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!