About 4 hours after I got the “thanks but no thanks” from Atlanta, I got a call from the consulting company in Austin. The consulting position I interviewed for last week is a “go”. We’re trying to schedule a start date right now, probably 9/11 (same day that M&E close on their new house).

So, now we’re looking for extended stay places in Austin. The plan is to use one of them for the short term. Even though it’s a lot more expensive than plain rental, it does give us time to look for apartments. The plan is hotel for a couple of days, then extended stay for a month or so, then an apartment for a couple of months. We don’t want to jump into a house since we want to make sure that (a) we like Austin and (b) I have a stable enough job situation. (The consulting gig is short term…could be a month, could be longer…you know how that goes.)

Right now we’re looking at a departure date (from Chicago) of mid next week (9/6).

Just got an e-mail from the company in Atlanta…they went with someone else. Under “normal” conditions I might be pissed, but I’m very glad. The thought of working hard at a company with little direction didn’t exactly thrill me. Like I said before, if it was in Austin, I’d jump at it. However, it was not worth moving to Atlanta for. Honestly, I think they realized that they just need a plain Network Admin for now, until they get their act together. Either way, it worked out for the best.

We finally got our move stuff from Puerto Rico…after 8 weeks! It’s now safe and sound in our storage units, along with all of our other stuff. I’m really glad that this part of our adventure is over, as it was preventing us from moving forward.

We got back from our road trip on Sunday, putting on 3,780 miles! So far, we’ve put close to 8,000 miles on the car–in one month. Needless to say, I’m a bit tired of driving. In total, our route was this:

Chicago > Atlanta
Atlanta > Gatlinburg, TN
Gatlinburg, TN > Atlanta
Atlanta > Vicksburg, MS
Vicksburg, MS > Austin
Austin > Pauls Valley, OK*
Pauls Valley, OK > Springfield, MO
Springfield, MO > Chicago

(*Pauls Valley wasn’t an overnight stop. We stopped there for a couple of hours so that Ev could check out the Action Figure Museum.)

The blog has been down a couple of days because the server failed. Luckily, my hosting company had recent backups. However, the original restore wasn’t successful, so it appears that they had to try again. Anyhow, things appear to be working again, though I need to do some more checking.

Let’s see…what else….The interview on Thursday went fine. I have to put together a Statement of Work and send it off to them. I’ll work on that today (spent yesterday recovering…and a bit sick). I should hear back from them sometime next week (after Labor Day). Haven’t heard anything from the Atlanta people, which is fine, since I don’t want that job.

On Friday we toured around Austin, this time toward the south. There are two gigantic outlet malls about 30 miles south. One is boring (for me, at least)…lots of clothes and shoes. The other is more interesting…lots of cooking and housewares. If we move down here, its a good place to pick up nice stuff for the house.

On Friday we also checked out a couple of the smaller towns. Pretty nice day trips…antiques, arts & crafts, etc. Think of Long Grove in IL except more Texan.

We also checked out some of the used bookstores in the area (we had checked new last time). Austin has the Half Priced Book chain. At first I was skeptical, thinking it was just a bunch of remainders. However, I was very surprised to find a huge selection of just about everything. We’re talking a used bookstore the size of a K-Mart–and there 2 in town! Austin is a good place to be if you are a reader, that’s for sure. We picked up a couple of books, including a rare book on conditions in Puerto Rico–circa 1938.

On Saturday we left Austin and headed up to Pauls Valley, OK to check out the Action Figure and Toy Museum. If you are in the area (or not), be sure to check it out. We spent about and hour looking at everything and another two hours talking to the curator. I’m sure that Ev will write up more details on the experience. Anyhow, even though the museum has recently opened, it has a lot more stuff than I expected, and is adding new stuff all the time.

Saturday night was our halfway point, and we stopped in Springfield, MO. (Five hours from TX to OK, three hours at the museum, five hours from OK to MO.) The ride into Springfield was very nerve wracking. THe MO drivers suck ass (it being a weekend, it was even worse, with all the ”Sunday” drivers) and there were gigantic storms all around us–I was waiting for the tornado! 

In the end, we really lucked out. The huge storm that was behind us (west) was so bad that the interstate was closed due to flooding…plus we had bad storms to our left (north) and right (south). Basically, we were driving in the only clear section–which, lucky for us, followed the interstate. So, we got the the hotel at around 9 PM without a drop of water (though it rained during the night).

Sunday was the drive back up to Chicago. It was a pretty straight shot, with a little rain around Springfield, IL, but not enough to slow us down. We really were blessed with good weather. During our entire trip it rained a total of an hour while we were driving. Can’t complain about that.

So now we’re just recovering, and I’ll be working on my proposal today. Once I send that off it will be a waiting game.

And speaking of waiting…we finally got a call from the movers yesterday (Monday). Our stuff is going to be delivered on Friday–more than 8 weeks in transit! As an added kick-in-the-nuts they want us to pay an additional $75 to deliver in Palatine since it’s “out of the city”–even though Palatine is only 8 miles further than my parents house!

