Life Stuff

So, I'm employed! After almost two months of unemployment with no job offers I received two offers last week. One was for a small company in downtown DC as the sole systems administrator; the other was for a huge company that does work for the government among other things, including manufacturing.

And while the whole time I was saying that, all else being equal, I would prefer to work for a small company, all else wasn't equal and I took the big company's offer. I'm now an employee of ITT's Advanced Engineering & Sciences division working on a long-term contract at the Naval Research Laboratory.

I'm working as a Linux Systems Administrator with a huge amount of technology that I've never worked with before (some, I've never even heard of). The sheer scale of things is pretty amazing/terrifying. Previously, the largest storage system I've built (or even had contact with) is right around one terabyte; I asked about how much storage we are dealing with at NRL and various systems are into the tens and even hundreds of terabytes. Everything's clustered and redundant and big. It's pretty cool.

I wrote several more paragraphs going through the factors influencing my selection, but when I hit save it kicked me out and didn't save. I'm not going to rewrite the whole thing, so he's a quick list:

• Money: both were the same
• Dress code: casual, jeans & t-shirts ok (this is big to me)
• Commute: small company wins. Downtown DC vs. across the Wilson Bridge (notorious traffic hot spot for you non-DC types). This was a big hesitation. I can slug straight into DC, but I pretty much have to drive to NRL. I tried slugging one day this week, but it was pretty ugly.
• Government bureaucracy: there will definitely be more of this at NRL, but it doesn't seem too bad.
• The work: most of what I'd be doing at the small company is similar to what I've done before. I feel quite out of my depth at NRL, so it'll be way more challenging.
• Co-workers: I've never worked with other Linux admins, and I'm quite looking forward to it.
• Security Clearance: I'll get one at NRL. This is big, too. About half of the job listings I looked at required a security clearance. Without it, I couldn't even apply. Security clearance equals more job options in the future.
• Benefits: the big company's benefits are big.

Looking at this list, I don't think it does justice to my thinking on the matter. Once I had both offers in hand, there was really no contest. What I had written before was clearer on this point.

I started Tuesday.

Most of you know this already, but in case you don't, I figured I'd mention it. I don't currently have a job.

I think the last life-related entry I posted was about the fact that my new job wasn't working out and I was looking for another new job. That job wasn't working out because it wasn't really as advertised (I was expecting more cutting-edge linux stuff, but it turned out to be pretty light on linux and heavy on misc. other stuff like windows desktop support). I don't think this was malicious, I think it was just that the position was new and they didn't know exactly what it was going to be. There were some other reasons as well, but that was the main one.

I started looking for a new job about a week after I started (it was pretty apparent pretty quickly that it wasn't going to work out). I gave them notice that I was looking and I stayed on until they could get one of the other applicants in. I spent a couple days imparting the knowledge that I had acquired in that time, then I left.

That was December 18th, 2007. It's now coming up on two months of no job. It sucks.

Since then, I've been sending out resumes pretty much every day and have been on several interviews. I've also been working on various other things like my photography and I've done a lot of reading (I've been meaning to write up some reviews of the books I've read...). I've also played the Wii a lot (I'm a pro at tennis and pretty close at boxing). You'd think that I would've also been posting a lot of blog entries...

So, that's the job situation. It's lame, but I'm continuing to plug away and am confident that something will work out.

p.s. if you know anyone looking for a good Linux admin, let me know

Seriously. 2007 sucked.

Since last we met, I've started the new job. Also, I've started looking for another new job. This one isn't working out. It kind of sucks that that it isn't working out, but at least I realized it sooner rather than later.

I never got around to blogging about the second concert I had seen. It was Morrissey at Constitution Hall. It was a great show, but now it's too late to really blog. I'll just say that due to some cosmic fluke we ended up right against the stage for almost the entire concert and that I ended up with a piece of Moz's Dolce and Gabbana shirt and a drumstick. Oh yeah, I also hopped up on stage and was tackled by security. Luckily, a couple people captured it and put it on YouTube (I'm in the red shirt--about a minute into the first vid and right at the beginning of the second):



Lastly, I just found this photographer on flickr who shoots a lot of photos of dogs. I'm not much of a dog person, but for some reason, I love a lot of her shots--particularly this one:

Check out the rest of her stream.

Note: It's been the busiest month ever, with a ton of cool or big stuff happening. I've gotten way behind in posting, so I'm going to try to crank out a couple entries in a rapid-fire manner. We'll see if I actually get beyond this one...

After working for Newsletter Holdings for just over 10 years, I'm moving on to a new job.

My new company is Need to Know News where I'll working as a Linux systems admin in their DC office. I'm pretty excited as I've been wanting to focus more on the Linux side of things for a while now (I do both Linux admin stuff and web development at my current job). The new office is a block from the White House, which is pretty cool. I've never worked in the city before, so that should be cool. To the surprise of most people I've told, it should actually cut my commute significantly. I'll be able to slug directly in to 14th street (office is on 15th) or to the Pentagon which is about 6 minutes from the stop a block from my office. The company and people seem pretty cool and they're doing some interesting cutting-edge type stuff. So, it looks like it'll be a challenge and fun.

On the other hand, it's pretty hard to be leaving NLH. It's been a great place to work and I've got a lot of great friends there, who I'll really miss being around on a daily basis.

Here's the email my boss Franco sent around announcing my departure. It's got me all choked up (seriously).

All,

After a long tenure as Chief Contrarian & Microsoft Covert Operative in the IT Department, Ben Rasmussen has decided it is time for him to graze on greener pastures.

Ben has been with Newsletter Holdings for over 10 years, spending time in Prescom, KCI Fulfillment and finally landing the dreamy position in IT that made him the legend that he is. I think it is safe to say that he will leave a vacuum of knowledge and character at NLH. Saddest of all will be the members of the Newsletter Holdings Conversational Pugilism Club. They lose not only a co-worker, but also their star arguer on every topic imaginable.

Ben's last day will be next Wednesday. Until then you may stop by to wish him well and, if you're lucky, you may just hear his rarely uttered "I disagree!" one last time.

-Franco

... sniff