This unconvential convention was very inspirational and one of the best networking experiences I’ve ever had.  To sum things up, the weekend was a blast; full of material about traveling, working remotely, making the most of life and other jots of info that I’ve been trying to understand.  I met a number of bloggers whose works I’ve read and so many more that I’ll look into.

Big thanks to Chris Guillebeau and the rest of the team who put this summit together.

For more info about this summit, go here.

Thursday I had the fantastic opportunity to meet-up with Chris Guillebeau, author of blog “The Art of Non-Conformity” and creator of Unconventional Guides (.com).  It was great to be able to meet with someone who is doing so much and has such extravagant goals. Chris, resident of Portland, traveler of the globe, is doing what he wants to do in life (without the 9-5 job).  His goal of traveling the globe and visiting every country enlightens me so much.

Being able to meet with Chris and ask him how he got his start makes me realize that with the right amount of effort, I could do something similar.  Chris gave me some great advice and was kind enough to also point me to some other blogs and helpful books.  What a genuinely nice individual.  If you haven’t clicked on the links above yet, then get on it.  He has some amazing posts (1, 2, 3) that will really get you thinking.  He also has some great guides that are really worth the money and pay off multiple times over (I’ve already earned 100,000 miles off of his Frequent Flyer Master guide).

I am so excited to begin traveling more and seeing the world, and though I am not ready to rid my life of my career in Software Engineering (cause I actually enjoy it), I do realize that life is more than just working. There is so much to see and do in the world, and it just isn’t possible to view it all on just a few weeks of vacation a year. Thankfully I enjoy what I do and am willing to continue working away, growing my career, saving up money and paying off debt.  However this won’t be my mindset forever. 

Here’s to my next journey,

Jason

Overall I had a great time and got to catch a small glimpse of the air show that was going on around the city.  Love those things! 

 Enjoy yourself!

 This last Friday I went on a tour at Boeing in Portland and the Thursday before that (July 26th) I toured at A-Dec.  The tours are setup by the MECOP interns to give a chance for other interns to see the company they are working at.   The program allows for us students to have our employers cover our expenses for 3 afternoon tours.

A-DEC is a dental equipment company who doesn’t just design and manufacture their own dental chairs, but all the fixtures, cabinets, dental lights, and delivery systems.  The tour wasn’t setup for a person in software engineering since it took us around the manufacturing area and just showed us what they did and how they did it.  I can’t say I could see myself working at A-DEC, but the tour was interesting…they had some really cool telescoping monitor stands!

 Boeing on the other hand is a company I could see myself working for.  Probably not the Portland campus where we toured at, but perhaps one of their branches in the Seattle area.  Unlike A-DEC and even Garmin AT, they were very tight with their security.  We had to have background checks and be checked in with badges that couldn’t leave the premises.  I could understand why though; with single pieces costing a half million each and some pretty amazing machinery, it’s understandable that they would be so strict.  They talked about the new 787 they’ve designed and about mentioned that it should be up in the air in the next 2-3 months.  That’s pretty exiting.  We’re talking about a plane that will hold between 210 and 330 passengers depending on the seating configuration.  It’s also going to be more fuel-efficient than the other 7X7s they design and manufacture.  The Portland branch manufactures the parts for the planes and ships them up to Everett, Washington where they get pieced together.  This was a cool company to visit and see how the big planes are made.

 Overall I’ve had a great time touring the companies (and it was nice to get paid doing it too

This upcoming Friday I’ll be touring Credence Systems.  Hopefully this company will have something that perks my interest and has more of an involvement with software.

-J!-