Smooth sailing

I'm near the end of my second week at my new job and it's going well. There are plenty of rush jobs that are shared among my team of 3 (and sometimes 4) other people in my group. I'm enjoying the people I work with and haven't met a mean or unfriendly person yet. For now, I do enjoy it and I have an easy 30 minute commute by Metrolink.  I feel very fortunate to have gotten this job and to have nice co-workers and managers who are generally very patient. I even have a day off, which allows me to handle other important things that I may have to do. I also get to learn of all the exciting new building projects and studies happening around LA County. I'd always hoped that LA would be more pedestrian friendly and that seems to be happening.

Gratitude

Today I woke up to some exciting news: I got that job I interviewed for last week! Looking back, almost didn't apply to it because I saw another job posting for that same company that I didn't think I was qualified for - and didn't even notice they had another position that I was qualified for. Fortunately, I was contacted by the hiring manager who sent me links to both positions and encouraged me to apply.  

I'm still waiting for a call from the HR department to get more info on filling out forms, pay rates, and when I'd start working, so I don't want to discuss too much about the position until all that's settled. For now, the job offer was extended and I've accepted it - which is really the best thing to happen in awhile.  This may interfere with helping out at the Gas Company, but I haven't heard back from them yet either.

This came just in time because I had to pay for nearly $300 in services on my car and another $100 for registration. Fortunately, this position won't require me to drive, though it may require late hours and weekend hours. That might not be so bad because it's near an area of LA that I enjoy hanging out in: Little Tokyo! I'm excited and grateful for this new opportunity.

Happy March!

That part time position didn't end up working out as I'd hoped it would, not that I didn't try to make it work. I've been back in the job market since around mid January and things have been better lately since I've been getting calls back for interviews. Another nice thing was that one of the hiring managers who asked me to apply to a position thought I was asking for too little.

That's a nice change from the part time job that was thinking I was asking for too much. I generally try to stay within a certain range because I know the job market is pretty crowded at the moment. I'm not sure if moving to an area where jobs are more plentiful would be as helpful, just because they probably have a larger pool of applicants to choose from.

I attended the wedding of my brother's good friend to his long time girlfriend. It was an enjoyable event and the banquet was held at a very cool place near a marsh in Irvine called The Duck Club. Though the wedding was very quickly planned, it was a long time in the making. The bride and groom had known and dated each other long before they'd met my brother and definitely balanced each other out.

After attending the wedding and reception, I went with a friend to a birthday celebration for a mutual friend (who are also BRMC fans) at restaurant in Silver Lake called the Desert Rose. They served very tasty Middle Eastern food and we were out on the patio area. I got an eggplant soup with a falafel in the middle. It was tasty, but not a full meal. I also had a chocolate gelato, which was good too.

So far, this has been an abnormally warm March. Maybe I just forget how warm it is usually, but another thing that may or may not be related is that gas prices are sky high - currently over $4 in OC and over $5 in LA and SF. It almost makes me not want to go anywhere for awhile, though that would change if I got a job - which I hope to do soon. 

Hacked, suspended, annoyed

My other blog is currently offline due to some hacker/phisher in Brazil putting phishing sites and sending spam through my site. My web host accused me of violating their anti spam policy and suspended my account. I explained the situation to them and still haven't heard back about getting it reinstated. At this point, I'd rather not use them anymore. My original host was bought out by them and I just somehow ended up with them. I only found out about the phishing site because of someone at CloudFlare sending me a message about it. It's been on there for at most a couple weeks without me knowing.

Another thing is I ended up quitting the part time job I just got because it wasn't giving me any actual web design or development experience. Though I also didn't want to work with the person who hired me anymore. My last week was pretty bad and the following week was much better because I decided quitting would be better than staying. The whole thing with my other blog being down is bad because I'm back in the job market and a professional looking blog is actually pretty useful. Oh well, maybe I should take a break. There are some classes I'd like to start soon that may help me in finding better work.

Finally, a new job!

After more interviews than I care to remember, I finally got a part time web position working on Styles For Less's ecommerce site. Given my slight online shopping addiction, this is a bit of irony. Though they do have good prices and some cute clothes, I'm more interested in selling stuff right now than buying.

Anyways, it's going to be interesting working on a website for a company that I normally associate with retail fashion. I'm no expert in either online or retail fashion stores, so I guess it'll be a good place to learn about those types of businesses. So far, I really only know about the website and haven't even met most people in the company.

I'm currently enrolled in 4 online courses in web programming (ASP, Oracle, Javascript/AJAX, and Web 2.0). I think I should drop the AJAX class because the book looks like it's not so good and perhaps it wouldn't be as good as learning on the job. Anyways, even 3 online classes seems a bit much. Perhaps I should keep them all, but I think it probably would be better to only take 3 max.

Holidays were a bit stressful because of the job search, but spending time with family was nice since my sister was visiting and her kids can be fun to talk to. I didn't see many friends despite being invited to a few parties. Partly because of the job situation and partly because there were conflicts with other events.

At least having part time work will get me both experience and decent pay while leaving me time to do other things like take classes and continue with my own online selling. Having more time is good, but I'm also hoping the whole disability review won't cause me to lose my Social Security. If it does, then I hope I can do well enough at my current job to get full time.