The Birth of the Garage Datacenter ....

This is a long story so bear with me okie ... yep ... cewl

Continuing on from my previous post, i have 2 jobs, i am Project Manager by Day and CEO by night. I discussed my job as a project manager in my previous post and i think thats all i will write about on the Project Manager side of things. In actual fact this whole blog is put together to discuss my job as CEO and managing director of the garage, i wrote about the Project Manager stuff to lead into why I now have a garage datacenter.

My garage is located 2 stories below where i live and to me its more exciting and alot more fun to work in then my monday to friday - 9:00 - 5:00 office. The only downside right now is even though i am CEO it pays less then what i used to get as a 12 year old boy selling my old stuff that i didnt use anymore on the side of the street. Atleast then i sold a pair of old rollerskates i made 5 bucks out of it .... at the moment as CEO i make diddly squat.

In my previous job i was taking care of environments on IBM infrastructure at a bank. I had a friend who was shadowing me at the time cause i was transitioning my work to him as i was leaving the company to join this new one with the airlines. He lent me a book which was the unoffical google story and this was the catalyst, ths is where it all began. I found the book to be really great and motivational, its the utlimate dream of any computer jocky. To build a technology company and to provide a useful service to many people through the technology you have built. Building a company and succeeding gives satisfaction and fulfilment.

At the same time as i was with the bank i was working on another business venture/idea which was the development of a particular product that is not computer based. I came up with this idea cause i was inconvienced by *something* and decided to buy *something* to rectify this inconvience. To my amazement this *something* that i wanted to buy didnt exist. I thought to my self if this *someting* is useful to me then its possible that this *something* could be useful to other people. On that note i spoke to a patent attorney, she did a patent search then got a provisional patent for this *something* which i am trying to develop right now. The story of this *something* is currently still in progress but its a different story to the Garage datacenter. The only reason why im discussion this *something* and the development of this *something* is because it has some crossroads to the garage datacenter so it makes up the story.

(hmmm... on a side note) I think im structuring this like code, see initially i talked about reading the google unofficial story (thats one class) then i discussed the development of the *something* (thats the second class). I talked about my experiences as a project manager (thats the third class). Now here, i have the main function were i will use both the previous points (classes) to make up the story (program).

OK anyway, so after reading googles unoffical story and considering the *something* i was developing and how much i hate working in big corporations with egos flying around that are just as big, i came up with an idea that could help the development of my *something*, create a business for myself and relinquish the need to work for other people. At the time I told my mate (lets call him the Garage Business Analyst or Garage BA) of my idea to enhance the *something* through building a web application. He liked the idea and we got on with design plans, business processes and interface designs.

I live in an apartment with 3 other people, its difficult to concentrate and focus on the designs cause of the noise so i was thinking of how I could find a place where i could have peace and quiet whilst i began on the design process. The garage at the time was not an option because it was packed to the brim full of junk such as TV's, Fridges, Old Cushions, Boxes of who knows what and just stuff that wasnt being used anymore. During one fateful day i overheard that a new couple had moved in and they didnt use their garage as they didnt have a car or anything to put in there. I decided to try my luck so i asked them if i could rent out the garage. Belive it or not they said yes and for only $10 a week. The minute i got this approval from them along with the garage keys i began moving all the junk from my current garage to this new garage so that i could use my own garage for my datacenter. Thus is the birth and beginning of the garage datacenter....