I was just about ready to make them deliver to my parents house, since they’d have to come down the Dan Ryan Expressway, and that’s down to 1 lane for most of the way. (For those who don’t know the Ryan–it would take the moves about an hour to go to Palatine, but 3 hours to get to the south side.)

Needless to say, the lack of communication, and the every changing rates — not to mention charging by the box — has really soured us to Pan American Express as movers. It’s a pretty typical situation–the actual guys doing the moves are great, but the back office is full of assholes who would rather lose future business than $75. Go figure.

Anyhow, hopefully everything will be intact and put in storage on Friday. Then we can feel better moving forward with a move to Austin–after all, we needed a bunch of stuff in that move to go to Austin (all my cooking equipment, etc). While on the road we saw a moving company that only does small moves, so we’re going to check them out. (We’ve got a lot of boxes, but we don’t have a house worth of furniture, so we don’t need a big mover like North American.)

Tomorrow (Sat) morning we’re leaving Austin and heading back to Chicago. We’re first going to stop in Oklahoma to check out the Action Figure Museum, which is about 5 hours away from Austin. We’ll visit that for a couple of hours and then head over to Springfield MO, which is another 5 hours of driving. We’re going to spend the night in Springfield MO and then on Sunday morning do the final leg up to Chicago (about 8 hours). So, we should be back in Chicago Sunday evening.

We just arrived safely in Austin Texas. I have my interview tomorrow morning, then we’ll be exploring that afternoon and on Friday. This time we’re going to check out the towns to the south of Austin. Right now we’re going to relax after a long ride (9.5 hours door-to-door, including breaks), have some dinner, and then drive by the location of tomorrow’s interview.

We’re spending the night in Vicksburg Mississippi, since it’s pretty much in the middle of the route between Atlanta and Austin. Our hotel is right on the Mississippi River–across the river is Louisana, which we’ll be driving through tomorrow.

Spent the afternoon driving around the town a bit. They have really worked to revitalize the area. There are well marked driving tours, the old downtown has been fixed up (though dead on a weeknight), and it’s pretty easy to get around. We took a quick drive through the battlefield park (run by the national park service) and it’s really very impressive. If you have an interest in the Civil War, it’s a nice place to spend a day or two.

Before we hit the road tomorrow, we’ll probably drive around the battlefield a bit more, since there is a lot to see. The we head west again, through Louisana (along I-20) and then into Texas. We should be there in the late evening.

We’ll be in Austin Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights–leaving Saturday morning. From there we’ll probably head up to Oklahoma City (our previous route to Fort Smith meant we did not go though the city). There is an Action Figure museum south of OC, which is why we’re taking that “detour”.

We drove down from Gatlinburg, TN to Atlanta, GA this morning. Total trip time, about 4 hours. We would have made better time if the traffic around Atlanta hadn’t been so horrible. We blew at least 1/2 an hour just in stop-and-go traffic. Got to Atlanta on time, so we were able to check into the hotel early and relax a bit before my 2nd interview.

Had the second interview this afternoon. It went okay, but I’m much less happy about the position. Not enough clarity on where the company is going. If it was in Austin, I’d consider it, but it’s not good enough for us to go to Atlanta instead of Austin.

Tomorrow we’re heading out again. This time to Austin. We were originally thinking of doing it in one shot, but it’s just too long (about 15 hours, in good weather). So we’ll stop at Vicksburg, MS tomorrow night (434 mile trip). Then we finish the leg from Vicksburg to Austin on Wednesday (547 miles). We’ll be in Austin for three nights–planning on leaving Saturday morning. From there? Who knows.

Ev and I were walking back to our hotel from dinner and spotted a bunch of people pointing and crying out. Lo-and-behold, there was a full-sized black bear in the hotel parking lot!

 

 

Well, I just got an e-mail from one of the consulting companies in Austin. One of their clients wants to interview me for a SQL/Access Developer job this coming Thursday. Augh! First I hear nothing, and now I get two opportunities at once!

Here’s my dilemma: The job in Atlanta seems very interesting–right up my alley: Running their data center, helping them with growing their business, etc. The Austin job isn’t quite so interesting, but it’s in Austin, which is the place we’ve liked the most (from what we’ve seen). Here are the pros and cons, as I know them now:

Atlanta

Pros: Good paying, play a critical roll in company, mostly telecommute, excellent benefits, full-time employee, lots of jobs (IT and defense) in Atlanta.
Cons: Very small startup-like company (not sure of longevity, though they are profitable), it’s in Atlanta–a place we’re okay, but not overjoyed, with.

Austin

Pros: Good paying, less responsibility, would give us a good income while looking for a betting fitting job, it’s in Austin–a town we really liked.
Cons: Benefits are okay, not a full-time employee, job is okay but doesn’t really use many of of my skills (which can be a pro or a con).

So that’s where I’m at now. I really shouldn’t think too much about it, at least until I have the 2nd interview in Atlanta on Monday and then the 1st interview in Austin on Thursday. Regardless, it’s tough not to be torn.

I feel very lucky that my skills are in demand, but there are enough unknowns to make me queasy. My “perfect” jobs? The Atlanta position in Austin. Ah well, what can you do? Comments are welcome.