The drive home...

from my first interview in Seattle was not nearly as bad as the drive up! Although I did hit a LOT of traffic that did, every so often, come to a complete standstill. But I made it back home in MUCH shorter order (1.5 hours... as opposed to the 2.5 hour trip out).

So, here's another shot of traffic on the drive back (right about noontime)


LOTS of bikes out here, more than I think I've seen anywhere outside of busy times at Shady Valley, or, well, anyday at the gap. Just across from the hotel were some condos... and there were 4 sportbikes parked there! Although, I must say... everyone I've seen riding has pretty much been in full rain-gear, or there was little or no chance of rain. So, it's time to break down and get a suit.

This was an interesting rig... whatcha think's in the bag?


So, short update... time to get back to the job hunt!

Interviews, Kirkland, Redmond... What an experience!

Here's fair warning for you... this is a LONG post... totally the longest evah :) But it's also a great read and a fun story, so if you've got the time now, please read on and comment!!

Well, I've made it through my first face-to-face interview in Washington State with what seems to be a great company, Consona CRM I felt things went pretty well, but I've felt that about interviews in the past and left without a job offer. So, now it's a waiting game. The hiring manager said that she'd give me a call either tonight or sometime tomorrow to let me know if we're to continue the process based on todays interviews. I'm hopeful... the job sounds really neat, LOTS of travel -- 4 out of 5 days of the week I'll likely be in a new place somewhere in, or maybe even out of the US, developing customized solutions for companies that purchase, or have purchased Consona's CRM software package.

This morning was quite the experience! The interviews were scheduled to start at 10am, so I left Olympia at 7 this morning (early, or so I thought :)) Turns out that rush-hour is well more than an hour out here.... it's pretty much all day long! It was bumper to bumper from the I405/I5 interchange all the way to just north of Bellevue.


Check out the back of this van... How true (though I did tailgate a bit to get the shot :)


Why I'm showing you all pics of bumper-to-bumper is beyond me... I guess misery loves company eh?


So here's a funny bit of TMI (too much info)... I had myself my usual cuppa joe to start the morning off before I left.. ya, you all know what's coming next... I totally couldn't hold it, or at least, nearly lost it -- there was absolutely NOWHERE convenient to pull over in all that traffic. Had I left the interstate to find somewhere to go I would most certainly have been late for the interviews... I have NEVER been that close to losing it in my life!!!

Anyway, I pulled off the road as soon as the traffic lightened up and .. SWEET RELIEF! haha...

Ok, so that was probably the most entertaining part of my day yesterday, well, aside from the story about AFTER the interview (ya, there'll be a post about that). The rest of it was totally about the preparation on Wednesday night! Turns out that I really didn't have anything in the way of a wardrobe prepared for this gig. I dipped into the closet and started to get an outfit together when Phil walks into the room and starts making comments about my pleats!! "Pleats are soooo nineties..." Anyway, long story short, my outfit wasn't up to snuff, and it was almost 8:30 at this point, so I Phil and I were off and running to the nearest store... haha, the Fred Meyer. For those of you back east who've never heard of the place, basically this is Wal Mart on a bit bigger scale, and (at least from what I hear) better, err.... less hostile business practises. If any store could really be a one-stop-shop, this is it. They have EVERYTHING there.... yes, dress slacks, shoes, ties, belts... haha... and of course groceries, hardware, electronics.. really, you name it!

Ok, so wardrobe set we went back to the house and stayed up a bit later than I would have liked, but Kat had a really long day and was having some issues winding down that quickly. So we were up a bit, watched some Battlestar (yes, I got a few others hooked on the Battlestar) and hit the hay sometime around 12 or 1.

The hotel they put me up in for the night was very nice... I just happened to overhear the rate while checking in $199/night!!

So, yes, all the amenities, king size bed...


Little seating area w/ a coffee table and couch... the obligatory tv set (this one with a DVR) and a little desk and chair.


Marble counter-tops in the bathroom...


and shower...


and i realize while looking over these photos that I've let you all down and didn't get any shots of the hotel exterior, or what may become my new office building (across the parking lot from the hotel).... so, apologies... I may be back there and will post up some pics then.

So I wrote everything above last night shortly after the interview process had completed. It's a bit after 9am the next day (Friday) now and I'm hanging out in the hotel lobby/dining area waiting to meet up with one of my potential co-workers.... long story here... so...

here goes!

