Our New Home
We move in 8 days! For anybody who cares, here's the
floor-plan to our new apartment. That's right, note
the 2 walk-in closets!
(You can see a bigger image here.)
(You can see a bigger image here.)
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Don't Fire Me!
Well, I'd love to tell you all interesting tidbits
about my new job. However in the interest of not
getting fired for posting confidential information
(or anything else questionable in my employer's eyes)
I've been waiting to write a new post until I could
find out what the specific rules on blogging are.
Funny story:
They mentioned that any of us new employees that blog should read the "Best Practices for Blogging" document from our legal department. Well today I finally found that thing and tried to read it. Guess what? ACCESS DENIED! So I guess I'll just stick to common sense for now...
What I can tell you so far is that I really love the work environment here. I sincerely feel like everyone wants me to succeed here and so they've been giving me all the support and resources necessary to ensure I do well here. Which makes sense considering they've already invested so much in me thus far. I also really like how free I feel. I come in when I want and I go home when I want. And I don't feel like someone is watching over my shoulder making sure I don't leave 5 minutes early. This sadly is in contrast to my last employer....
I am actually the first developer on our team to have the "honor" of sharing an office with another dev. Really it's not so bad though because I have way more space and privacy then my last job. My office-mate is also a new dev - he beat me by one week on his start date.
We have an awesome cafeteria 40 feet away from our building that I usually eat lunch at. And it must seriously be the exact opposite of Sodexho. Makes me remember how much food at IIT sucked.
Sorry guys!
As for the rain, it really doesn't bother me. Just about every day the forecast predicts rain. But in reality, that means that for part of the day it will probably rain. But for the rest of the day its usually quite beautiful here. And the temperature is so moderate I've forgotten all about my coat. Just to be clear here: i DON'T miss smelly cold New Jersey.
For now, I'm just working on bugs and learning the build environment etc.. Once I get more settled in I'll post another update on how the job goes.
They mentioned that any of us new employees that blog should read the "Best Practices for Blogging" document from our legal department. Well today I finally found that thing and tried to read it. Guess what? ACCESS DENIED! So I guess I'll just stick to common sense for now...
What I can tell you so far is that I really love the work environment here. I sincerely feel like everyone wants me to succeed here and so they've been giving me all the support and resources necessary to ensure I do well here. Which makes sense considering they've already invested so much in me thus far. I also really like how free I feel. I come in when I want and I go home when I want. And I don't feel like someone is watching over my shoulder making sure I don't leave 5 minutes early. This sadly is in contrast to my last employer....
I am actually the first developer on our team to have the "honor" of sharing an office with another dev. Really it's not so bad though because I have way more space and privacy then my last job. My office-mate is also a new dev - he beat me by one week on his start date.
We have an awesome cafeteria 40 feet away from our building that I usually eat lunch at. And it must seriously be the exact opposite of Sodexho. Makes me remember how much food at IIT sucked.
Sorry guys!
As for the rain, it really doesn't bother me. Just about every day the forecast predicts rain. But in reality, that means that for part of the day it will probably rain. But for the rest of the day its usually quite beautiful here. And the temperature is so moderate I've forgotten all about my coat. Just to be clear here: i DON'T miss smelly cold New Jersey.
For now, I'm just working on bugs and learning the build environment etc.. Once I get more settled in I'll post another update on how the job goes.
Say hello to Issaquah, WA
Well we're online at McDonald's again so I'll make
this brief...
We passed on that awesome townhouse in favor of an more awesome place down the road. We signed the lease today!
Working for Microsoft is like being a freakin' King. (btw, i work in King County....hmm coincidence???) Example? The apartment complex is giving us essentially a $2235 discount just because I work at Microsoft.
So here's a crapload of unsorted pics of the new place and the area around it. The captions were typed quickly!! Enjoy!
We passed on that awesome townhouse in favor of an more awesome place down the road. We signed the lease today!
Working for Microsoft is like being a freakin' King. (btw, i work in King County....hmm coincidence???) Example? The apartment complex is giving us essentially a $2235 discount just because I work at Microsoft.
So here's a crapload of unsorted pics of the new place and the area around it. The captions were typed quickly!! Enjoy!
Resistance is futile...
Internet no more...
Well, if it seems too good to be true, it probably
is.
