My company has a new SQA manager. It isn't me. I was sad for a few seconds, then I was over it. The fact is, I told my manager I'm having fun doing what I'm doing. I'm solving problems customers are having. I fix problems in some of the software, collaborate on the design of other parts. I send leads to the sales department when a customer mentions something else they want. And I'm developing a training course that has everyone excited.

You know how I'm learning the parts of the system I'm developing the training for? Exploratory testing, of course. And oh, the bug reports are flying. For any bugs that aren't fixed before the training (most of them), I'll be prepared to show people how to dance around them.

Both customers and co-workers tell me they appreciate my work. That means a lot.

So again I've semi-willingly turned away from testing. But yet it's still with me every day.

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Many of you may not have heard yet that I've had a transition in mycareer. I have started a full-time job as a sustaining engineer. What does that entail? I'm still working on defining that. I am doing technical support, development in Perl on Linux, and visiting customers doing installations. Meanwhile, people have been asking me questions about how to do testing and track bugs, and my preferred method of learning new parts of the system is exploring it and filing bug reports. I enjoy talking to customers and following up on issues they have. Most people don't seem to listen to the details. I love the fact that I'm free to coordinate with all the project managers, technicians, developers, testers, architects, sales staff, and customers as needed.

I'll never leave behind my love for practical approaches to quality. In fact, the sales director referred to me in passing as the resident customer advocate, and I couldn't be more proud.

I'm starting to read James Bach's new book, Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar. It's available as a free digital download only until July 24 from this link - http://www.simonandschuster.com/buccaneerscholar. Software, buccaneers, and civil disobedience! Looks like good stuff.

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I just opened a letter from CapitalOne with a very unexpected message. The letter says "You've earned a bonus of $2,500!", saying it's their thanks to me on my credit card anniversary, and suggesting that I use it for a night on the town.

I read it again after I picked up my jaw from the floor...

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I'm playing with two Java-based performance test tools (TestMaker and The Grinder), and I'm reminded how annoyed I tend to get trying to use desktop applications that are developed in Java. Shortly after I complained that it seemed that performance test tools only work on Windows, I look at these two that can run on many different platforms because they're Java-based. So I was excited to give them a try....

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I can often count on Robert Rose-Coutré to comment on the things I write, giving me confidence that at least one person is reading. It brightens my day when I hear from him. His comments have always been positive. Until now.

Robert took me to task on my Deconstructing Our Tools column....

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Eric Jacobson discussed an interesting question from Roshni Prince in "Dealing With Smarty Pants Tester." The issue is how to deal with a tester who wants make code changes to fix bugs after finding them.

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I'm excited to be invited as a guest blogger on StickyMinds.com. The "Software Alchemy" title matches the "Software Alchemist" title I use on my business card, and it often elicits comments when I hand it out. I think that the state of software development hasn't progressed beyond alchemy yet....