Blog From The Bench

My parents moved from the Los Angeles area to Eugene, Oregon when I was about two or three years old. They bought a house not long after, and I lived there until I was 18, when they moved to the next city over (and I moved with them). I lived with them until I got married at 23. My wife and I lived in Eugene and/or Springfield (the aforementioned next city over) until last year, when we bought a house in Cottage Grove, which is rapidly becoming a bedroom community for Eugene.

Since 1998, I've worked in Eugene's rather small tech community. I started as a tech support rep for an ISP. My next job was as a system administrator, then as a manager of an ISP, then as a help desk manager, and then as a sys admin/programmer. (I'm not really the manager sort. I'm much happier doing real work.) It's not in my nature to switch jobs so often, but that's how it is in the tech field - either the company went out of business, or I switched to gain new skills or experience. I've stayed in my comfort zone, geographically speaking, and in a small market, which was safe yet restricting. A couple years ago, I very nearly took a job in New Jersey; fortunately, it fell through at the last minute. (I note with a sense of schadenfreude that they've never stopped looking to fill the position, even after all this time.) Well, all that's about to change...

A few weeks ago, I updated my resume on monster.com, mostly just to keep it up to date - I wasn't really planning on hitting the streets (virtually, of course) to look for a position. A couple days later, I received a call from a recruiter. She asked me a few technical questions, and was impressed enough to schedule a more detailed technical interview a couple days later. For that, a tech watched me solve a series of FUBARs on a server. I didn't ace them, but he liked my troubleshooting skills. Next thing I know, they're scheduling me an on-site interview. I flew out there and met with the folks that I'd be working with. Two days later (it would've been the next day, but my stupid cell phone wasn't working), they offered me a position. I'm going to be working for Rackspace in San Antonio, Texas! It's an awesome company - better than I could've ever hoped to work for. We're in that painful process of getting our house ready for sale and making moving plans. I never really thought I'd leave Eugene (at least after the Hackensack debacle), least of all to live in Texas (where I swore I'd never live), but how can you pass up your dream job?

Anyway, what does this mean for DVD Verdict? Currently, the site's hosted on a server that sits in a closet...oh, just across the room from the couch I'm sitting on now. Its steady droning can be heard throughout my house. It's crazy having to move it every time my family moves, so we're going to be getting a dedicated server to host it on. It'll be the first time since I've been the editor/web guy that it'll be on a server I can't go smack upside the head when it's misbehaving.

Suggestions for places to eat or good movie theaters in San Antonio are greatly appreciated! I'm already looking forward to going to the Alamo Drafthouse...