Historical News

• News of 1997
• News of 1996
• News of Previous Years

News of 1997

• December 1997 - Anne's brother come to live with us; he was terribly ill in Texas and we wanted to care for him. Unfortunately, the source of his illness turns out to be a brain tumor. But surgery is very successful, and the first Christmas in the Gibson household in New Mexico is a joyous event for all!
• November 1997 - Our first Thanksgiving together as husband and wife, and in our new home to boot!
• October 1997 - a busy month: LiveMarks has been in the oven a bit more than a year, and no working product is in sight. Tom and I do the right thing and put it on the back burner, and Tom returns to the real world and gets a real job working with Xylan. Also, a new miniature horse joins "the herd": JoJo is his name, and he's an actual, registered miniature horse.
• September 1997 - Another quiet month; Anne and I do the homeowner thing and sheath our metal loafing shed in plywood to keep our horses warm in the winter wind. LiveMarks still isn't quite ready for primetime.
• August 1997 - Our horse herd grows from one to two: Anne purchases a miniature horse named "Brown Sugar" but it's too tall to be registered, so we name him Too Tall (or, T2 for short). LiveMarks doesn't make it into Beta, but we continue to be on the verge of success and live testing.
• July 1997 - I fly to Boston on an official consulting assignment to help Kevin Azzouz with items relating to his purchase of a controlling   interest in OneWave, Inc. Tom Chappell is now putting a stake in the ground and saying we'll be Alpha this month, and Beta in August. Hooray - we'll be doing live testing any time now!
• June 1997 - It's a quiet, post-wedding month. We get the "gibsons.org" domain set up and running. Tom Chappell is, well, you know.
• May 1997 - Anne and I have a wonderful, small wedding and perfect reception. And Tom Chappell is on the very verge of success with LiveMarks, and we should be doing live testing any (day/week/month) now!
• April 1997 - Anne and I actually move to New Mexico (a little town called "Corrales" on the northwest corner of Albuquerque. Beautiful views inspire us to hold the wedding reception at our home; having a wedding reception in our home in a month terrifies us into actually unpacking everything in 4 weeks! Also, Tom Chappell is on the very verge of success with LiveMarks, and we should be doing live testing any day (perhaps month?) now.
• March 1997 - Anne and I move the wedding ceremony to New Mexico with a bit more than a month left until the scheduled wedding day. Tom Chappell continues to work, since we are now on the very verge of success with LiveMarks!
• February 1997 - after several fruitless trips Anne and I give up on finding a house in Pasadena, CA or San Luis Obispo, CA. Instead, we look in Albuquerque, NM (Anne's old stomping grounds) and have immediate success! Good bye, Florida humidity...hello, good New Mexican cooking! Also, Tom Chappell's timelines show us on the very verge of success with LiveMarks, and we should be doing live testing any day (well, week) now!
• January 1997 - Anne and I are planning a spring, family-only wedding ceremony; also, Tom Chappell says he's on the very verge of success with LiveMarks, and we should be doing live testing any day (well, week) now!

News of 1996

• December 1996 - Anne Sena says, "Yes!" and we are engaged to be married!
• November 1996 - Tom Chappell and I form Live Systems, Inc.
• October 1996 - Tom Chappell posts a mysterious countdown time on his own Web page. Hmmmm, what could it be?
• September 1996 - Seagate Software invites Tom Chappell to spend more time with his family.
• August 1996 - it's time for me to spend some more time with my family! I depart Seagate Software....
• June 1996 - Kevin Azzouz departs Seagate Software to spend more time with his family.
• May 1996 - escrow closes on my lovely new home in Florida!
• April 1996 - I accept Kevin Azzouz's challenge to build exciting new products for Seagate Software (which incidentally requires that I locate permanently in Florida)
• March 1996 - Seagate Technology completes its purchase of Arcada, and the new Seagate Software is born!
• February 1996 - my administrative assistant, Anne Sena, resigns from Arcada to spend more time with...me!

News of Previous Years (Highlights)

• April 1995 - Kevin Azzouz asks me to take over for the departing John McIntosh as "worldwide" VP of Operations for Arcada Software. Cool position, but it requires me to live on both coasts and travel between them weekly. I learn that Florida is, well, let's just say a bit warm (and not at all San Luis Obispo-like).
• December 1993 - I leave my position with Symantec to rejoin Kevin Azzouz, who is on the verge of turning Quest Development into Arcada Software. And I get to live in San Luis Obispo full time again!
• July 1992 - I leave my position with Quest Development to join Symantec, one of the 10 largest software companies! At great personal loss, too: I must give up a promised company Lexus! Tom Chappell, in a role that shall go unnamed here, joins my own Nemesis List for his involvement in the Lexus fiasco. Of course, now I live in Los Angeles full-time, but I still sneak in a weekend visit or two to San Luis Obispo.
• December 1991 - Kevin Azzouz sends me to Symantec to work onsite with our major customer. In Los Angeles. I visit San Luis Obispo on weekends, though.
• August 1991 - I give up Cloud Ten for a "real job" with the strangely charismatic Kevin Azzouz at his company, Quest Development. Hey! I get to work at a real job and still live in San Luis Obispo!
• August 1990 - Bill Standley leaves Cloud Ten to get a real job.
• July 1990 - inexplicably, somewhere along the way, I realized that San Luis Obispo is not a horribly slow cowtown, but is actually heaven on earth, and I love it there! Surely, I'll never leave; after all, I've got my own company!
• June 1990 - I graduate from Cal Poly. OK, so it took 6 years to complete the last two years of schooling. And, OK, so the degree was in Business rather than Mechanical Engineering. But any way you count it, there's a diploma on my wall that was a genuine bear to earn.
• June 1989 - Mike Kellner leaves Cloud Ten to get a real job.
• May 1988 - I leave Nuvo Labs to form a new company. Strangely, two of the Nuvo Labs employees decide to join me. Bill Standley, Mike Kellner and I join forces, and Cloud Ten is born.
• January 1986 - I join my roommate, Dave Nelson, in his venture called Nuvo Labs. We do Macintosh software and enjoy some modest success. And, we even hire actual employees from the student body at Cal Poly, several of which go on to real jobs at Apple Computer (hello to Mike Kellner, Forrest Tanaka and Jeff Hokit) and Microsoft (hello to Tracy Immel [nee Ruis]). I like to think that the training we gave them at Nuvo Labs helped them down the road.
• September 1984 - I arrive at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo to complete my education in Mechanical Engineering. I've only got two years left to go in a four year program! Good school, but man, is the town sleepy. After growing up in Los Angeles, I don't know how I'll survive in a cow town!
• November 1961 - I was born, which makes good my promise of carrying back the historical news archive to the beginning of time (that is, from my point of view).

That's the end of the Historical News archive!

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This page was updated on 19-Mar-2001.