Sheep Guarding Llama

I slept in again this morning.  Dominica was up before me.  The girls came in and said “oh no, no snuggles” and climbed into bed with their iPads and hung out with me for a while.  They love getting to do that.  We get a lot of hanging out time that way, just the three of us.

I got up and spent the majority of the day working on going through the book on Python programming that I had started yesterday afternoon.  This is a major learning project in a very short time.  Dominica did laundry today and we were going to spend the day packing in between me working on Python but we were out of packing tape and Dominica was not motivated to go to the store to get any more.  So tomorrow is going to be a really intense packing day, I am afraid.

It was dark and rainy all day today.  No sun at all.  This encouraged Dominica to make it a day to stay at home.

I went up to the attic to get boxes and stuff to pack in the cargo van on Monday, but when I was going up the stairs the left hand side metal piece that holds the stairs ripped off.  Three bolts sheared off (we never found the missing parts, no idea where they went or maybe they were missing before) and the main bolt came loose!  Thankfully the stairs did not collapse, it just scared me as everything went flying and now we have to deal with repairing the stairs.  One more thing to deal with in the very limited time that we have between now and when we intend to move out of this house (which is, in theory, as early as late December!)

Since we are almost out of groceries in the house, we ordered in Chinese delivery for dinner.  We really like the Chinese place that we have discovered here.  We use them at least once a week now.  So handy that we can order online – easy, fast and no confusion and we are even able to pay ahead of time.  We love it.  That option alone makes us choose them over the alternatives.  It saves them money too, in addition to winning them customers.

The girls watched Night at the Museum again today.  Well Liesl did.  Luciana made it farther than she did last night but part way through she came upstairs to play Baby Bus games on the iPad in my room with me while Liesl watched it again.  When that movie was over we all watched Night at the Museum 2: Battle at the Smithsonian together.  Liesl liked it just as much as the first one and Luciana, who actually made it through the entire movie, loved it too.  These were great choices.  I am surprised that we went so long without getting these movies for them.  We had sort of forgotten about them.

After that Luciana went to bed.  Liesl stayed up for a little while to work on her storyboard for the book that she wants to make from the book making kit that my dad got her for Christmas.  She has been working on that for days.  So Dominica and I caught up on Brooklyn Nine Nine, New Girl and The Mindy Project while Liesl worked on that.

It’s Friday and I am pretty much taking the day off to just spend time with the family outside of the core job hunting duties that take up my time.  The girls really missed me and want to spend a lot of time together.  They had sneaked into our room last night and slept with us, so we stayed in bed late and snuggled much of the morning.

I was told that I would get feedback on my Wednesday interviews either yesterday or, more likely, today.  But I went all day and did not hear a single thing.  Not a good sign.  I hate that companies do this.  Making decisions on hiring should not take a long time.  If they know that they want me, say so.  If they know that they do not, say so.  If it takes more than a quick discussion to make a decision then you are waiting too long and the memory of the person starts to fade and the hiring process gets very sloppy, very quickly.  Considering the cost, both in raw money and in people time, to bring me out to Seattle for the week, it seems like keeping on top of the process would be a high priority.

I had a call with another company at noon today.  That one scheduled a first round technical interview for Monday morning.  This is a really tough one so I am going to be spending the weekend preparing for that interview.

I talked with several companies today, it was very productive.  Amazing that there is so much happening still in December.

We decided that we are going to have a cargo van run up to dad’s place early next week to drop a load of our stuff that we get packed up over the weekend and then pick up our stove from Dominica’s parents’ house on the way back so that Art can install it when he is here next weekend.  That is going to make for a really busy week especially if the Monday interview goes well because if that one goes well we are anticipating that I will be going to California as early as Friday for more interviews.  We have a lot going on in a very short amount of time.

I was very busy all day working on Python stuff.  I’ve been reading some of my Python books from my extensive library.  I am happy to be doing programming so much again.  I love getting to program but get to do it so seldom.

This evening we tried to get Liesl to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark but had very little luck getting her interested in it.  We finally settled on Night at the Museum which turned out to be a huge hit.  By the end, Liesl declared it to be her favourite movie of all time!  Well that was a good idea.  I can’t believe that we have not watched it before now.  I guess that we just forgot about it.  Dominica and I have always really liked that movie.  Luciana decided not to watch it and went upstairs to have her alone time and just played games on the white iPad (the iPad 2.)  The girls have been getting new Baby Bus games all week and both of them have been addicted to playing them.  So she was content to have time to herself to play her games.

I was up pretty early this morning, around five.  That gave me a lot of time in the hotel room to get packed up and ready.  I hate being rushed before going to the airport so this was pretty nice.  I did not want to leave the hotel room until seven before it is only a five minute walk to the airport, only a seven and a half minute wait maximum for the next train and a thirty five minute ride to the airport.  My flight was scheduled to depart at a quarter till ten.  So that would put me at the airport a full two hours before my flight without any need to park a car or anything.  That should be very easy.

