As is typical of my yearly posts, I split out the stuff about the business to another post. So here's how life went this year. It took a long time to write all of this stuff down.
I think the first thing that I've really come to grips with this year is just how much I've been through in my life. I'm not sure that I'm saying that's good, bad or otherwise, just that it's staggering to think about. Sometimes when I talk to people or I'm getting to know someone, it seems that they've experienced less in their lives than I have in just the last five years. While it might not be good or bad, it does make me feel as though I can live life with the confidence that I can get through anything. While I'm perfectly aware that learning (mostly by mistakes) never ends, I'm also thrilled that I've learned as much as I have. All of the success and failure is an integral part of me that I'm thankful to have. I hope it serves me well.
The start of the year is something that kind of started before the end of the previous December, so there are good memories of a week off around the holidays with Diana's family, and an epic Dave & Buster's outing with Kara. All the while, I was still ramping up in a new job at a small firm that did mostly online marketing, trying to bring order and structure to their non-existent development process. There was a lot about it that appealed to me, because it reminded me of my first "real" job after radio in Medina, where I'd get to create something from nothing. (They thought they had something, but really they didn't.)
Within the first week, I knew something was wrong when no one other than the owners had been there longer than six months. The developers were all kids. Actually, everyone there was green except for one of the PM/AM's, who was a fellow ICOM ex-pat. We had almost daily bitch sessions about how to rope people into a process that would assure some level of success. Meanwhile, the two owners blame each other for whatever, their subordinates accuse one of coming in high and the other of being in over his head. It was not pretty.
But I still allowed myself to become invested in it for some reason, and that was crushing my soul. My first goals were to get them into a modern development environment, which basically just meant instituting all of the things that you take for granted in any professional environment, like source control, build management and continuous integration. I got it all rolling, and did it in less than three months. That was with people kicking and screaming. I also tried to guide them toward more of a product/platform direction, so they weren't constantly chasing the next project, but the owners didn't think of it so it never happened.
The day after I got back from the honeymoon, it was definitely over, so to speak. They let me go because, as they put it, they just couldn't afford me. I wasn't even a little surprised, but I was pissed because of the assurances I had about the company's financial health when I started. The owners were a couple of assholes without vision and or respect for anyone. I was kind of pissed at myself for getting so invested in the place. Months later they posted a job opening for someone to manage all of the shit I set up, because not surprisingly, they couldn't.
A lot of that job anger came just after we got back, but the wedding and honeymoon definitely set the tone for a new era. From the point of our engagement nearly a year before, we were hell bent on doing exactly what we wanted for our wedding. I had no idea how we were going to pay for it, but we're very fortunate that Diana's dad was happy as a clam to pay for whatever his little girl wanted.
So we had the ultimate beach wedding. It went nearly perfectly, aside from travel snafus on the part of the Toledo contingent and one of my friends who couldn't come at the last minute. The sun even came out just as we began the ceremony. Tyler taking the photos (a thousand of them) was perfect. The party on the boat was a blast. This particular day combined some of my best friends with a new family and the beautiful warmth of the Florida sun. And early that evening, we were able to change our Facebook relationship status to "married." That's how you know it's for real. :)
The honeymoon in Hawaii was beautiful. Arriving in Hilo the first night was completely frustrating, as we ended up in a Pizza Hut sucking down the buffet and trying to find the B&B in the rain, but when we woke up... holy crap. The place was really cool, even though we were the only couple in it, and the outside was even more stunning. It was wet, but it was the kind of lush vegetation that you probably can't find in many civilized places. That first day at Volcanoes National Park was way too brief, and next time we get to the islands, we definitely need to spend more time there.
The time on Kauai was super relaxed. We didn't do a lot of active stuff, but that's OK. Unfortunately, there was some bizarre weather system that sat over the islands most of the week, and I suffered from a mild fever/cold thing for a couple of days. I was also thinking about what I somehow knew was coming in terms of the job. We finished strong doing touristy stuff at Pearl Harbor, but things definitely didn't go as well as we hoped in retrospect. But hey, now we live closer. :) The important thing was that we got to be newlyweds in paradise.
