Where I go the Lizards follow, or maybe it’s me who’s following the Lizards?

I recently took my family on a long awaited vacation to Maui. When we announced it to the kids back in January, our four-year-old daughter and one-year-old twins, they were ecstatic. (OK, so maybe the twins didn’t really “get it” until we got there, but my older daughter has been excited for months.)

One of the more colorful of the plastic LizardTech lizards.

As a habit, I, the always-prepared-for-anything mom, take lots of snacks and toys on the plane to keep my kids busy so they are less likely to irritate the “can’t stand kids that scream” passengers (nothing against you, I was in your shoes once myself). Among the toys I always bring along the ever-so-popular LizardTech Lizards. They are small enough to fit in my pocket and provide a big enough attraction to keep my kids busy playing with them for a while. Can’t go wrong!

Having arrived at our condo and dumped our luggage in a corner, we were ready to hit the sandy beach! As we were running along the pathway to the water, I stopped dead in my tracks as I saw something small with a tail run across my pathway. Immediately I thought: a rat! Wait — that’s too small for a rat. A mouse? Still, a mouse is a bit bigger. Plus, how dare rats and mice ruin my perfect paradise getaway by showing themselves in broad daylight.

A rat? A mouse? No, an authentic lizard!

Suddenly it dawned on me – it looked like the little plastic LizardTech Lizard I had had to snatch out of my son’s mouth on the plane. Did my husband play a joke on me and tie a string to the plastic LizardTech Lizard and run it across the sidewalk SOMEHOW? No, he was running behind me with the kids (I must get to the water first!).

That’s when a friendly Westin Hotel employee walked up to me asking if I’m OK. I must have had “that look on my face.” I told him what I saw and he laughed with delight saying “what you saw was a little lizard.”

“WHAT? A LizardTech Lizard?”, I asked.

He looked puzzled. “No, a Maui authentic lizard.”

Wow, I thought to myself. I’ve been to Hawaii four times and this is the first time I saw a lizard.

I see lizards…everywhere!

And so my quest to find more “Maui authentic” lizards began. We saw them virtually everywhere, at the park, playground, running across sidewalks, by the pool, on the trees and so on. I even took a few pictures to share. Enjoy and remember, next time you’re in Maui, you’re not alone. There’s a lizard watching you whether you like it or not!

*  *  *  *  *

So, this is my story. Since I’m a LizardTech employee I am not eligible to submit this “lizard tale” for a chance to win a swanky new iPad 2 as part of our Esri contest. But you can! It’s not too late, so submit your story today!

Here are all the details: http://www.lizardtech.com/landing/esriipad/index.php

Good luck!

Justyna

LizardTech is moving toward more frequent releases and a bit more of an agile development schedule. We decided we could use a dedicated engineering manager to focus on the issues inherent in quicker turnaround and we found that person in Rich Estrin.

Bringing software products to market.

Rich is a guy who’d rather be developing software products than talking about himself and having his picture taken, but we did get some info out of him so that you’ll have some conversational hooks to engage him with when you start seeing him in the LizardTech booth at trade shows.

For one thing, he’s a vintner. That’s right, he and his wife are winemakers. They own a fully functional and licensed winery and run the cellars out of the basement of their home in Issaquah, where they live with their two kids. Their first commercially available red will be released at the end of this year.

The Grape Whisperer.

Rich brings over 17 years of commercial software development experience to LizardTech, with the last twelve years increasingly focused on leading software teams and projects. He has worked with a broad range of technologies and domains from enterprise life science research software to desktop business software. Rich earned a BA in Computer Science from the University of Washington.