It's just after one of the longest days of my life (well, in the most recent past... like I've mentioned before, my life is totally cake right now :) and I'm sitting in the hotel, trying to wind down from over 4 hours of interviews, writing the last blog entry, making a few calls, thinking about what to do with the rest of the day. It's about 2pm at this point, lots of day left..... time to explore the town! So I hopped in the truck and headed out to... hehe, nowhere, anywhere... just drove about. Kirkland is a great little town. Heh, don't get me wrong when I say little, this is a suburb of Seattle, as is Redmond, and each is a kind of nexus of technology. Everyone around in the hotel is talking on the bluetooth about some new tech that they're in the process of implementing.... quite ethereal.

So I drive... and wind up taking a tour of downtown Kirkland. Very eclectic, lots of little shops all over, apartment buildings everywhere, and neighborhood everywhere else. I kept driving and wound up in downtown Redmond.... which is, to put it mildly, suburbia hell! Everywhere you look are very large neighborhoods, full of massive houses. I must have drove for 20 minutes or more before I saw a single shop, store, gas station or otherwise. I was actually a bit worried at this point because I was sooooo totally lost (which I knew would happen, but still...) and I didn't have a map of the area!! Oops. I Finally come across a gas station and pickup a good map, and find my way back to Kirkland.

On the way back to the hotel (after getting my bearings) I get a call from the hiring manager Renee who tells me that the hotel had some kind of an issue with my room and that I didn't check-in. Of course I'm totally lost on this because my room key is in my pocket, but anyway. We have a little chat and she tells me that she'll catch up with me later in the evening about the interviews (ok, good/bad, I had no idea at this point).

I get back to the hotel and the woman who checked me in apologizes, she apparently missed a click somewhere. Anyway, after that I headed back up to the room, totally expecting to settle in for the evening to writing a bit, sending some email and figuring out my plan for today at which point I realize that I'm probably in for a fairly boring evening. I head across the street and pickup a bit to eat and a drink and head back to the hotel and try to get into 'chill mode'. Turn on the tube, get on myspace, read the forums... still bored to tears.

Ok, the lounge downstairs looked nice... they had some glenlivet (sp?). A nightcap should set me up nice.... then I can head back up to the room and sleep like a baby on that huge king-size bed! Let's see... oh yeah, I'm talking with Wes about now about all the happenings in his life, and everyone else back east.. I get downstairs and see a few of the folks that had been walking about the office while I was interviewing... and one of the folks I went to lunch with. Everyone greeted me warmly, I told Wes I'd get back to him, and pulled up a chair.

So i'm sitting there, no idea how the interviews had really gone that day, talking with employees and just having a blast. Neat people, really neat. Oh, I suppose I should segway a bit. The office culture there is very... hmm, tech? Everyone interviewing me was in very 'business' attire. No one was in a suit, or tie for that matter, but it was all very... 'business'. There were folks walking by the window (ok, easily distracted) who were totally in flip-flops and ball-caps, long haired, ear-ringed folk who just didn't quite fit with the whole 'business' environment that I felt like I was in :) I'm not quite sure what to make of this at the time, but it turns out that all of these folk were employees, yes, some of the nice people that I'm now having a casual drink with.

Ok, so it's always interesting and quite fun to get the 'inside' scoop from employees who have been there for a while and I'm totally entertained by just sitting, listening and observing the interactions. The hiring manager, Reneee even wound up coming over for a bit and talking, and at some point in the course of conversation let me know that I'd done well on the interviews today and I should expect another person to contact me from Consona Corporate for a 'culture' interview!!

Nice! Hold back the smile, don't show how too much excitement... AWESOME.

The evening wound down and we lost Renee and Sean and (I know I'm going to get the spelling wrong, but here goes...) Nickala, another tech consultant -- but internal, and Dave, a senior database admin (yes, there's a Dave in every room... test it!) decide that it's dinner time. I'm totally not hungry, not an hour ago having consumed a bit of chain, grocery store sushi (yes, terrible considering the number of great seafood places in town, don't shoot me), but they coerce Casey and I, a really sweet gal from marketing, into headed out to Seattle for dinner and (another) cocktail.

