Since I haven’t updated for a while, I figured I’d share what is going on.

As of yesterday, I have been working at my new job working at Coaxis (aka. Viewpoint Construction Software). I started on April 19th after leaving IGT on April 9th. The new job change was due to IGT deciding to close the Corvallis location and my desire to stick in Oregon. So far, it has been a wise decision.

I have really been enjoying the company and the location it resides. We’re located right next to the Hawthorne bridge off of Water Ave near OMSI in Portland. The building is very eco-friendly with lots of light and very open. Much different than any office I’ve ever worked in and I like it. The people are all friendly and I’ve felt very welcomed since I’ve started.

The first few days I was here I spent in Agile training with half of the development staff (30 peoples) and that was great because it gave me a way to interact with the others and allowed me to learn where we’re headed right from the beginning.

This was followed up with training on what I would be working on. It was a good week of learning the tips and tricks of how they do things here. After this it was quite slow before getting into our Agile teams, but now that we’re in them, things are ramping up.

The commute to work isn’t too bad either. Since they gave us TriMet (local mass transportation) passes, I’ve been able to have a few different options to get to the company from where I am living in Hillsboro: 1) drive my car (this takes me between 30 and 45 minutes), 2) walk and take the MAX/busses to work (this takes roughly an hour), 3) do a mix of bike and MAX (this takes me around 35-45 minutes). Having the options are nice to get here, but taking longer than 30 minutes to get to work is really getting annoying. Hopefully I’ll soon move closer to Portland so that I can cut my trip down to either just in biking distance (around 5 miles is what I’d like) or MAX/bus distance making my trip around 15-20 minutes.  Figuring out where to move will be a huge factor.

Where I decide to move really depends quite a bit. Christina (my girlfriend) is planning to move up here towards the end of June so that she can attend PSU (Portland State University) this fall. Since PSU is so close to where I work, it wouldn’t be difficult to just live downtown, however that involves me having to pay for monthly parking on top of expensive rent. I think I’d rather try to live on the east side of the river where there are more houses and free parking on the streets. Finding a house (instead of an apartment) will be difficult and possibly expensive; especially one with a garage.

Many options to choose from actually, so I’m excited.

Other news:

Christina is finishing up her degree at Chemeketa Community College which should happen at the end of Summer, and Remmington (aka Remy, the bearded dragon) is growing so much and is healthy! I’m going to have to be working on building him a new cage sometime soon!

Well that is my life update for the time being. Hopefully, and I saw this often, I’ll update quicker next time!

Last time I posted I was talking about some documents I’ve been reading. Well since then I’ve made a number of changes.

With the closing of IGT Corvallis at the end of June, I’ve decided that instead of moving to Reno for IGT, that I would interview around and see what I can find. In the few months I applied I was able to get three confirmed offers. Two in Reno and one in Portland. I almost had one in Corvallis, however they failed to get permission to seek a new candidate before they began interviewing candidates…silly companies.

Though one of the offers in Reno was great, I decided to stay in Oregon and accept a position in Portland with a company called Coaxis. They deal mainly with their software called Viewpoint Construction Software which I hear is quite popular with construction companies; which is a good thing for me that I get into a business that is still growing. It is quite exciting and I will be able to contribute quite a lot. The great thing about going to Coaxis is that I get to work with a couple of co-workers from IGT that are already there.

Moving to Portland will also be quite fun and exciting. I’ve been interested in getting up in the Portland area so I am happy to have the chance to move up closer to friends I don’t get to see as often as I would like. Though this means I’ll be farther from friends, girlfriend included, in the Albany/Corvallis area, it just means that I’ll have to make lots of visits to the area.

Lucky for me, I really like to drive my car and really enjoy spending time with friends that it’ll be a great time.

With this whole move and starting a new company it means the end to a current one. I am leaving IGT for the right reasons (for me), and because of this I do not think it will be difficult to go. I will definitely miss working with all the great people I have gotten to know over the couple years I have been there, but the work itself I feel satisfied with. I was able to see my work running in a casino, and the current projects I was developing passed off into good hands. Hopefully I hear from the folks working on the project I spent so much time on and how successful it will turn out for them.

IGT was a great starting company after graduating and I will always remember the experiences with such great people. I look forward though to my next adventures which are starting quite soon.

This Friday (April 9th) will be my last day with IGT, I am then taking the next 9 days to just relax and move up to Portland. I then start day one at Coaxis on April 19th (a day after my birthday).

Here is to exciting and wonderful new changes. And here is to hoping that the people I meet at Coaxis will be as wonderful as those I met at IGT.

Jason

Corvallis IGT (International Game Technology), the location and company I’ve been working at for six months, is being forced to close its doors. Though this is causing a lot of grief for others, it is only causing me slight. This is mainly due to my mental preperation that change is coming.

I’m excited for what new things will happen. Whether that means a new location in Nevada working with IGT or perhaps a new career at another company. Either way, the change is exciting. Who knows the new people I will meet, the new places I’ll see, or the new projects I’ll be working on. All I know is that change is coming, and all I have to say is…sweet!

Jason

The big difference with today vs. any other day, is that I’m going to do something I have never done before after work.

I’m not going to say what it is because I want to make sure I go through with it before actually stating that I’m going to do it.

Quite exciting.

In other parts of today, at work (IGT), I was able to finish up merging the changes I have done for one of our services into the build branch so that I can take the DLLs that I’ve built and send them over to another engineer. Once the database script is ran to get the new tables inserted, and the new DLLs in place, then I’ll be able to find out if my changes do what they are suppose to do (add and retrieve items from the database in one service, and send them back to the calling service (UI) so that we can see the pretty new items).

Always nice when things work.

Jason

I don’t mind answering questions, so please contact me if you would like any help.

If you would like more than just a few questions answered, then please let me know and I’ll let you know how my prices vary.  From Basics to Complete Awesomeness!

J