I start my job with the iTunes Store on May 3rd ... What a long strange trip it's been

ms

Welcome back first of all.

And nah, we don't ban Apple employees here. Otherwise Hugo (altman) would have been banned a while back.

Congrats on the new job.

Hey, we let Tony hang around here after he went over to the Dark Side in Redmond. I think you're safe...

tanstaafl.

Life is like that. We make the littlest of decisions and end up in the strangest of places.

So what else happened on the trip

Hey all ... Sorry I've been gone for so long! It occurred to me that when I left my last job (see http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/239403/1 ), I talked about it on here, so it felt right to come back again.

As far as the rest of the trip: I've been doing the small company thing for about 5 years now, and it was a great decision -- tons of fun. I've been doing WebObjects, Cocoa, iPhone, etc etc development, and the last year or so on contract with Apple. I decided I wanted to give it a shot as an employee, and off I go

How's everyone been doing for the last 5 year?!

Jonesin' for a version of Jemplode with all the bugs worked out

Let's see...

Changed jobs, moved to a new state, got married, bought a house 6 months before the market sunk, lost the job a year after buying the house and two days before discovering we'd be having a baby, sat around for 4 months, got a new job, had the baby, lost the job a month later, sat around and played with baby for 5 months, got yet another new job a month ago.

In a nutshell.

In other words, doing well.

Did your wife give birth to a porcupine?

Can they survive 3 months premature?

Certainly he gests!

Heh. In the interest of brevity, I left out certain details, such as that I spent 5 months at the new job (telecommuting... hello working on the back deck), before the baby was born.

But that does raise an interesting question... are porcupines born with quills, and if so, what happens if the baby is breech?

Got married in 2006 (high school sweetheart from 45 years ago!), saw the crash coming and cashed in my 401K and sold my house in 2007, bought property in Mexico in 2008, retired and moved to Mexico in 2009. Sitting on my deck and loving the view in 2010 (see attached photo).

Four of us went out to dinner two weeks ago, best restaurant in town, specializing in Argentinian beef. Filet Mignon all around, drinks, tip, everything... came to 600 pesos. Don't do the conversion unless you want to be depressed.

tanstaafl.

Bought a second empeg as a spare, sent it to Mark Lord for major customization works; bought a house in 2006 in Rome, renewed it and, piece by piece, am still renewing it. Bough a bigger motorbike in 2007.
Had mlord over in 2008 .
In 2009, a devastating Earthquake in my hometown got me reconsider value of life; family and friends are alive, but not all friends' friends or families.
No job changes, but made some carrier that meant some more money a lot more headache, and zero time left.
This made me mostly a lurker here, but still would never give up reading the empeg bbs once in a while.
In 2009 I also installed an alpine+ipod in my car and left my empegs at home, leaning to dislike both the alpine gui and the ipod overall. But, before I move back to the in-car empeg, I should decide whether it is time to change car or not.
Good to read you back!

Edit:
few dates wrong and forgot the earthquake. Freudian, I guess.

Hi, everybody! I am back, too.

Nothing essential happened in these quarters; no kids, no new marriages, houses, jobs... New Honda Civic Type S, though, without room for empeg. iPod Classic 160GB pressed to try and fill the void; better than nothing. The guy who installed the adapter and pretty cleverly hid the pod while leaving it accessible has to learn few things more about ground loops (alternator whine, but also hard-drive spin-up and seek noise).

Bonzi! How are things in Croatia these days?
And how do you like the Civic Type S?

Heh, you can imagine.... We just had the first instance of a former deputy prime minister landing in jail on corruption charges (there might be more). Political life resembles a movie by Bunuel after a screenplay by Ionesco. But we survive...


Quite. Zippy, still comfortable. I am not particularly sporty driver, so the car's abilities are never used to their full extent. But I can tell you, driving to Milano in it is completely different experience than doing that in Twingo.

I can easily believe you.
I can't decide whenther i like the new civic type s instruments or not, but it is indeed very sci-fi

Yeah, especially at night, with Garmin at the top center and iPod peeking from below the central cup holder. I can tell I am getting used to a sporty car - I am looking more at the rev meter than the speed.

