Tag Archive for 'minneapolis'

What’s Up, JK?

Published
by
jk
on September 9, 2007
in Personal
. Comments

For those who want the facts, quick and to the point:

  • I have given my two weeks notice at MoCo, Inc here in Minneapolis, MN.
  • I have a job as a Research Programmer at NCSA, in Urbana, Illinois.
  • Putting two and two together, you get four. Also, a lovely return trip to Champaign in two weeks.
  • Looking for housing until I find an apartment… anyone? I’ll… do some stuff for you… Cook/clean? Large wads of cash?
  • I hope to squeeze in a visit to Cincinnati before starting work, to visit family and friends, as well as pick up more of my junk. (Books, books, and more books.)
  • There is no strict date as to when I start the Research Programmer position.
  • I have bought the iPhone, after the price cut of the year. It’s definitely the best gadget-y device I’ve ever owned. It’s got it’s problems though.
  • Starting next month, the monthly reviews will return. I’m pretty sure things will finally become more settled down.
  • I’m suffering from pain in my left wrist. I have a feeling it’s carpal tunnel. Will need to find a doctor soon… but insurance doesn’t kick it until… I start the new job. Wee.
  • The reason for the “Crap crap crap crap” post was definitely due to the job situation. Hopefully that clears up a few things.

Quickie on the iPhone

As expected, most of this weekend was spent on tweaking and messing around with the iPhone. Definitely a treat for the UI-inclined nerd I am.

  • I love how the phone vibrates/makes a sound when I get any email or text. It’s another way of being notified. Growl is good, but this is much sleeker; having a physical feedback. Now if someone could hack it to display some other data while it’s plugged in, like a dashboard of sorts for everything, rather than having to click on things: A quick summary of everything you need to know.
  • I love having a third screen now that occupies my desk. The screen usage varies from having my email up to listening to music.
  • I don’t like the UI inconsistencies that are all over the place. Oh, it’s much much more put together than any cellphones out there, but for a phone that’s been dubbed the “JesusPhone”, I expected more. But alas, human engineering can only go so far… I’ll probably write more on this as things annoy the crap out of me more and more.
  • Every time I see this phone, I feel like it’s getting smaller and smaller. I’m not sure why. It’s the darn designers at Apple… they somehow made the thing seem feel smaller with each use. It seems that the iPhone got a bit of the Reality Distortion Field from Jobs.
  • The phone portion of the iPhone is great. Calls are clear, and I get more bars than my Samsung phone from where I live. No more running outside for phone calls.

Life’s a Journey

Published
by
jk
on August 17, 2007
in Personal
. Comments

Cuz if it was a destination, I’d be completely lost. But the state of being lost is sometimes quite freeing.

Of course, I would love to cut to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”… Yeah, I can’t get it out of my head either. It’s such a great song.

Where I've Been

Sidenote: I got surprised about the $3M buyout of the “Where I’ve Been” by TripAdvisor. Yeap, turns out it’s nothing.

After 17… seventeen years in the states… these are the states I’ve touched (and one province from going over Niagara Falls). You know, I’ve done a huge circle.

For the 80th time, I am currently employed at MoCo, Inc. in sunny-right-now-but-it’ll-snow-soon-enough Minneapolis, Minnesota. Today concluded my first week of a full-time job. Tiring, but definitely something new.

Thankfully, I was able to find two nice roommates with a house about 4 miles north of my job. Let me take you back to some of the happenings that led up to this.

The Hunt

After finding out that there would be some kind of relocation assistance from the company, I left Amir’s place in Madison, Wisconsin for the second time and headed up.

The journey was yet another 6 hours of driving. There was a nice 6 hour drive from Champaign to get to Madison. Plus the 4 hours it took to get there from Cincinnati. If I ever wanted to go back home this route… it would take me a full day’s drive. At least, I’ll get to visit some people on the way back down.

There were a couple of places I found through Craigslist. I found a group of buildings that were owned by this lovely management group, but wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods. I wanted to live as close to the city as possible, probably because I had this really Romantic notion of the “city”. Of course, I don’t really do too much of that to begin with, so I don’t know why I was fooling myself.

Another place was about 30 minutes West of the city, lodged in between the millions of lakes here in Minnesota. Rent was cheap… but location wasn’t too good.

All throughout this time, I was getting situated in the city… soon finding out that the streets of Minneapolis is crazy. The numbering system for the streets are a little bit more sane than St. Paul (they tell me that city was designed by drunk Irishmen), but naming streets as numbers followed by a “Street” or “Avenue” which were also followed by a compass heading (1st Ave N & 1st St N… it doesn’t help that the abbreviation of street is the same as the “st” following the 1…) wasn’t too helpful either. I just went ahead and said screw it to the numbers, and went off of the streets that had names… like Hennepin and Washington.

Streets of Minneapolis

Right. So I ended up ending the search at this very suburban city called Columbia Heights.

The Job

It’s a nice small company, just like how I like them. Quickly, I learned the names of all my coworkers in the web development department. Going out to lunch everyday with them really helped in this process. I think I’m going to keep doing that… even though previous budget would freak out.

The building has a great view of Minneapolis, even though I have to stand from my cubicle to see it. I’m growing to like cubicles, as long as they’re low like these: They definitely create pockets of productivity now and then.

I like what we’re working on, and that we’re developing things in the B2C side. I also like how I’m learning more and more of the stuff that I believe in.

Closing

Looks like this might be pretty good for a while. I don’t know for how long… it could be short, it could be long… but it’s fine the way things are.

Kinda. You’ll see what I mean in the next posts to come.

Must Resist… iPhone

Published
by
jk
on August 9, 2007
in Personal
. Comments

For those just tuning in, here’s the skinny:

  • Trying to find an apartment, searching for a motel, navigating around the city, trying to keep up with my feeds and blog updates…
    • All would be amazingly easy with a revolutionary Internet communication device. And a phone that isn’t a little broken.
  • I’m not in Cincinnati, OH. Nor am I in Champaign-Urbana, IL. Nor in Madison, WI. I was in all of those places… Nor the Valley. I am, indeed, in Minneapolis, MN.
  • I start work on Monday with MoCo.

Thankfully, Minneapolis is working on a city wide Wi-Fi program. (I think it helped during the bridge collapse: Wi-Fi network eases rescue operations I gave them $10 for me to enjoy the sweet sweet tubes for the next 24 hours. Libraries are good, too, for the tubes.

I guess this is all you’re going to get for a little bit. I was so dead tired yesterday, I think I went to bed at 10 and woke up at 7. But definitely well rested.

Might have to write the N00b’s guide to Minneapolis…