A few thoughts about the area:

By now I'm sure you've seen in the news the reports of the crazy heat wave blowing across the western US right now. Las Vegas hitting 116 - that's hot!. Pheonix getting scary records around 120? - that's also hot! 

As many of you know by now, my family and I are now residents of the great state of Washington (well, not officially yet... right now we're "just visiting" - but soon), and there is one thing I would like to convey  to my fellow Washintonians: 

86 degrees F is NOT hot!

In fact, 86F is quite enjoyable. Sure, most places don't have AC, but this area is filled with apartment and condo complexes, and most of these complexes have multiple pools and have common areas that do have AC. But why would you need AC? Because this weather is not hot. 

There's a nice gentle breeze, there's the ocean air, there are trees literally everywhere. The air is not humid, it's got a little moisture in it, but no where near humid by midwest standards. 

Whoever designed the highway interchanges should get a talkin' to:

Traffic is pretty bad over here in the Puget Sound area. Any by pretty bad, I mean horribly unessessary bad. Why is it unnessesay you may ask? As far as I can tell there are two specific reasons:

1. Many of the people are transplants from other countries. Microsoft, Amazon, etc are constantly recruiting from all over the world. This means smashing drivers from all different areas with different driving styles into one small little area.
2. The roads were designed by someone who maybe should have paid more attention in road design class.

Allow for me to ruin your eyes with my awesome MS Paint skills and describe how the roads are laid out here.

This is a perfect example of some craziness. Ok, so lets say the main highway is northbound 405. The highways up here have a dedicated car pool lane in the far left (or the far right if you're on the 520... consistency be damned here). This means that during rush hour, everyone who is carpooling is dying to zoom over to the far left as fast as they can. Which means is they're merging on from... say... the 520 - they are merging 5 times. 5 FREAKING TIMES. But of course, let's not forget about the people merging on from the left... yes... the left. Now, the people merging on from the left are NOT carpooling, which means that they have to merge twice so they get out of the carpool lane. 

Add all thing to humanity's innability to merge properly in the first place, and now you can see why traffic is horrible here. 

Ugh.. traffic.

copyright... uh... the makers of The Whole Nine Yards... or something.

Long time no post. 

I tend to do that when things are either a) super crazy or b) super calm. However, when things are just slightly off kilter is when I love to write the most. And right now, things are just ever so slightly off kilter. See, here's my life in the past few months. 

As a young pup right out of college until a few days ago I've worked for small companies who usually have the "big dog" client that keeps them viable and in business. That one client that found this small, service based company which they did everything and anything for. 

However, the two companies which I worked for in the past 10 years, both cases had that big company leave and it left those companies in shambles as the C levels scrambled around trying to figure out what their new identity was going to be. It was interesting to be apart of the two ecosystems because each company handled it completely differently. 

The first company hunkered down and tried to keep doing exactly what it had been, just with smaller clients. Well, it turns out you can't treat smaller clients like larger clients... they just don't like it. 

The second company turned into a proverbial chicken with its head cut off. Running everywhere except to a logical destination with its lifeblood squirting out of a small hole where its head used to be. We abused the word "game changer" and were promised "wheelbarrows of cash" on more than one occasion as the executive team kept coming up with the "next big thing". We were always "close to signing" the next huge contract which would drawf the huge players such as companies that rhyme with schmoogle or schmricrosoft. 

Can you tell a sales guy ran the last company?

But you know what? I was ok with it. I was ok with just riding the company into the ground as the plane spiraled out of control. I made decent enough money that I was certainly not lacking. The products that our engineering team cranked out actually did have potential. And my confidence in my ability had finally become solid enough that I knew the minute the plane did hit the ground, I'd bounce off and get another job with no issues what so ever. Yes, there was always the level of uncertainty... and there was a healthy fear for the financial well being of my family - but darn it, we'd be ok.

Then some kid tossed a fun little nugget over the cube wall... he'd just pushed me into a pool

It really wasn't as extreme as that. What it came down to was he was asked by a recruiter if he "knew anyone else who she could contact" - and he didn't even ask first - he just threw my name into the pool.

I went home that night and actually thought about the company in whose pool I was just thrown into and I had a battle in my head between the "safe" life I was living, and the "out of comfort zone" life that this new company offered me. I had to battle because on one hand I feel that my family always comes first and that means financially, time, health, everything and that's why I stayed where I was. However, persuing the life of moving to another company seemed selfish - it was all about me, all about growing my career and at the expense of what? Stability within my family?

So I did the only thing that any sane married man would do. I asked the wife. 

Well, she apparently has this thing were she wants me to be "happy" or some crap like that. Pfft... "happy"... I don't need to be happy - I need to be stable for my family even if that means unhappy in my career... it means I'm happy at home. 

Happy wife, happy life, right?

But my family feeds off of my emotions

And that was a hard lesson to learn for me. I would come home from work and would hate myself for being there, would feel disgusting at the oft times borderline unethical decisions that company made, and would be "mad"-ish most of the time. I would need time to "wind down" after work. Whether that meant drinking or working out. 

So I made the decision to actually start caring about this interview. I studied my little butt off, brushed up on my interviewing skills, and gave it my all. There were HR interviews, and tech interviews, and then 6 hours of in person interviews. They made dang sure that I was who I said I was and that I could provide for them some awesome skills. Although I didn't think I knocked it out of the park, I guess what I did was awesome enough to land myself a job. 

Not just a job... but a dream job. A job that I never in a million years thought I would have for a company that I thought was so way out of my league... but I got it.

Of course... what I didn't mention yet was that this job was located 1,400 miles away to the west. 

And that is why I'm on a plane.