When we got to temp housing we plugged in our cable modem and everything magically worked! Sadly Friday evening, somebody (probably at Comcast) decided we shouldn't be online anymore. Now I don't mind paying, but they want $100 for a non-refundable hookup fee and $45 for a non-transferrable month of internet. And we're only planning on being here for another 2 weeks. Kinda crappy.
So how am I posting? Ah the joy of McDonalds. In addition to providing cheap cholesterol to our society, they are now also providing FREE WIFI INTERNET!! (At least McDonalds in Kirkland, WA)
We're apartment shopping today. Yesterday we found an AMAZING townhouse about 15 miles from work. This place is on the side of a mountain and has a view of the entire area. That includes snow-capped mountains, a huge lake and sunsets over the mountains every night. The view alone is worth the price. Oh yes, it has approx. DOUBLE the square footage of our previous place as well...
Tomorrow I start work, so stay tuned!
When we got to temp housing we plugged in our cable modem and everything magically worked! Sadly Friday evening, somebody (probably at Comcast) decided we shouldn't be online anymore. Now I don't mind paying, but they want $100 for a non-refundable hookup fee and $45 for a non-transferrable month of internet. And we're only planning on being here for another 2 weeks. Kinda crappy.
So how am I posting? Ah the joy of McDonalds. In addition to providing cheap cholesterol to our society, they are now also providing FREE WIFI INTERNET!! (At least McDonalds in Kirkland, WA)
We're apartment shopping today. Yesterday we found an AMAZING townhouse about 15 miles from work. This place is on the side of a mountain and has a view of the entire area. That includes snow-capped mountains, a huge lake and sunsets over the mountains every night. The view alone is worth the price. Oh yes, it has approx. DOUBLE the square footage of our previous place as well...
Tomorrow I start work, so stay tuned!
Hello Washington!
We're here....!
And after only 6 hours on a crowded, very hot airplane... what fun! Seriously though, you can't complain too much when everything was pretty much free. Of course when we arrived in Seattle it was raining. And even though this is my fourth time here, we instantly hit the worst traffic I'd seen yet. So much for a warm welcome...
Well after navigating our way to Redmond, we entered the secret code and found our keys. Then we drove to another apartment complex where I only had to turn the car around 4 times to get where we wanted to go. Finally we found our new (temporary) home. And you'll notice we spent little time finding a way online! You can check out some pictures here (or just use the menu on the left) of our pack, move, and temp housing.
Today we're gonna go make a major grocery run and then do some exploring. And we already have dinner plans with some friends tonight. Rock on! I'll keep you posted!
P.S. More comments = more posts...
And after only 6 hours on a crowded, very hot airplane... what fun! Seriously though, you can't complain too much when everything was pretty much free. Of course when we arrived in Seattle it was raining. And even though this is my fourth time here, we instantly hit the worst traffic I'd seen yet. So much for a warm welcome...
Well after navigating our way to Redmond, we entered the secret code and found our keys. Then we drove to another apartment complex where I only had to turn the car around 4 times to get where we wanted to go. Finally we found our new (temporary) home. And you'll notice we spent little time finding a way online! You can check out some pictures here (or just use the menu on the left) of our pack, move, and temp housing.
Today we're gonna go make a major grocery run and then do some exploring. And we already have dinner plans with some friends tonight. Rock on! I'll keep you posted!
P.S. More comments = more posts...
We're Washington Bound!
I quit my job on Friday. So I’d say it’s pretty official. Here’s our schedule for the move:
FRIDAY:
- Quit my job
SUNDAY:
- Pick up rental car at Airport
MONDAY:
- Wash car
- My car gets picked up and shipped
- Pack our carry-on bags
TUESDAY:
- Movers come pack our stuff. Awesome!!
- Check into a local hotel
WEDNESDAY:
- Movers come load our stuff. Super Awesome!!
- Turn in our keys!
THURSDAY:
- Check out of local hotel
- Return rental car
- Fly to Seattle!!
- Get rental car
- Check into temporary housing
Pretty sweet deal if I do say so myself!! See ya on the other coast!
Saying Goodbye to New York
After weeks of planning to see things (and weeks of
crappy weather / sleeping in / procrastinating) we
finally got around to being tourists this last
weekend. We took the PATH train to the World
Trade Center site. That was crazy because the
train actually goes through the wreckage and
you’re looking out the window at the supports
for two massive buildings that used to be there.
