Week one of the new job is done. I haven’t met everyone on the new team yet, but the things I was impressed with in the interviews (mostly culture related) seem to be holding true. Adjusting my schedule to overlap with everyone in their different timezones is going more slowly than I’d like (getting over covid is probably related), but next week should be easier.
It’s a full stack engineering team with embedded QA. My limited front-end experience should make this more fun! Ha!
My husband and I were rear-ended this evening. It was not bad at all and it was at a terrible intersection so we drove nearly a quarter mile to find a safe parking lot to pull into. The young woman that hit us followed us all the way there. I looked at her as I put my mask on and my first thought was “she needs a hug.” I asked if I could give her a hug and she fully started sobbing.
It was hard to understand everything she was saying through her tears, but it seems she’s had a whole lot of bad luck recently.
We tried to calm her down. We tried to get her to reach out to someone that she knew. We tried to reassure her everything was going to be ok. In the end, I think the only thing we managed to do was to help her with the route to the house she was supposed to be delivering a DoorDash order to. I can’t help but wonder if I should have done more.
I really hope that young woman had a safe place to go home to tonight and good people that will answer when she calls.
I forgot about the “new job, new laptop” excitement! My new computer arrived yesterday. Hehe!
I’m looking forward to next week. (Fully expecting to need extra sleep as well.)
Enjoying the backyard for an unfortunate reason.
It’s been five years since my best friend passed away. I think she would hate for her digital legacy to be stuck on Facebook at this point, but that’s where it is. I can’t bring myself to log in over there to see if anyone else noted this anniversary so I hate that it’s there too.
I don’t really want to talk about the “big news” in the US, except to say that blaming/threatening the “radical left” when the shooter hasn’t been found doesn’t seem like the best course of action. Nor do I think that would make things better (by my definition of better) at any time.
Instead I’m going to post a picture of this little project I made to give away at a stitching event I’m going to with my sister this weekend.
This afternoon, my son and I went to watch the Hamilton recording that’s in movie theaters for a limited time. There were some scenes I hadn’t noticed, before which was surprising.
After all this time, the talent involved is still awe-inspiring.
Going to the movies on a Tuesday afternoon is a rare treat I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten to experience either.
My son sent a text saying that his new apartment has reached “the pile stage of organization” and asked for some help moving beyond that. ๐ฅฐ I’m looking forward to spending the day with him.
Many years ago, I was tasked with defining a new architecture for getting pricing data into all stores globally for a ~$50B company. As you’d imagine, they were pretty concerned about making sure this was done well so I had to get buy-in for my design from many, many teams. The first bunch of meetings I lead went well, but at some point I started feeling like I was repeating myself (I was, but not to those people!) and so I started omitting crucial details. Fortunately, one of my teammates was good about making sure any gaps in my explanations were filled.
I was reminded of this yesterday.
Last night was the final session of the latest core (woodworking) tools class I’ve been helping to run. The main tool we cover in that session is the table saw. It’s the tool that most* students are particularly worried about and the tool that most shop attendants are nervous about when it comes to newer woodworkers. The instructor I was working with for the class is usually very consistent. Usually. Last night though, he was highly focused on the final part of the process for making a rip cut on the table saw while glossing over other important details. It turns out he was recently helping a new woodworker that kept getting kickback because she wasn’t clearing the wood after the cut was finished. Fortunately, we’ve led this class together enough times that I felt quite comfortable filling the gaps.
Being consistent is hard. It’s good to have people you can trust to help.
*Last night, one of the students was having so much fun. “Wee, this cuts like butter!” I’m glad she was having fun. I reminded her (in different words) that wood isn’t the only thing those tools cut like butter. A little bit of anxiety is a good thing sometimes. (SawStops are good too.)
This happened a couple days ago.
Sixteen hundred days “studying” German. After all this time, I can often get a general sense of what people are saying in short social media posts and many articles, but my comprehension of anything spoken is quite low.
The other streak I have going is that I’ve been sewing or stitching something every single day since January 1st of either 2021 or 2022. I would need to look back at my planner to figure it out. I didn’t plan to do this, I had just worked on a sewing project every day for the first week that year, which turned into the first month, which turned into this. Two stitches done one night when I had COVID had to be ripped out the next day when I could get my eyes to focus, but I’m still counting them.
There are at least a couple other activities that I’d like to do daily. Maybe I’ll start treating them as streaks too.
Last night I was thinking about Joseph, Oregon which made me think of fresh tomatoes which made me think of BLTs which reminded me that this is the perfect time to get a BLT from my favorite local bakery. This may be all I want to eat between now and October 1st. Heaven!
