I recently connected with a bunch of people that I used to work with at Merrill Lynch. We all belong to a group on LinkedIn which is one of those social networking sites. Everyone wants to know what's up. So here goes.

Five years ago Tony and I moved to northern Virginia. We live in the country with no street lights and no sidewalks and no noise and no pollution. We live with the woodpeckers, cardinals, deer, wild turkeys, foxes, geese and the most incredible sunrises and sunsets. The contrast between living in New York City and living here is incredible. We feel like we died and went to heaven.

We incorporated as TLC Systems Corporation and have worked for what one used to call Fortune 100 companies

I worked with some great teams and with great people at Merrill Lynch. At one point these teams were building new trading floors in the World Financial Center at the same time changing out the systems in more than 600 branch offices.

The synergy was tremendous and everyone helped each other. In those days management was there for you. I've always mentioned these teams and people over the years, when I one of my clients is struggling with getting a project completed.

It was the scale of these projects that made them so interesting and challenging. The Merrill that those of us worked for will be gone by the end of this year. But for me the fond memories will always be of a place full of extremely capable, and intelligent people. A place full of real professionals who were also very nice.