I immediately wanted to dive into something after the honeymoon and forced entry into "self-employment." My first instinct was, write a book, self-publish. That was ultimately what advanced my career last time, so why not do that again? I wrote a couple of chapters quickly, and the burn-out set in really quickly. I had it in my mind that I'd publish quickly, but I talked myself out of it for several reasons. The first was that the market would quickly saturate with titles in the area I was writing. It also seemed too high risk for reward potential. Given my realization about how I had to resurrect my existing business (see the post on the year in business), I decided instead to dedicate time to that.
I was really drinking the Kool-Aid® around some of the new stuff coming out, especially after going to Mix in Vegas back in March. I was fascinated with ASP.NET MVC (thus the desire to write a book about it). I pieced together the app to run my blog in a couple of days. Silverlight was also getting my attention, particularly with v3 and the out-of-browser applications. That you could click a button and make an app run on your box was entirely too awesome. I mean, it technically made me a Mac programmer. :) So that led to both a file uploading thing for a photo forum, and the feed app that ran without a browser. I also started a bunch of science projects that I started.
This was probably a pretty critical point in my career, because a part of me was wondering if I even liked to write code. With all of the change that was occurring, I was questioning everything, including my career choices. Good thing I stayed with it!
While the year before I was able to more or less pick and choose what I was going to do, the options were pretty much non-existent this year. Cleveland was bottoming out. Recruiters and staffing firms were almost entirely worthless, and even they were cutting their people internally. I had two "near misses" early in the summer. One was for a law firm, where the vacation time didn't exist, hours were strict and they required you to wear a tie. Yeah, that's obviously not me. The other job was for a furniture company that just hired an ambitious CIO who was going to rebuild their e-commerce app and its integration to their warehouse. We got close to an offer when his HR department scolded him for doing their job, and the position was cut.
As optimistic as I tried to be, anxiety started to set in by September. The business was only barely covering the mortgage, and I was starting to rack up debt again, on top of the honeymoon debt. Again, there was no major crisis immediately apparent, but the job thing was looking so dark. Again, I was not capable of a real plan to execute on to be truly self-sustaining. In the end, it was five and a half months from layoff to job offer, and seven months almost to the day that I started in Redmond.
I really got my geek on again this year, and used some of my contacts for a change. Early in the season, me and Diana did a coaster trip to Eastern PA. We started by meeting up with Carrie at Hershey on a Friday evening, then a half-day after that. She got us a hook up with cheaper tickets. Going to parks with someone who considers it their "home" park definitely has some advantages. You seem less inclined to be running from ride to ride, especially since there's no pressure for them.
Later that night we got to Allentown, where I worked out a room trade for advertising, and of course the park was free from our CF passes. After some dinner, we got a second wind and spent an hour or two in the park before a storm rolled in, making for one of the coolest skies ever as we climbed the hill of Talon.
We wrapped up the next day with a little time at Dorney, and spontaneously decided to snag a few rides at Knoebel's. So glad we went, but wish we would've had more time. I never had any aversion to the place, it was just never on the way!
I made a solo trip out to Kennywood (free tickets) and met up with Tyler, who was in town for a conference. Then he and Carrie both attended Fall Affair, plus I got to see the Jandes family for the first time in almost three years. We saw Tyler and Beth again for a spontaneous closing weekend night at CP's Breakers. While hitting all of these parks was certainly a big deal, it was a bigger deal to see our remote friends as much as we did. That really made the summer awesome for me.
It's worth noting that we also hit Disney World for a week at the beginning of December. It was a little bit of a struggle with Diana being pregnant (and another freakin' "short flu" for me), but we still had a pretty good time. Disney World near Christmas really is something special.
I made a totally amazing discovery when I decided to buy a bike. It wasn't that my ass was incompatible to riding, as it seemed every time I'd get on my old 1989 Bianchi, it was that the bike and its seat just didn't fit me. I bought a lightweight aluminum Trek hybrid, with skinny tires and upright handlebars. I only ended up doing a couple hundred miles, if that, but it really came back to me pretty naturally. With bike lanes everywhere around here, I hope to ride around the nearby lake this summer (22.6 miles).
The important thing is that I found some physical activity that I actually enjoy at least. That's a real issue for me. Right now I'm happy just to get walking between the transit center and the office on campus.
