Thursday, May 13, 2010

The Austin move

The move is still a work in progress. Finding a cool place with a roommate proved harder then I thought and after ten days of staying in a hostel and looking I finally had to breakdown and just find a place on my own. I moved into a new complex that is right on Lady Bird Lake (not really a lake but the Colorado River or at least a part of it I think) and is more then I was looking to spend on rent. It just means that instead of lounging around and being a part time sound engineer wherever I could pickup work I actually have to find a full time job. Then on top of that the moving company that I'm dealing with in Illinois says they can't have my stuff to me for about another two weeks, which means I'm living out of a backpack and sleeping in a sleeping bag for almost three to possibly four weeks. Oh well nothing to do but chalk it up to a life experience and if/when I move to another city/state I will do what I did when I left S.F. and get rid of everything except what I can carry.

Austin, other then living arrangement, is a pretty cool city. I'm still exploring it, so far I've only covered the main drag downtown which is 6th Street which I avoid like the plague on Friday and Saturdays. I keep telling my parents it is like South Street in Philly but only worse. I still know there is a lot more to the city and look forward to discovering the cool spots and things to do.

As of now I have a interview lined up with a company called ServiceMesh. I did a phone interview with them in February and I think they liked me but they needed someone right away and I was not ready to leave Chicago at the time. James Galloway, a buddy from Los Angeles, is the head of QA at Trion Worlds and he says they have a few openings. Then Michael Gladkowski, my manager from Interwoven/Autonomy-iManage, knows people at Qualcom and has offered to put me in touch with them. Finally Pete Bratach, a buddy from S.F. & VMware days, says that Facebook has some support offices here and is willing to pass my resume along. It seems like finding a job is going to be easier then finding an apartment.