And so it will be told, that after 19.62 years with Sun Microsystems, Kimberley left the room.

Yup.   I am outahere.   Hasta la vista!   Sayonara.   Au revoir et salut.   Phir Milenge.   Ciào.   Tschüss.

And what next?   Well, as one sage person reminded me, as one door closes, another opens.   For me, it's a huge barn door.   I have decided to focus on my number two passion in life.   (Number one is my husband and fellow Sun employee, Georg Edelmann).   Yes, it is time to do what some thought I was doing already...     ...Play with horses all day!

And so, as CEO, CFO, President, Marketing Director, HR Director, and Chief Learning Officer of Kearsarge Meadows in Warner, New Hampshire, I am going to focus on the horse business, at least for a while.   After 32 years in the Computer Industry, I think it's time for a little break.

FY09 Goals will include getting to the US Dressage Federation Championships again.   And WITHOUT a broken toe this time!   Great goal and good fun!

(That's me with a happy face of deep concentration and bright sunshine.)   I'll be spending more time training, teaching, and competing with my favorite KWPN Dutch Warmblood and top dressage partner, Jeddien (by Bustron).   While we are both getting long in the tooth, she continues to enjoy her work, competing, and teaching my dressage students "the moves".

My husband's pet, Piper Warrior (by Ferro), will also get more of my time this year.   His first full year of competition came late in life and is chronicled in my blog Dressage-Queen.blogspot.com.   2009 is going to be a great year for the handsome, lovable boy!

Our two little ones who were born in 2006 will be learning how to carry a rider very soon.   Exciting times ahead for the little critters who have really done nothing much more than.... well, horse around really!

As Jeddien's only offspring, little Bea Yewtee (left) already has a special place in our hearts.   But with her sassy attitude and flashy four white socks, she is destined to follow in Jeddien's hoofprints as a diva in the dressage arena.

Big Ben (right), who had no problem growing into his name, is my big Teddy Bear.   His education is well underway and I'm really looking forward to his future.

For me, the adventure at Sun comes to an end.   International travel.   Great coworkers.   SUNW lows, highs, "retirement prices", and whoops.   Tons of great customer interactions.   Sigma.   Metrics.   Director at last!   (Thank you Diann Olden & Rich Green)   Technology galore.   Dragons.   Scorpions.   Planets.   Two international moves.   British Citizenship!   (Thank you again, Ian White & John Sanders)   Doughnuts.   Beer busts with Scott McNealy in El Segundo.   Town Halls.   PANIC!   (Thank you again, Chris Drake!)   Cooking lessons, including how to convert Thanksgiving turkey leftovers into a fabulous curry!   (Thanks to all my friends & colleagues in Bangalore India!)   And so much more.   But, now, a great new adventure begins.

And so with that, I'd just like to finish by saying "Thank you all for a most exhilarating ride!"

Kimberley Brown
aka Frau Edelmann

Whether we work in hi-tech with its deluge of daily email, or just have a private email account through which we communicate with friends, family, and acquaintances, my guess is that most of us get junk email of some kind.   This can include various flavors of fraud and phishing.

Today, while investigating whether the sentiments in an email received were genuine or not, I found the very useful Fraud Guides website.   It was the first I've seen in a while with a nice index of fraud on the left, and links to TONS of informative fraud websites.

While I believe I can still spot a fraud email from 50 paces away, I do wonder....   At what point will the criminals behind fraud emails become clever enough to trip me up?

Until then, I don't think I'll be responding to the nice lady in a developing country who wishes to send her two children to Warner New Hampshire for 2 months of prepaid riding lessons.

PHEW!   'Nearly fell for that one.   Not.

There are so many events in life which one can observe with little reaction or response.   We can write them off easily as someone else's reality, things we can't change, and things that simply don't matter....   whatever the reason.

And then, there are some observations which do impact us.   Things that color how we see the world & life. Things that change our opinions.   Things that cause us to drop whatever we're doing and radically shift gears.

Recently a friend & work colleague suffered a heart attack.   He is doing really well now and is making changes to his lifestyle.   Surprisingly, his crisis had an impact on me personally.   It reminded me that each of our lives are finite in length.   It reminded me to look at my own life and, as one Sun VP, Diann Olden, would say, "Inspect what you expect"...   assessing if my life path is going in the right direction, in the direction I want.

And with that, over the holiday season, I realised that all is about 98.5% good...   starting with a superbly wonderful marriage and happy homelife....   a very satisfying 33 year career in the computer industry, the co-authoring with friend & Sun colleague Chris Drake of Panic!, a highly successful technical book, impressive successes in my "hobby" of horse training & dressage competition, travel in 16 countries around the world (mostly for customer site visits), excellent friends & families, both here and abroad, and a wonderful home.

But, for the past few years, one more great big target has been shining in the distance, tempting me to aim for it.   But, due to other committments, I haven't even considered it.   Until now.   Thanks to my friend's own brush with death, I can now actually envision going after one more goal before my own heart stops beating...   Someday...   Someday soon.

Here's to 2009!   May it be an interesting year!