Its very eerie.
We also took a LONG walk down the Wall Street (yes, that Wall Street!) to the lower Eastside so we could check out the Brooklyn Bridge. And man was it awesome. The sky was so beautiful! Then we walked around SOHO and explored the greatest city on Earth. And that was just Saturday!
Susan and I decided the most appropriate place to begin our Westward Journey was Ellis Island. Like so many before us, we passed through this famous gateway yesterday and had an awesome experience! Unfortunately we were kind of rushed but both enjoyed the history around us. We took a nerdy tour but it gave a good sense of what immigrating through Ellis Island was really like and it was pretty interesting.
Lastly, we knew we couldn’t leave New York City without paying The Statue of Liberty a visit. I think the pictures speak for themselves. Check out the whole weekend here!
We also took a LONG walk down the Wall Street (yes, that Wall Street!) to the lower Eastside so we could check out the Brooklyn Bridge. And man was it awesome. The sky was so beautiful! Then we walked around SOHO and explored the greatest city on Earth. And that was just Saturday!
Susan and I decided the most appropriate place to begin our Westward Journey was Ellis Island. Like so many before us, we passed through this famous gateway yesterday and had an awesome experience! Unfortunately we were kind of rushed but both enjoyed the history around us. We took a nerdy tour but it gave a good sense of what immigrating through Ellis Island was really like and it was pretty interesting.
Lastly, we knew we couldn’t leave New York City without paying The Statue of Liberty a visit. I think the pictures speak for themselves. Check out the whole weekend here!
A Review of Apple iWeb
So surely you've noticed the new digs. Why the
change? And why start another blog so soon
after 2.0 launched? And lastly, why start the new
blog with a review? Well the answers dear reader are
all the same. Do read on.
iWeb is a new application from Apple and as such it's version number is 1.0.1. Let me tell you, all that glitters is not gold. Sure, iWeb allows you to churn out professional looking websites without breaking a sweat. And with a little skill you can even do some cool stuff to differentiate your site from the norm. But that's where things start getting ugly. Even the simple things I did in my iWeb site (Jonathan's Sexy Blog 2.0) involved all sort of trickery to get around iWeb's inherent deficiencies.
An example: iWeb does not support ANY custom html. Thus when the built in web stats weren't enough for me, I had to take drastic measures. I wrote a program (using Automator) to manually pull the html pages from the server after publishing, then manually inject stat counter code and re-upload the modified pages. All this to do what almost any other web site builder would allow automatically prior to uploading. At this point, I should have known to stop using it. But I was so blinded by the glitz that Apple's "we know what you want better than you do" philosophy didn't even phase me.
It was only later when bugs started to appear that really hampered my productivity that I realized I should dump this 1.0 app. I became plagued by publishing bugs that essentially prevented successful uploads due to a variety of issues. iWeb is SLOW. Period. Add onto this the fact that my new iWeb site didn't do things even Xanga could do and well.... that's just plain embarrassing!!
So remember friends, you can do better.
iWeb is a new application from Apple and as such it's version number is 1.0.1. Let me tell you, all that glitters is not gold. Sure, iWeb allows you to churn out professional looking websites without breaking a sweat. And with a little skill you can even do some cool stuff to differentiate your site from the norm. But that's where things start getting ugly. Even the simple things I did in my iWeb site (Jonathan's Sexy Blog 2.0) involved all sort of trickery to get around iWeb's inherent deficiencies.
An example: iWeb does not support ANY custom html. Thus when the built in web stats weren't enough for me, I had to take drastic measures. I wrote a program (using Automator) to manually pull the html pages from the server after publishing, then manually inject stat counter code and re-upload the modified pages. All this to do what almost any other web site builder would allow automatically prior to uploading. At this point, I should have known to stop using it. But I was so blinded by the glitz that Apple's "we know what you want better than you do" philosophy didn't even phase me.
It was only later when bugs started to appear that really hampered my productivity that I realized I should dump this 1.0 app. I became plagued by publishing bugs that essentially prevented successful uploads due to a variety of issues. iWeb is SLOW. Period. Add onto this the fact that my new iWeb site didn't do things even Xanga could do and well.... that's just plain embarrassing!!
So remember friends, you can do better.