This is a nice thread we have going, actually. My five years:

2006 - Moved to new job at a law firm in DC, as IT admin.
2007 (June-July) - Got married, followed by a dream honeymoon in Italy. Moved into my first home with my wife, living together for the first time. Virtually no problems with that and it's been wonderful.
2007 (October) - laid off from job at the law firm, went into business for myself doing in-home and small business tech support, and loving being my own boss.
2009 (May) - Lost my father to a five year battle with cancer.
2009 (November) - helped my mom move out of the family home of 25 years but into a place that's perfect for her
2010 - looking forward to a better year.

5 years. Hmm, lets see...

Started out still working at HP, in a dead end position. My options were stay on a life sucking weekend/12 hour shift, move "up" to a senior position with a 22% paycut, or leave the company. Ended up finding work in the games industry and did a total change of profession from hardware to the software side of things. This also involved moving away from the city I grew up in and down into the crazy land of Austin. Spent 3 years working for a well established MMO company, then switched gears slightly and went to a smaller new company with a bit more responsibility. Been there a year now, with lots of work still in front of me, but overall pretty happy with the way things have turned out. Been really enjoying Austin and it's culture, and look forward to many more years here.

I pretty much just went from one dead-end job to another. I can't wait for the economy to turn around so I can feel like I'm learning something again.

Wow -- completely forgot to mention the SOOORTT of important "had two kids" I was focusing on the "work life" side. I had a son (Andrew) Aug 2005, and a daughter (Olivia) Dec 2007 ... Having kids is the most annoying awesome thing ever

Right around the time of your big decision to change gears career-wise, I was making a similar decision of my own. I had been doing software development at a large financial services company for 5.5 years and was pretty much tired of it, so I got my resume out there, and was fortunate enough to get an interview with and eventually a job offer from the Software Engineering Institute. It involved leaving behind a lot of friends and moving across the state, but I accepted the offer, and 5+ years later, I'm certain I made the right decision.

I still miss my hometown and many of the people there, but the new job is orders of magnitude more rewarding and challenging, and life outside of work is more fulfilling as well. I met the love of my life soon after I moved here, and we got married last July.

So, life has been pretty good since reaching for the brass ring in late 2004. Glad yours has been good, too!

Last 5 years:

June 2006 - Got married
Feb 2007 - Moved house
May 2008 - Had Charlie, now aged almost-two.
Mar 2010 - Quit my job; lined up a new one, taking some time off because of...
Mar 2010 - Had Alice, now aged 7 days.

Congratulations! That's wonderful!

Alice, welcome to the world, and among empeggers!

Erm, 5 years you say....

Well, I changed jobs in October 2005. But other than that, nothings really changed.

Five years ago, May 2005, within a 24 hour window, I got tenure and became a father. It's all been something of a blur since thereafter, but without any major life-changing events.

Hmmm - five years... I am in the same job, only more seniority, more pay, more hours, less holiday, responsibility for 100-odd folks in 18 countries...

Faster car, which is nice - I gave the Impreza Turbo PPP to SWMBO and got a faster beast!

Expanded the family - had another daughter, so now have had 3 kids since getting my empeg.

Moved two doors down to a bigger house on the same street.

Oh, and have my mid-life crisis in full swing:

have got a bike after 25 years away from riding - Yamaha 750 Super Tenere

the rock band is doing well, we now have the album (Alkomatic) finally mastered, and the release date fixed at 6 June. Gigging around UK - big London show in September at Club Antichrist

Will you near Manchester/Leeds any time soon? Be good to get a Empeg mini-meet going!

I will have to do that - I keep meaning to make it down for one of the Northern UK Security Group meetings, and I have a team member in Manchester who I am responsible for so I really should pop down and see her at some point as well.

Let me plan - oh, and if there are any events in your neck of the woods early summer/late spring, let me know and I'll try and make things coincide.

We have been thinking about Leeds gig - just don't know enough folks in the music industry there.