Since I’m back working again (just over 4 months at the new place) and coding every day, I have ideas race through my head for things I want to do with my own websites. Unfortunately, those ideas are racing while I’m at work, and by the time I get home, they’re gone. I need to start writing ‘em down I think. I’ve been using the CodeIgniter framework a lot. I keep trying to think of things I could do with it.

I’ve also dabbled in writing a Facebook app for a project at work. It’s a relatively simple one, as far as Facebook apps go … no interaction with the user or anything like that. I still had issues getting things set up initially, but that’s probably because I jumped in with both feet rather than reading documentation first. Oh well. I learn best by doing anyway. I’d love to come up with a Facebook app on my own, but I’m not sure what to do. The only thing that I can come up with is a weather widget. I started laying one out for my own websites already. I could create a script that can be plugged in to a regular website, a WordPress plugin, and a Facebook app. I just need to get my butt in gear. It’s hard to get motivated to work on my own websites after working on other people’s sites all day at work. But then again, I am usually sitting at the computer all nite anyway. I might as well do something useful rather than reading Twitter and Facebook and other mindless surfing.

We use WordPress quite a bit at work. I don’t deal with it since I’m the programming geek (php & MySQL), but I see what is being done by my co-workers. It makes me want to work on this place again. One thing I’ve never dabbled with is widgets. I usually just hard code the stuff I want in the sidebar since I’m just doing the site for myself. But I’ve seen what can be done with widgets and it makes me wanna give it a try.

There was a time where I was doing a lot of WP development. Yeah, it was just for myself, but I knew what was going on and what I could do. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything serious with WP. Even when I redesigned last, I didn’t delve into things I could have. I really wanna dive back in, but I feel so far behind. So many advances have been made to the core. I happened run across a site for a WordCamp in the cities. I’m seriously considering going. I think one of my co-workers wants to as well. It’s not until November, so we’ve got a while to make a decision. Anyone else considering going to it?

I’ve got a pretty sweet setup going on now (well, considering what I’ve had in the past anyway). I added memory to my laptop (from 1GB to 4GB), and I upgraded to Windows 7 (which I LOVE). I even got a new monitor that’s hooked up to my laptop (21.5″ widescreen). The dual monitor setup is perfect for development (I wish I had dual monitors at work). I still use WAMP server for local development. I even found out about a program (from my boss) that gives me a GUI for my local MySQL databases (HeidiSQL). I have no excuse not to work on my own websites (other than the fact that I’ve turned into a lazy ass).

So … be on the lookout (I’ve said that before, haven’t I ). I really will try to post more here. As with the ideas I have for my websites during the day, I have ideas for posts that never materialize (I think I need to carry a notebook with me to work … or just use Google Docs). I need to be better about that. I need to stop procrastinating and being lazy. I really hope I can follow through.

It feels soooooo good to be working with php again. For the past year, (at the 2 contract jobs I had) I was working strictly with html and css, mainly html emails. While I don’t mind working with css, I enjoy working with php and sql so much more. And not only am I working with php again, I’m even learning a new framework, CodeIgniter. It’s what they use at work.

I had my first taste of it today when I started on a new project. I think I’ll pick it up pretty quickly. While I haven’t used a framework before, I have worked with a “layer” concept at a previous job. We had separate directories for database, presentation, and domain layers. CodeIgniter has model, view, and controller “layers”. What I really like about CodeIgniter is the fact that you can put together an array of data in the controller layer to send to the view layer, and in the view layer, you have variables that have the names of the keys from the array that was passed to it. Or at least as far as I can tell, that’s how it is.

I’ve even been in a good, upbeat mood the past couple days. I really noticed it today. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m out of my apartment or it’s because I’m back working (with something I really enjoy even) or it’s just things turning back around in my favor. I’m not going to analyze it, and I’m definitely not going to take it for granted (or at least I’m going to try my damnedest).

Hopefully this means I’ll have a good birthday this year (it’s next Saturday). Now I just need to figure out what I’m gonna do to celebrate it.

I’ve been a little nervous to start the position. I haven’t worked with php very much since I was laid off a year ago. I’ve done a little with it at home, but the 2 contract positions that I had were basically html/css positions. I actually got to start a little bit today. I didn’t get very far because the dev environment on my computer isn’t fully set up yet. It is so nice to get back to php development.

The company is small, but the people are really nice. I don’t feel like a complete misfit. LOL Hopefully everything will work out in the end. I’ve got a good feeling about things.