I leisurely showered, got dressed and packed this morning and got caught up on MangoLassi before leaving the hotel.  I checked out and walked to the West Lake train station on Pine which was a super easy walk.  The train was there as I arrived so I was able to step right on.  My fair was just $2.75 again.  So cheap to use the train in Seattle!  The ride was nice and easy.  Lots of people use the train but it was not crowded in any way, especially in the reverse commute direction that I was doing.

I got to the airport and was able to use a remote check in station at the train station rather than in the airport itself.  What a great idea.  I was checked in and my boarding passes were printed before I even stepped foot into the airport.  This was exceptionally easy.  I am very impressed by that idea.

I went through security and was ready for my flight long before it was time to leave.  I had plenty of time to get some breakfast and relax, which I did.  I went to a local seafood restaurant chain and had an amazing breakfast of scrambled eggs scrambled with bay shrimp and dungeoness crab.  Really delicious.  And I got my only coffee my entire time in Seattle.  I knew that I had to get coffee here at least once on my trip.

After breakfast, which was right across from the gate, I went over and boarded my flight which was completely full.  I hate full flights, but what can you do.  Because it was full I was unable to get the first class seat like I had had in the other direction.  I was stuck in a middle seat too!  But I got lucky, the people sitting with me in the row were small and there was ample room; I was not crowded at all.  Everyone kept the armrests up and it was very spacious.  The one guy next to me actually had a cat with him too and that was no issue.  I can’t believe how calm the cat was on the flight.  It did really well.  He (the guy, not the cat) and I talked about half of the flight.  The eastbound direction takes a bit less time than the westbound direction and the flight went by in no time.

I had a one hour layover in Detroit which is pretty short as a layover goes, only enough time to grab a snack, use the restroom and sit for five minutes before boarding.  The last leg of my flight was on a tiny jet again and was delayed but by less than ten minutes.  I had the very last seat on the plane and thankfully I was the only one in the two seat back row.  So I had the little space that there was to myself and I was able to completely relax and spread out.  I used my iPad Mini for reading a book on functional programming for most of the eighty minute flight to White Plains.

I got into White Plains only a few minutes after originally scheduled.  They had had to check my luggage through from Seattle so I had to go to baggage claim to get that but that was quick.  Dominica and the girls were a few minutes late picking me up so I went to the Dunkin Donuts in the airport and got donuts for the girls.  I tried to get croissant donuts for Dominica and I as they are new and we have never had them before but they were sold out.

The girls were very excited to see me when I got to the car.  I took over driving and drove us home.  It takes about forty minutes to get home but it is mostly an easy drive.

We just hung out this evening and talked and stuff.  The girls really had a hard time without me even though it was not very long that I was away.

No word as to the results of the interviews today.  I did not expect to hear anything today but they had said yesterday that I might hear something today.  I am expected to hear something tomorrow.

Today is my interview day.  Because of the time shift my body got me up at four this morning!  So I was awake long, long before I needed to even remotely think about going to the interview.  The office where I will be interviewing is only ten minutes or less, on foot, from the hotel!  So I do not even have to worry about cabs or directions or anything. Walk up the street, turn right, go two blocks.  That is all.  Very simple.

I had a long, mostly relaxing morning giving me plenty of time to myself in the hotel before I needed to walk to South Lake Union for the interview.  I got down there early enough that I walked around for a while to see the area right around the office so that I would not arrive inappropriately early.

The day of interviews went well.  I really liked everyone there.  As always, it is impossible to read this situations and I will not have any feedback until I am back in New York for a day or two.  But it felt like a decently good interview day.  I felt generally good about it and am looking forward to getting the feedback on it.  It was a full interview day, so I was not done until around three thirty.

After the interview I went back to the hotel for about an hour.  The friends that I made yesterday who wanted to hang out today were not able to be reached for a while.  I eventually ran into one of them later in the evening who explained that one of them was so hungover that she had not left the hotel all day.  So we did not manage to hook up on this trip but we are friends on Facebook now so we will keep in touch.

So my time this evening was spent seeing Seattle on my own.  I walked down to the famous Pike Market on the waterfront, which was a pretty good walk.  I got to see a lot of the city and the market was really interesting.  I am sure that I spent more than an hour investigating the market.

I checked out a hand made cheese shop and got a grilled cheese sandwich there which was really good.  I walked around for a long time and finally ended up getting some fish and chips from a really awesome fishmonger.  It was all delicious.  My dad would love the market.  Dominica would really like it too, it is a very European setup.