I tried to make it a point to find the good in Cleveland, and did a pretty decent job of it. The pregnancy, along with Diana's vertigo treatment the year before, made me really thankful to have the Cleveland Clinic. I didn't realize it though until we moved to Seattle. Not that there aren't good doctors here, but CCF definitely operates on a different level.
Bike riding made me realize how great the metro park system is, including the zoo. We made trips to the east side for museums and great food in Coventry. We took in a Cavs game. Oh, and the best restaurant in the world is in Lakewood (it's called Melt Bar & Grilled). As much as I was ready to leave, I was thankful for the comfort that the area offered. Really, if the weather sucked less, and there was actual industry there to sustain the population, it would be a pretty solid place to live.
As I was trying to reach out to friends more (stir crazy from the time at home), I really made it a point to see Dr. Gretchen down at Ashland University more. She was three years behind me, but now she's a professor there in what used to be called radio/TV. I even got down there twice with Diana to look around, find stairwells I madeout in, take in the scope of the changes and kind of reconcile the good and bad times I had there. I'm not sure any part of my life did as much to shape my being as my years there.
The biggest deal though was my return to do a couple of radio shifts on WRDL. Nearly 14 years had passed since I was last on a broadcast station, and I was dying to give it a shot again. It was a blast. I mean, I was so electrified by it that I nearly teared up a bit. It saddens me that radio is dying, and it's even more sad that the college station can't even staff eight hours in a day.
Despite my record number of blog posts, I noticed myself dialing back a bit on the level of personal feeling I shared with the world. I found myself annoyed in several cases where people thought I was talking about them for whatever reason. I was also a little taken aback at what people knew about me at various coaster events. So while I wrote a great many posts about relationships and life, I wasn't as quick to connect dots to myself. I'm not sure how this has effected my writing style, or if I've become less honest with myself.
Facebook was still the big sharing point, because there's a finite group of people who got to see my photos and daily nonsense status updates. I purged a lot of "friends." I reconnected with a great many college friends, and even a high school friend. Learning the stories of people I haven't seen in years fascinates me.
The story that dominated our much of our life in the second half of the year was that we successfully conceived, with the baby due by early March. This has been a wonderful and scary thing. We both wanted a child but the clock has been ticking. Diana delivering at 40 really pushes the limits in many medical opinions, and neither one of us wants to go to his high school graduation in a walker either. So for that reason, we didn't waste much time after getting married. We were extremely fortunate that our plumbing just worked. It took some ovulation tests to figure out exactly when to go at it, but stuff worked.
We were a little disappointed when we found out it was a boy, since we were both really hung up on having a girl. As I've said before, I don't think you can fantasize about having a child in both genders at the same time, and our fantasies were all based around a girl. Once you start filling in the blanks as a boy, you adjust. I mean, I get to play with boy stuff like Transformers and Lego.
Pregnancy seems like a really awful and destructive force for a woman. I can't believe how uncomfortable Diana is most of the time, and it started in the beginning of the second trimester. That the hernia scars don't stretch isn't helping. The digestive drama is probably the worst though, which hit its peak at Disney World. And with such good food, too!
I'm fairly terrified of being a dad. You have a small creature that's vulnerable and fragile for a lot of years, both physically and emotionally. On one hand, I want the kid to live his life and learn and grow, but I don't want to fuck him up either. I've come to the realization that 90% of my negative personality issues are rooted in my childhood. That's a lot of pressure!
In August I got a call from a recruiter at Microsoft. I was surprised, but also exceptionally thrilled because there was nothing going on in Cleveland. I was ready to move to Orlando or Portland or anywhere else if I could sell the house, and just wing it. But I had been watching the careers site pretty closely and applied for literally anything that I thought I could do. The call was for a gig working on the apps for their developer community. Gosh, I had only been working with online communities for eleven years!
I had two phone screens. The first went really well, the second went mostly well. Neither was a stump-the-candidate thing, but more of an assessment of skill and learning ability. I've come to learn since that the company culture has evolved to not weed-out candidates because of some arbitrary nonsense, like you can't name all of the members of some class in some framework. They also don't get too hung up on computer science degrees, and I find that the mix is similar to what you'd find at my last "real" job.