And a bonus … the office is right next to a mini-strip mall [I don't know if you can even call it that since it only has 3 businesses in it] that has a coffee shop at one end, a Subway at the other end, and a liquor store in the middle. So I can get a coffee before work, a sub for lunch, and some booze on my way home from work.

I thought that the interview went well. It’s a small company, but I worked at a small company before. The work is exactly what I’m looking for. It’s a php/MySQL specialist type position. Obviously since it’s a small company, there would be work in other areas as well, but it would be focused in php and MySQL development. The person who conducted the interview said that he was impressed with my skills, especially since I never went to school for web development.

The only down side to the situation is that they’re not entirely certain yet that they are going to fill the position. He said that he needs to assess their workload to see if they can justify the position. He said that he should know by the middle of November (that would be a good birthday present ), and if they decided to fill the position, they would do so before the end of November.

So I guess that means that I’m still in a holding pattern. I’m still looking for opportunities in the area. But at least there’s a possibility out there … there’s still hope that I won’t have to leave the area.

Based on this choice, I went to UND and pursued a degree in meteorology. After graduating from UND I took a job at a company where I was a “meteorologist”. Why the quotes? The job was more of an office assistant than a meteorologist. I did put together reports from field projects, but I didn’t do anything weather related during my 4½ years there.

I was laid off from this company in December 2003 (they eliminated the position). This brought me to a point where I had to make another choice. At the time, I wasn’t really sure what to do. I had taken over the company’s website, so there was one option. Another option was an office/administrative assistant. I was actually one of the final two candidates for an administrative assistant position with Pepsi Co. in town. They ended up going with the other individual, but that was actually the best thing that could have happened to me. I decided to pursue the web development option, which landed me with a smaller local company. I worked at the company for about 3½ years until they closed their doors. At that time, I went to work directly for the final client that the company had. I was with that company until October of last year when I was laid off due to budget cuts (thanks to our lovely economy that still hasn’t recovered).

There was no need to make a choice at that point. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to continue in the field of web development. I just needed to find another job. I managed to find two contract positions. The second of those was supposed to turn into a permanent position, but thanks to our lovely economy, my contract was ended (3 months) early (and 17 other people were laid off).

This brings us to the present and another choice that I must make. This choice has not been easy for me. It has nothing to do with my choice of careers. I am now, more than ever, confident that I want to continue working in the field of web development. The choice is “where am I going to work?”. I’ve been struggling with this for the past two months (or more actually). There really aren’t many positions around the region (ND/MN/SD) that aren’t .NET or Java or some other language/technology that I don’t have experience in. I’m looking for php/sql based positions since that’s where my experience/background is.

I know that I need to look outside of my “comfort zone”. I just really don’t know where or how to start. I have looked for opportunities in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, but haven’t really found any that excited me. I don’t want to take a job somewhere only to find out that I’m not happy wherever the job is. I did apply for a position in Edmond, OK, but I still haven’t heard anything back (and I was a little excited about the position and the location).

It has been almost two months since my contract was ended, and I’m basically still at square one. I know that there are people out there who have been out of work for much longer than that (in fact, I was unemployed for about 7 months when I switched from a career in a weather related field to a career in the web development field [that was almost 6 years ago]); however, my savings will only last so long, and I’m not collecting unemployment.

I have found one position that is in line with the type of work that I’m looking for. I don’t know the name of the company because the position is through a job agency (and they won’t tell me until an interview is scheduled), but that isn’t really that big of a deal at this point. The thing that has me delaying pursuing it is the salary. Their high end is lower than my low end. It would be a $6/hr pay cut from my last position and a $3/hr pay cut from the position before that. While I don’t expect to start at a new job at the same pay rate as the one my last contract was with, I still have my acceptable range. This one is below that. BUT … the position is a permanent position, not a contract one. AND … if they have decent benefits and are progressive about reviews and pay raises, then this could be a good opportunity. But I was told that they are looking for more of an entry level developer, and with my experience, I don’t consider myself entry level any more (at least not when it comes to php/sql development). I have not written this option off yet. The only down side that I really see (at this point) is the pay. But even if I do pursue it, there’s no guarantee that I would get it.

So that brings me back to my current choice. Do I pursue this position (so that I can stay here), or do I put on my “big girl pants” and seriously start looking for something out of state? I’m really struggling with this one. I need to do what’s best for me … but I have no idea what that is. I just wish I would have an epiphany or would see a sign and know which path to follow … which choice to go with. I’m tired of struggling with this choice. But … at least I know what I want to do. Now I just need to make a choice as to where.

