And So It Ends...

There has been an interesting phenomenon about my life that I have been aware of for some time. I can't explain it, so I'll just describe it. I know that if I do X (not the drug) then Y (not the chromosome) will happen. For instance I knew that when I signed up for unemployment then it would be but a short time and I would finally stumble into a job. Sure enough, I singed up for unemployment, and a few weeks later I got the job at Beal Bank.

But sometimes I am surprised by this phenomenon. Although I figured once I finally got a job, I would start hearing about even more employment opportunities. I just didn't think I would hear from one that I had already given up on.

At then end of last year I had been contacted by RenTrack -- a video rental tracking company. Seeing the writing on the wall, they had begun to look at other areas of the entertainment industry on which they could sell their statistical know-how. As such they began looking for talented (or in my case - semi-talented) software engineers from around the country to help them develop this next generation of software.

They first emailed me some coding problems to solve. Apparently I did well and I quickly got a phone interview with an accompanying online programming problem. Unfortunately, I heard nothing from them after that. I figured I didn't pass muster. Sulking, I moved on.

Sulking? you ask. Yes. Because this was a tremendous opportunity. This was a company that proclaimed an appreciation of their talent and treated them accordingly. This was a company that was at the cutting edge of programming technology. A company still making buckets of money from the Blockbusters of the world and felt fine about spending on the future aka cool shit.

Oh, and the company is in Portland, OR.

And it is from this same Portland OR that I write this. Early last week, Rentrak re-engaged me. After a few emails and another phone/online interview I was flown up to Portland Sunday night. All day Monday I've been meeting, and being grilled by my potential fellow Rentrakers.

Well, not potential anymore. By the end of the day they did make me a very nice offer. Admittedly any offer to move to Portland would be a good one. But this was a really good one.

So, I sit here in my hotel room by the Portland airport --next door to where I stayed this past September -- writing my final entry in this blog. Sorry, but yes, final entry. I saw this blog as my chronicling of the transition of one part of my life to the next. Well, I've finally reached the next part.

I'll be up here looking for a place to live and make other arrangements. And then next week I'll be back in Dallas to quickly (hopefully) sell my house to a developer and move to the great Pacific Northwest.

With all my friends that have moved away, or are about to move away, this was not a hard decision. In fact it was very easy.

So, with that, gentle readers...


King Wally.....out.