5 At the end of August 2012, I announced my
6 [Early Retirement](http://gag.com/bdale/blog/posts/Early_Retirement.html)
7 from HP. Two years later, my friend and former boss Martin Fink
8 successfully recruited me to return to what later became
9 [Hewlett Packard Enterprise](http://hpe.com), as an
10 [HPE Fellow](http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hpe/hpe-information/hp-fellows.html)
11 working on open source strategy in his Office of the CTO.
13 I'm proud of what I was was able to accomplish in the 25 months since then,
14 but recent efforts to "simplify" HPE actually made things complicated for
15 me. Between the announcement in late June that
16 [Martin intended to retire himself](https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/news-archive/featured-article/2016/06/HPE-Boosts-Momentum-with-Organizational--Improvements.html),
17 and the two major spin-merger announcements involving
18 [Enterprise Services](https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/news-archive/press-release/2016/05/1260962-hewlett-packard-enterprise-announces-plans-for-tax-free-spin-off-and-merger-of-enterprise-services-business-with-csc.html)
20 [Software](https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/news-archive/featured-article/2016/09/CEO-Meg-Whitman-on-HPEs-Plans-to-Spin-Off-Merge-Non-Core-Software-Assets-With-Micro-Focus.html)... well...
22 The bottom line is that today, 30 September 2016, is my last day at HPE.
24 My plan is to "return to retirement" and work on some fun projects with my wife
25 now that we are "empty nesters". I do intend to remain involved in the Free
26 Software and open hardware worlds, but whether that might eventually involve
27 further employment is something I'm going to try and avoid thinking about
30 There is a rocket launch scheduled nearby this weekend, after all!