After the screens, they invited me out and booked a flight. I had gone down this road the year before for a PM job that I was not a good fit for (and frankly I really didn't like the people either), but given the extensive vetting process before hand, I had a good feeling about this one. I interviewed all day before going out to visit Joe and Nina. It was sunny and warm, and driving out I-90 to Snoqualmie, I kind of knew.
Two days later, I got an offer, and that night I had celebratory beers at Cedar Point with some folks I hadn't seen in years. After more than a year of shit around my career, things finally turned around.
It was about six weeks from the time I got an offer from Microsoft to the time I started. The last week was the actual travel. In terms of just having stuff that had to move, it was extremely easy. The movers packed up our shit and put it on a truck. Whether I move cross-country or around town, I'm never going to do it myself again. I'll pay whatever it costs (and it sounds like it costs around $12k to move 2,400 miles).
We unloaded a ton of stuff before moving, knowing that we just wouldn't have the space. The pinball machine and the living room furniture was the biggest stuff to go. I think in general we reduced our stuff, either by sale of donation, by 30%. The single hardest thing to see go was the hot tub. I really, really miss it.
Part of the relocation deal included flights, even the movement of two cats, but on careful investigation and advice from my veteranarian ex-girlfriend, we decided that flying the cats was a bad idea. Fortunately, the company would also pay for a rental, food and hotels for a cross-country trip. So that's what we did, for a total of 2,500 miles exactly (a hundred or so were from touristy and food acquisition drives at destinations).
I expected that the drive would be completely miserable, but I never even had road hypnosis, even in the plains. The cats were a challenge, and I hated the loading and unloading every night. In addition to the cats, the most expensive objects I had, like my HD cam, the Canons and the laptops, came with us. There was also a small file box for important papers, and a litter box. It all had to come in, every night.
Other than the lack of decent restaurants the first two days, the evenings were fairly relaxed. Visiting Mount Rushmore was really cool. I had one meltdown on the last day, in Nowhere Washington when a plant I was fond of went flying and cats went flying up over me. At that point I just didn't want to be in the car anymore. Getting to the temp housing and hating it made that day crappy overall.
Apartment seeking was actually kind of fun, and we already narrowed it down significantly by researching online. The place I liked even before seeing it was brand new, never before lived in, and they had fiber to the unit. Unfortunately, it was also a pretty terrible drive to Redmond from there. Ultimately we ended up in a place that was not as nice, but large and really easy to get to work from. Our junk spend under two weeks on the truck.
The true albatros is our houses. Nothing else keeps us up at night more than knowing we own and pay for places we don't live in. That's really the hardest thing about the move. That more than half of my income goes to mortgages and rent is just shitty. That situation can't resolve itself fast enough.
I felt pretty much at home in the job very quickly. The more I'm there the more I feel like working there is t he most natural fit for me ever. It'll take time to really feel out the culture and get an idea of where I'll be headed in the long run, but the important thing is that there's opportunity for learning and getting better at what I do. I was worried I may never find that again.
Regular life has been difficult at times. Particularly with the holidays, I've just felt like I don't belong here. We have no social circle at all. It's worse for Diana, since she doesn't have a job. At least I see people during the day! Combine this with the fact that getting around is often a struggle, and even things like a new driver's license remind you of how you've been completely transplanted. Sometimes the reminders make you smile though, like the beautiful scenery here.
A new start is what we wanted, but the we also want to feel comfortable. Nesting is just what you tend to do at our ages. I've been very impatient in that sense, just wanting to feel settled. I think once the baby is here I'll be too distracted to worry about it.
When I meet someone and share my story, the other person is fond of saying how much change I've endured this year. A new job (twice), a layoff, marriage, a cross-country move, trying to sell a house, baby on the way... 2009 was insane. It feels like the end of five really insane years. All of the relationships and jobs pushed me way out of my comfort zone, but I know now that I'm much better off for it all. While much of this time period was less than ideal, I'm thankful for it because it made me feel incredibly alive.
A new chapter of life defined in part by parenthood begins this year. I wonder what I'll have to say a year from now?
No comments yet.