All I can say is, especially considering that I totally expected to spend a boring evening in the hotel, watching tv and surfing the net, WOW... what a great time, good crowd and fun town! I have no idea how I'll do through the rest of the interview process (which has at this point been the longest I've ever been through... I have done a few long interviews, but this TOTALLY takes the cake) but I know that a night on the town, and a few new friends were totally worth the time.

Oh... yes, I realize you are all totally disappointed at the lack of pics in this post... ;( I left my data cable back at Kat and Phil's, So once again I'll have to ask you all to bear with me... I'll update sometime tomorrow with pics.

I suppose I should take some time now to figure out what my itinerary is going to be today :) So, until next time, adieu!

On the way to the market

So Olympia has one of the largest public farmer's markets in the area. Pretty awesome because you get direct, fresh from the grower / producer, goods and services! Phil and I went down there this morning to get some veggies and salmon. Yum!

They were pretty busy, there was a jazz band playing on stage and all kinds of people wandering about.

Kindof funny... we were leaving the bank (they don't take plastic at the farmer's market) and I just happened to look into my rearview and saw this crazy thing!


It's an old toyota camry... jacked up! So, I didn't escape the rednecks by moving away from TN :)

Here's a view from the dock near Swantown (the marina near the farmer's market).


It's the 'Port of Olympia'. Still a decently used shipyard... though it used to be the main port in the Northwest region it has since been outshined by Seattle.


It's been absolutely GORGEOUS out here. It did totally rain everyday the first 2 or 3 days I was here, but since then it's just been amazing. Unfortunately I haven't been riding much. I'll get out during the day once in a while and tool around town, but there really isn't much in the way of 'recreational roads'. At least not within an hour's ride. So, I'll probably save it for the track, after I get settled in a career that is :)

Oh... speaking of. I got a call back from the nice folks at Onyx and had a great conversation with their technical director. It looks like this company might just be the place for me. I'm headed to Bellvue later next week for the night for a few face-to-face interviews. We'll see!

All Cleaned up..

So I finally found a place to clean the vehicles! I had been running all over town in search of one of those DIY spray car-washes without any luck and Phil finally (yesterday) mentioned that there's a bloody hose on the side of our apartment complex!

After a bit of elbow grease I finally managed to get the truck nice and clean again. She was sooooo dirty from the trip. Maybe you all remember those pics I posted with the bugs? Ya, bug juiced bucket water... had to be changed twice during the wash!

Anyway, my babies are all better now!




We drove up to Kent, WA yesterday to visit with Phil's brother and wife. They were on their way through town after having spent a few months in a study abroad program.... We had an absolute blast listening to them talk about their experiences while traveling.

On the drive up we got some fantastic views of Mt. Rainier and I tried to get a shot w/ the camera... not much success, but you can barely make it out on the horizon in the next couple of shots...


It's such a dramatic sight... it's always a surprise to see such a HUGE artifact on the horizon that it never quite looks real!


We stopped at this really great little ale house for lunch that was in the middle of yuppie-ville. It reminded me of a miniature Redmond. If you've never been there, the whole town of Redmond is basically a shopping mall .. immaculately landscaped, everything in it's place... etc.






A local high-school was getting ready to perform in the main square sometime that afternoon. Looked like it might have been a good show, but it was after 5pm already, and we left before they got started.


Michael and Carly (Phil's brother and his wife) were absolutely a blast to hang out with. We all made tentative plans to get together a few more times over the summer and do some outdoorsy stuff. Great folk.

That evening (Saturday) we got out of the house for a bit and went over to a friend's house for a little gathering with a bonfire and cookout.

On the way out there we saw the most amazing sunset.... I sooo hate this little camera phone sometimes... but here's the attempt... the view is over Swantown, the marina where Phil and Kat used to have their sailboat... and where Phil does most of his diving.






They had some great tasting oysters... and there was an awesome trio there, mandolin, acoustic upright bass and a guitar... all part of a local 'blue/newgrass' band. Pretty sweet sounding tunes. Kat and I had our guitars and we stuck a few chords and sang around the fire half the night! Great times.

I met lots of new folks most of whom, ironically, were from back east! There were several from OH and one from Lexington, KY. After talking with a few folks someone finally made sense of it... the west coast is still in it's infancy compared to much of the east... having been settled by the 'white man' less than 200 years. Interesting bit of trivia :)