Monday, June 16, 2003
Well, Microsoft didn't work out. I'm kind of glad... I was getting tired of the whole process. After 5 interviews you'd think they could have figured out how best to apply me. I figured after this its probably not the place for me, so...
We went gangbusters on house searching, and found the perfect place. Almost everywhere we looked at was a compromise one way or another... It didn't have a game room... or a study... or I'd have to convert/lose a bedroom to get the media room I've been dreaming of. In the end we managed to find a place that had it all, plus it has a big flat yard and space aplently to put a pool later on.
The worst part of it all is that its still being built. Won't be done until the end of September. Ah well. So today we're moving into a hotel where we'll be be "until its done". Its not so bad -- the cost of the hotel is still lower than our mortgage.
Other than that... The "old house" closing is next Monday. The moving people come tomorrow to put all our stuff in storage. Now I need to get on and do some more packing. I'd forgotten what hard work moving is. I'll sleep well once its all done!
We went gangbusters on house searching, and found the perfect place. Almost everywhere we looked at was a compromise one way or another... It didn't have a game room... or a study... or I'd have to convert/lose a bedroom to get the media room I've been dreaming of. In the end we managed to find a place that had it all, plus it has a big flat yard and space aplently to put a pool later on.
The worst part of it all is that its still being built. Won't be done until the end of September. Ah well. So today we're moving into a hotel where we'll be be "until its done". Its not so bad -- the cost of the hotel is still lower than our mortgage.
Other than that... The "old house" closing is next Monday. The moving people come tomorrow to put all our stuff in storage. Now I need to get on and do some more packing. I'd forgotten what hard work moving is. I'll sleep well once its all done!
# posted 6/16/2003 07:54:38 PM |
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Woohoo!!! We agreed an offer on the house... Signing the contracts tomorrow. Two months isn't bad at all in this market, and we're only about $10,000 below we paid once you take the closing costs into account. Considering the horror stories we got from friends that lost $50K or more, I'm thanking my lucky stars!
At work I've been working from a large room with the rest of the team the past few weeks. Several months back I had something stolen from my cubicle, and in the interest of not having it happen again, a couple of weeks ago I packed my entire cubicle contents away into two boxes and stashed them under my desk in our room. Today I brought them home... so if and when I get a job offer, I'm pretty much done already... plus they're probably safer in my garage than they are at work :-|
Got two more interviews coming up. After getting my hopes up last time, I'm definitely taking things a lot easier this time around... If it happens it happens. Either way, we close/move out of the house on 7/21... Question is where do we go next? Its kind of scary not knowing where we'll be but there's so much empty apartment space in Austin its not like I'm too worried.
At work I've been working from a large room with the rest of the team the past few weeks. Several months back I had something stolen from my cubicle, and in the interest of not having it happen again, a couple of weeks ago I packed my entire cubicle contents away into two boxes and stashed them under my desk in our room. Today I brought them home... so if and when I get a job offer, I'm pretty much done already... plus they're probably safer in my garage than they are at work :-|
Got two more interviews coming up. After getting my hopes up last time, I'm definitely taking things a lot easier this time around... If it happens it happens. Either way, we close/move out of the house on 7/21... Question is where do we go next? Its kind of scary not knowing where we'll be but there's so much empty apartment space in Austin its not like I'm too worried.
# posted 6/12/2003 07:53:04 PM |
Sunday, June 08, 2003
Wow... has it really been a month since I updated my blog? Yikes...
Well, there have been a few things going on, but I was kind of waiting for some kind of conclusion before I posted it as "news"...
That thing is awesome! If you're in the market for something with the quality of a BMW X5, and want to save yourself $20,000, this is definitely worth a look. We got one with the Tech Package, which gives you Navigation, DVD player in the back, camera view while reversing, the Intelligent Key (never need to put it in the ignition... it just "talks" to the car... In a couple of years I think all cars will have this).
Yesterday our 13-month old finally decided she'd had enough of crawling, and got up and walked around most of the day. She took her first steps a few months back, but she'd stuck to crawling until now.
What else... Oh yeah... Today we had a scare with our 2-yr old son. He was playing on a playscape at Central Market here in Austin, then fell off the equipment and landed on his head. Luckily there was an ER physician there with his kid (what are the chances!), and he had us keep his neck frommoving while I called 911. He ended up going to the Children's Hospital where he had x-rays and a CT scan, but thankfully he was totally fine. Still it was pretty worrying.
Anyway, know that I'm still committed to iComic. I've been trying to finish the Proxy screen, and I have the technical approach sorted out. I'm also thinking about how I can best make the iComic open source. I have a SourceForge account set up, but I think I'll need to learn a little more about how the collaborative development process works before I dive into it. I also need to make something like a roadmap so folks have some idea of the direction we need to be taking it.
Well, there have been a few things going on, but I was kind of waiting for some kind of conclusion before I posted it as "news"...
- Spent the best part of a week in the Seattle area with the wife and kids. It was part work and part pleasure... While I was there I spent two days interviewing at Microsoft, while the wife checked the area out. I wanted her to feel comfortable about moving before I made any kind of commitment.
At it turned out, the two positions I was interviewing for didn't work out, but at least I got to hook up with a few old friends I have there. - We're getting lots of viewings of the house, though only one offer so far. They pulled out when they were $60K short of what we were asking. Still with the amount of traffic we're seeing, I'm confident we'll find a buyer soon.
One really frustrating thing about these viewings is that they'll mostly at weekends... the same time I used to dedicate to working on iComic. The problem is even if I start working on the code, I'll typically only get 30 minutes or so before we have to leave the house, so I can never get into the flow. Software development is pretty taxing, and you can't just pick it up and go... especially if you're only working on something once a week.
This has been the hardest thing for me to deal with. - Beyond that, I've been too tired in the evenings to really do much of anything but veg out. For those of you that don't know, I'm the lead architect for Dell's primary website, and we're currently slap in the middle of developing the next major version, which will have a fairly different look and feel just before the holidays. Being the lead on a project like that means answering all of the developer's questions, plus all of management's relentless "are we there yet...?" kind of questions. At least the work itself is pretty darn cool :)
That thing is awesome! If you're in the market for something with the quality of a BMW X5, and want to save yourself $20,000, this is definitely worth a look. We got one with the Tech Package, which gives you Navigation, DVD player in the back, camera view while reversing, the Intelligent Key (never need to put it in the ignition... it just "talks" to the car... In a couple of years I think all cars will have this).
Yesterday our 13-month old finally decided she'd had enough of crawling, and got up and walked around most of the day. She took her first steps a few months back, but she'd stuck to crawling until now.
What else... Oh yeah... Today we had a scare with our 2-yr old son. He was playing on a playscape at Central Market here in Austin, then fell off the equipment and landed on his head. Luckily there was an ER physician there with his kid (what are the chances!), and he had us keep his neck frommoving while I called 911. He ended up going to the Children's Hospital where he had x-rays and a CT scan, but thankfully he was totally fine. Still it was pretty worrying.
Anyway, know that I'm still committed to iComic. I've been trying to finish the Proxy screen, and I have the technical approach sorted out. I'm also thinking about how I can best make the iComic open source. I have a SourceForge account set up, but I think I'll need to learn a little more about how the collaborative development process works before I dive into it. I also need to make something like a roadmap so folks have some idea of the direction we need to be taking it.
# posted 6/08/2003 07:49:14 PM |