Last Friday I heard from two different companies that I would most likely be getting job offers this week. There was a definite sense of relief Friday night.
Saturday though, I could barely keep my eyes open. I thought I might be getting sick, but I woke up from my fourth (!!!) nap finally feeling like myself.
By the end of the day Tuesday, I had two solid offers. Both at companies with people that greatly impressed me in the interviews, both at companies I had been referred to by people I would like to work with, both jobs I would almost certainly enjoy and continue to grow in. The titles are different, but not significantly. The pay is different, but not significantly. I am so grateful for this outcome, but also… saying no to something potentially great is really hard.
How did I choose? One of the companies had an interview process that gave me more time to ask questions of them. That led to a really great discussion about engineering culture, growth and trade-offs. It also led to having a better understanding of the people I would be leading and the struggles they are facing as a company. The other company had no red flags at all, I just didn’t get a chance to ask enough questions. Saying no to them was really painful.
Somehow it seems the emotions with accepting a new job have been more pronounced than those of being laid off 3 months ago. All that being said, I’ve accepted a new position with people I’m excited to work with! I need to celebrate!! ๐
First though, I think I’ll take a nap.
Tonight was the start of the 2025-2026 Broadway in Portland series for us with Some Like It Hot. It was a fun show. The costumes were incredible and there was a scene with doors that was really amazing.
The new(ish) collections feature on Micro.blog is a nice way to show all the program covers from the shows we’ve seen. I might play with that some more though.
The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility near Las Vegas is a sight to see.
Late summer in Portland translates to spiders. Lots of them! Orbweavers specifically, I think.
This wouldn’t bother me so much, except for the fact that I keep running into spider webs every time I walk outside. I’m fairly confident last week I had a huge spider dangling from my hair after walking through a web with my forehead and today I had a web stretch across my eyeballs. My eyeballs!!!
I didn’t know there was a Guinness World Record for walking on Lego bricks and I’m also not planning to attempt it. I was reminded how painful it is just yesterday! Bringing visibility to the struggles veterans face is a worthwhile goal, however.
Besides the obvious struggle of being laid off, the most difficult part of this is missing people. I’ve had 4 years to get to know and care about these people, many of them I spoke to just about every weekday. It’s weird to suddenly not have that!
One of the services the local woodworking guild offers is estate sales. When a member passes away or is moving, the guild has a team of volunteers that will come in and help the member/their family sell their woodworking tools and supplies for a reasonable price.
One of our members recently moved and wasn’t going to have space at his new home for a shop. We went to the sale to acquire a floor-standing drill press. Our existing tabletop one is fine, but so tiny! When my husband backed his Chevy Bolt into the driveway to load our new drill press, the reaction from all the volunteers was pretty funny but they all jumped in to help and it worked out just fine.
One of the things in the shop that was NOT for sale, however, was this gorgeous handmade clock.
Having my daughter back at home has been great for many reasons, but one unexpected bit of fun is that this the first time in nearly 30 years that I’ve lived with someone else that likes coffee.
My parents both drank a lot of coffee and so did all of their children. There were fights over someone not making a fresh pot if they finished off the last of the coffee in my childhood home. My kids were never interested in coffee (and it wasn’t something I wanted to push), but college life resulted in coffee drinking!
It’s great to have someone else to sit and enjoy a nice hot drink with in the morning. It’s also nice to have someone else that understands. ๐
I have a drip coffee maker that I pull out when people (my caffeine addicted sister, mostly) stay with us. I thought I’d switch away from my AeroPress with having another person here drinking coffee every day, but I haven’t. The couple moments of joy that come with making that delicious cup of coffee every morning are too compelling. โ โ โ
Heather Cox Richardson’s short history of the Nineteenth Amendment is just as good as you’d expect.
There are good ways to interview people and not so good ways to interview people.
It’s nice to be able to take a walk through one of my favorite places on a weekday morning.
I hadn’t wandered through the bamboo garden before today. This sculpture was a nice treat.
This past Friday marked a decade since we moved to Portland Oregon and this house. While it was obviously nice to be able to walk down the hill and put my feet in the Pacific Ocean before, the whole family has really thrived in Oregon. It was a good decision.
Our new-college-grad daughter moved back in this week while she figures out what her next steps will be. Finding space for much of the stuff from her apartment is going to be interesting, but at the moment the house feels a little chaotic. As my husband said, “There’s almost space to live in this house.”
Having her home is a real treat though so I’ll take the chaos!
I lucked out in the marriage department. Twenty one years ago I married a sweet, intelligent, adorable human that still makes me want to be a better version of myself.
Did I mention he’s adorable?!