I’ve even gotten to do actual work already. I’ve made some updates to the websites and put together an email (from scratch … I didn’t even have a psd – I had to grab the graphics from a pdf file). It’s all been front end work so far, but I should be able to do things with php and even sql at some point. I’m still getting my feet wet on how the company does things. As of right now, I still believe it was the right decision for me.

There are 2 things about the job that I don’t like … but it has nothing to do with the company or the work. This is a contract to hire position (with the very strong possibility that it will become permanent after 6 months … perhaps sooner). The agency the contract is through required PAPER timecards, and they don’t do direct deposit. So Monday lunches will entail driving to the agency to drop off my timecard and Friday mornings (hopefully … they open at 7:30am) will entail driving to the agency to pick up my check and then Friday lunches will entail going to the bank to deposit my paycheck. It’s a little inconvenient, but I’m not gonna complain (too much … LOL). At least I’m working again.

I was unemployed for a total of 42 days. I guess that’s not that long a period, considering I was unemployed for about 7 months way back in 2003-04 when I switched careers (from meteorologist to web developer). And with the economy the way it is, it could have been a lot longer. I got lucky … this opportunity opened up, and a couple of people I used to work with had worked for the company at one time or another (I actually replaced someone that I used to work with).

As I said, things are going good as of right now. My supervisor even thanked me today for the effort I’ve been putting in the past couple days. I guess it’s a good thing to impress ‘em right out of the gate. I just can’t wait ’til I get to start working with php and sql (whichever flavor) again.

What have I been doing for the past couple months? I was working and looking for a job. Huh? Well, I was working a contract job. It was supposed to be a 3 month contract with the option to make it permanent. It ended up being a 4 month contract. They just didn’t have enough work to keep me on permanently. They wanted to keep me on (or at least that’s what I was told), but they just couldn’t.

I am still looking for a job. I do have an opportunity I’m waiting to hear back on. I’m hoping I hear back soon. I don’t know how long I can handle sitting around my apartment. I think I’m going to need to find a coffee shop to hang around in. But that could get expensive.

As I found out before I got the contract position, there aren’t all that many web developer/programmer job openings here in the Fargo/Moorhead area … at least not ones that don’t require .NET experience. But as long as I can find at least one opportunity here, I’m going to wait it out. I have money in my checking and (2) savings accounts that will last me a few months (at least). I just hope I don’t end up depleting those accounts. The savings accounts were for a house hunt I was hoping to start. But that is obviously on hold for the foreseeable future.

Why do I want to stay in the Fargo/Moorhead area? For starters, it’s something I’m familiar with. I’ve lived here since Oct. 1998, and I grew up about an hour south of here. But it’s not just that. My family is in this part of the state. Yeah, I don’t visit them as often as I probably should, but at least I have the option of going to see them and not having to plan a vacation to do so. My friends are here. I don’t have all that many friends, I’ll admit that. But the friends that I do have are true friends. I don’t know what I’d do without them. I don’t make friends very easily … being a shy introvert doesn’t help that fact.

I also want to stay here because of the people here. I mean come on … when you have volunteers make 3.5 million sandbags in around a week’s time (during a snow storm) to help save the community from flood waters (and WIN), whether they were directly affected by it or not … that’s a place I want to live. And that’s just one example.

I may bitch and moan about the cold weather during the winter, but that just gives me something to talk about. LOL When it comes down to what’s important, this place isn’t such a bad place to live. So I’m going to wait to hear back about my current opportunity and keep looking for others that may pop up. As long as I have the resources to wait, I’m going to. Family … friends … community. Those are things that make me want to stay here. It’s gonna take a pretty damn good opportunity to lure me away. I just hope the lack of opportunity here doesn’t force my hand.

I lucked out that my stretch of unemployment was only 2 months and that I didn’t have to withdraw anything from savings to pay bills. I did take $100 out of one and $75 out of the other to cover my iPod when I got it. I probably wouldn’t have had to, but I did.

As for what the future holds … I’m not exactly sure. I had a chat with one of my managers this morning. I’m getting close to half way through my contract. He told me that he doesn’t know anything more now than when I interviewed as to if the position will become permanent. He asked me if I would be willing to work on a month to month basis after my contract ends. While I don’t like the uncertainty that brings, I do like where I’m at right now. So I told him that I was willing to do so. He said that he would try to give me as much notice as possible if they determine that they don’t have enough work to keep me on.

That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to look for another position. I’m just not going to look with a sense of urgency … yet. I’ll look to see what’s out there and keep in touch with my contacts at the placement agencies I’ve worked with in the past. But I’m not going to drive myself crazy trying to find something and then freak out because I can’t find anything around town and stress myself out thinking I’m going to have to move. But I’m not going to be naive and expect this position to become permanent. Yes, he said that they’d like to keep me on, but with the economy the way it is, there’s no certainty that they’ll have the work to keep me there.