It was decently late, probably around eight, when I walked back to the hotel.  I hit the lobby bar after an hour or two because it was too busy before then.  I had one beer and talked to a guy who lived in the hotel’s upper floors (which were condos) who worked for SAS for a while about how he liked having moved to Seattle.

I was in bed at a good time.  I did not stay up too late being pretty tired from the last several days of travel.

I am heading out to Seattle this afternoon for an interview process that will be all day tomorrow.  I am pretty excited because this is my very first time visiting Seattle, Washington State or the Pacific Northwest at all.  I have always wanted to see Seattle and I will be there until Thursday so while I will not have a lot of time, I will have a little and will get to see some of the city.

This morning was mostly preparations just to get out of the door.  I did a little bit of work before leaving the house but very little.  Had to be up early, showered and dressed and the car packed so that we could leave by ten o’clock.  Google says that it is about forty minutes to the airport.  I am flying out of Westchester County Airport in White Plains which makes this so much easier, especially for Dominica and the girls who need to drive back home without me.

Sadly there are no gas stations between our home and the airport which is really frustrating.  The Acadia was really low on gas and I could not leave Dominica and the girls without fuel.  So once we got to the airport we had to look for a gas station.  It turned out that the nearest one was ten miles away!!  This is a major reason that I dislike living in Westchester.  Simple things become so incredibly difficult.  A nearly forty mile drive, starting in a city and ending at an airport, and there is no gas near either terminus and no opportunity to get gas along the way!  Ridiculous.  Why is there no gas station anywhere near the county’s only airport?

We ran to Connecticut and got gas there.  Then raced back to the airport.  Thankfully getting through White Plains airport takes no time at all.  There is only one waiting room and hardly any people.  So simple and easy.  We said goodbye, the girls were very sad, then I was off to get through the security line.

The flight from White Plains to Detroit was extremely cramped.  The plane that we were on was a two by two and I was in the window seat where the wall curved in and did not leave room for my shoulders or my head.  So I was forced to sit leaning and twisted for the entire flight.  Thankfully the flight to Detroit was only eighty minutes.  I was very happy to get off of that plane.

There was very little time to make it to my next flight which was at the furthest possible gate in the entire airport (not nearly the furthest, the actual furthest possible gate.)  So I was forced to run the entire airport.  It was a long run.  I made it after they had already started boarding but it was not a problem.  Had I not been so fast it could easily have been an issue, though.  It was cutting it too close for such a distance.

On this flight, which was not as full as the last one, we had a 737 and I was in first class (there were no classes in the tiny plane.)  This was nice.  Front row with plenty of space.  I got free movies on this flight so I watched The November Man which I have been interested in seeing.  It was pretty good and I am very glad that I got to watch it as no one has really seemed all that interested in seeing it with me.  So that was perfect.  I also got to see The Love Punch which was cute and worth seeing.  Both movies starred Pierce Brosnan.  So it was a mini-marathon for me.  It made the flight pass quite quickly.  First class on Delta was very nice.  Lots of food and drinks.  Very good service.  It has been a while since I have flown first class.  Definitely points for the company flying me out.  Not many companies take the time to do first class anymore.  And by time, I mean money.  None of the financial interviews that I did last year with supposedly very wealthy companies flew me first class.  Says something about the company and their confidence in their hiring system and themselves.

It was just after five, Pacific time, when I got into Seattle.  No issues on the flight at all and no turbulence the entire way except for a tiny bit while flying over the Rockies.

Once in Seattle I walked to the light rail station and for $2.75 rode that into the downtown West Lake station.  That was incredibly quick and easy. It takes thirty five minutes end to end and is very comfortable.  This is the way to connect an airport to a city.  From the very nice downtown trainstation I walked up Pine two blocks and was at the Hyatt Olive 8 which was very nice.  I got checked in right away.  It was already dark and, of course, it felt late to me but it was not yet six o’clock!

I called Dominica and the girls from the hotel and talked to them for a little bit.  Then I showered and got settled into the room and somewhere around eight I went to look for some food.  I couldn’t decide where to go and no one that I know in town was available to hang out tonight so I ended up just going to Urbane, the hotel lobby bar and restaurant and sat at the bar.

I ended up sitting with someone at the bar who was from the company that had flown me out for the interview.  So I got a chance to learn some more about working there from the employee who was a little drunk when the evening started and was so drunk and belligerent by the end of the evening that he was kicked out of the bar not once, but twice after attempting to return and then security was posted at the door!  Needless to say, “employer” failed to make a stellar impression with their hiring choices tonight.

I ended up making some new friends at the bar once he was kicked out and hung out with them until the bar closed.  Their hotel room was right next to mine too, so we hung out until one thirty or so and made plans to all get together tomorrow evening after my interviews were done and go see the city.  They wanted me to go with them to the Seattle Aquarium tomorrow but they were planning to go while I was at my interview.