New Job, New Time

After I graduated, I was doing interviews all over the place. I was talking to many head hunters here in Arizona, a couple in Texas, and a couple back east, in South Carolina and Kentucky, a couple in Portland, OR and a few in California. My favorite in all of these, overall, was the job in Los Angeles, CA, working for Fox Entertainment remotely. I had done a couple interviews, then a phone interview with Fox, and waited. My next favorite was a possible position in Portland, OR. But on Monday, April 21st, I got a call from the company staffing the position for Fox. I was told they liked me and they would like me to start right away, and by that, they meant in the next couple of hours. I got the job I wanted, and I was able to start right away, later that day.

The job with Fox is great. I get to work from home, so I do not need to uproot to go to Cali, unless I want to. This job is allowing me to expand more with my database skills, and more of a framework skillset with PHP (so far). Which I like and can do. I do want to get more into the AJAX aspect of it, and maybe some other real nice user interface work. Even though it is not an “architect” position, I am very happy, and not just because it is a job. It is because I now get to go further outside of my code comfort zone, and this will help me grow. Plus, I do not have to worry about the commuter traffic, the heat of riding the bike, and I get to stay home with my children, which is probably the best part about this. I was hardly around my kids, either with school or work, but now I get to be there to take them to school, and be there when they get home. I love that I am able to do this.

But then on the bad side of things, Elise’s father went down with a severe stroke a few days after I started. He has been up in Scottsdale trying to recover. Out of respect for him and Elise’s family, I am not going to post any specifics, but Elise can tell this to you if she wants. It is just sad to see this happen, and then how Elise is coping with it.

I can not end this with a downer though. So I will end with this: I broke down the other day. After getting my job at Fox, I was worried if I had to travel out there, I would have no system to work on, as I just have my Vista desktop. So I took some of my severance pay, and I went to the Apple Store. Yes, that is right, I went into the Apple Store, and walked out with a Mac Book Pro. Yes, I bought one. Not the high end one, just the normal MBP. And I have been working on it since. I am still trying to get used to it, and I am getting accustomed to it. I just can not believe that I have allowed Apple to creep into my life and into my home. But after using it, I can see why people would no longer use Windows. Now I can start to learn how to do Apple development for the iPhone and iPod, along with cool looking XUL applications (Mozilla based, ie Firefox) that can mimic iTunes like displays.