Where does this leave me? I guess the same place as when I first heard about this job … hope for the best but plan for the worst. I’ll keep saving as much money as I can. I’ll keep looking around for another job. But I’ll also keep in mind that it’s possible that I won’t have to find another job. I can’t let myself get stressed out. I can’t let myself freak out. I just need to take things day by day … month by month. Whatever the future holds, I’ll just have to deal with. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”, right?

The Company
It seems like a really good company to work for. They seem to care about their employees and what they think rather than just pushing them to get stuff done. They’re more than just a web dev company, but I’ve only interacted with the web dev side of things. The rest of the work they do is pretty cool (marketing related). It’s just not where my area of “expertise” is, so I don’t have any interaction with it.

The People
The people that I’ve met so far are pretty cool … dare I saw awesome. Some are crazy … but in a good way. They’re all friendly and seem to have accepted me. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t feel like a complete outcast … well maybe sometimes. But that’s because of my own feelings of self doubt and stuff.

And thanks to this job, I actually know people IRL that I follow on Twitter. Some I’ve interacted with (@AmazonGrace, @fargoirish, @lemur, @krondek, @copaland), and others I’ve just seen around the office (@istafish, @lala_k). I’d love to hang out with them outside of work some time … as long as I was welcome. Who knows if that will ever happen. One of my goals for this year is to be more social. And hanging out with people that are techie like me would be good for me. Maybe after I’ve been around longer, I’ll get some invites.

My project managers are great too. With my lack of self confidence (I’m working on that … it’s another of my goals for this year), I tend to feel silly when I ask questions or feel like I don’t do the work fast enough or apologize for asking questions. But they’ve been telling me that I’ve been doing a good job. That’s a really good feeling. I had that a little bit at my last job, but not as much as I’m getting here (and I’ve only been there a month). It’s good for me (and my very fragile ego). I just need to learn to accept the praise and not feel like I’m a screw up waiting to happen.

There are some pretty good looking guys working around the place too. I’m not gonna go into details as to who and where since there are possibly people from the office who will read this (since I push updates to Twitter). It was bad enough in high school that the ENTIRE school knew who I had a crush on. I don’t need that happening at work. And just ‘cuz I think they’re “easy on the eyes” doesn’t mean there’s any more to it than that.

The Work
I haven’t gotten a whole lot of work yet, but I have gotten a few tasks. I’ve worked on some landing pages, changes to an email campaign, and setting up pages for brochure request forms. I’ve also been told that I will probably be working on some Expression Engine sites as well. So far, everything has been basic html and css. They have a custom CMS for the website that I’ve been working on. I haven’t gotten to work with php, and I don’t know that I will. I miss it. Yeah … that makes me a geek, I know. But that’s me. I don’t know what the rest of my time there will entail, but I’m looking forward to it.

What IS taking some getting used to is the processes for how things are done. Where I was last, we would publish changes for a task after we were finished with them. Even when there were more than 2 of us, the development process was pretty “causal”. Where I am now, they have more of a procedure for doing things. They have code releases and do branching off of SVN and do unit testing and have QA people. I’ve never worked in a situation like that before. It’s definitely a good thing … just something that I need to get use to. After working as part of a 2 person team for a little over a year, I’m used to doing a lot of stuff myself. And we didn’t have the resources to do a lot of that QA stuff.

The Future
I don’t know what the future holds. I’m working a contract position that is to last 3 months. That brings me to March (or so). Yeah, there is the chance that it could turn into a permanent position, but I don’t know how much of a chance that is. It just depends on how much work they have and if they’ve been happy with my work.

I did have a dream a week or so ago about things. I was talking to someone at work and made the comment that I’d only be there for a couple more months. Then Mark said that he was writing a proposal to keep me on permanently. It would be nice if that dream came true … that they wanted to keep me on. I just have to keep my chin up, work as hard as I can, and make as good an impression as possible. The rest will take care of itself if it’s meant to be.

What do I need to change? Well, here’s my list (thus far), in no particular order.

I think that’s a pretty good start at a list. And everything on that list is doable as well. I just need to get motivated. To start, I need to have people riding my ass about things so that I actually do them. Once I’m in a routine, it will be easier to keep going. And once I see results, I’ll want to keep going. I’ll post updates on my progress every now and then. I’m sure I’ll tweet about it a lot more than I’ll blog about it. If you don’t see anything here or on Twitter about me making progress, PLEASE ride my ass about it.