John Frenette's Life Blog

Some Thoughts On San Francisco: 8 Months In − 5 March, 2008
Posted by JFrenette about 1 year ago − 2 comments 146 views
It's been a solid 8 months living in San Francisco now, and I wanted to share some thoughts:Everyone knows this, so I'll get it out of the way quick: It's very expensive here. Housing, of course, is ridiculous, but everything's expensive--from gas to food to gym memberships. It's common knowledge...  read more
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Moved to San Francisco − 1 July, 2007
Posted by JFrenette about 1 year ago − 3 comments 253 views
My oh my. After 6 years in San Diego, my wife and I packed up the cats and moved north 501 miles to San Francisco. What was supposed to be an 8-ish hour drive turned into a 13 hour saga; scattered summer wildfires along our route slowed the 5 down to a crawl, and we found ourselves in bumper-to-b...  read more
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Senior Director, Web Development - Financialaid.com − 26 April, 2004
Posted by JFrenette over 2 years ago − 1 comment 492 views
Financialaid.com was very much a dotcom when I started. Lead by Mike O'Brien, it was a small-to-medium-sized company, providing student loan solutions through online methods. Things were pretty loosey goosey culture-wise, and the IT team worked very hard to keep pace and provide the systems for M...  read more
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Design Consultant - Animation Technologies − 9 January, 2004 - 2 April, 2004
Posted by JFrenette over 2 years ago 253 views
After leaving AldenEm, my friend Chris approached me with the opportunity of being a design and animation consultant for his company Animation Technologies. The company at the time had 2 branches--one that provided animation services for biotech companies while the other served as trial support. ...  read more
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Director, New Media - AldenEm − 25 June, 2001 - 21 November, 2003
Posted by JFrenette over 2 years ago 210 views
I began working at AldenEm shortly after arriving in San Diego. I was brought in to lead the interactive arm (the "Em" part of "AldenEm"). They had a lot of online corporate brochures and an e-commerce site or 2 in their portfolio when I started. My duties included all aspec...  read more
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Joined WebSanDiego − 1 April, 2001
Posted by JFrenette over 2 years ago 133 views
In preparation for the move to San Diego I got on the WebSanDiego mail list. I've met some ridiculously smart, insightful people on this list (including one of the creators of *this* site) and have been lucky enough to work on projects with some of them.
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Rich Media Developer - marchFIRST − 10 July, 2000 - 23 February, 2001
Posted by JFrenette over 2 years ago 161 views
I was excited to begin at marchFIRST. I was joining the Rich Media group in the Brand Building Studio--one of the many sub-groups in the corporate structure. If you remember marchFIRST, you'll probably remember them as one of the quintessential examples of dotcom excess and demise. Of course,...  read more
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Stevie Ray Vaughn's Last Show - Alpine Valley − 26 August, 1990
Posted by JFrenette over 2 years ago − 2 comments 1604 views
I was at this show. As a matter of fact, I think this was the first concert I shelled out cash for reasonably good seats. Alpine Valley is one of those huge outdoor venues, and I usually bought the general admission tickets that place you way up on the grass, hundreds of yards from the stage. ...  read more
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Soundgarden, Faith No More, Voi Vod - Vic Theater − 14 January, 1990
Posted by JFrenette over 2 years ago − 1 comment 384 views
Oh man. Me and a friend were waiting outside the Vic Theater, freezing, excited to see Soundgarden. I was in high school. They were opening for a band called Voi Vod (which I knew little about--some Canadian metal band); Faith No More was the first band up. This was before Faith No More broke, to...  read more
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First Huge Concert - Van Halen 5150 − 23 April, 1986
Posted by JFrenette over 2 years ago 319 views
Loudest. Concert. Ever. Granted, I was pretty young and had never experienced anything like this before. But I had that nice high-pitched ring in my ear for three days after the show. It wasn't a David Lee Roth-led Van Halen, but at 14 any Van Halen is better than no Van Halen.  read more
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