ton) in the company of a lot of smart, talented people. Since I'm going to be packing my brain full of new things over the next 3 weeks, I expect that the only blog activity here will be from pre-scheduled posts, drafts that I'd been putting off finishing until recently. Once I'm up to speed on the new system, you'll hopefully be hearing more from me on the Pythian blog!

Man, this is exciting. I sure hope the big kids don't shove me in a locker or something.