Andy Chase

Well, nobody will be as surprised as I was to find out that I am once again among the employed.

More importantly, employed with a company that I can see myself with for a long time. In this economy people can't afford not to jump at the first thing which comes along whether it feels like a good match or not, but purely financial considerations aside this is definitely not just a case of any port in a storm.

Equally important is the location... downtown Northampton, Massachusetts. My only other promising prospect since my job search began last year was in Boston, and while working in Boston would have been exciting and fun in a lot of ways, western Massachusetts is really much more the kind of place Kim and I want to be in the long term.

So, suddenly I find myself with a "Real programming job" with a small company, with great coworkers, in a great office in a great location. Frankly, a small part of me is wondering when this is going to turn into The Firm^*.

Nah. What's really getting me is the sudden drastic change of routine and general outlook. It's been one hell of a week. Ironically, I arrived home from my first day of work to find a large envelope from England waiting for me. It seems that Wrox publishing's parent company, Peer Information, has gone quite bankrupt, an event that was covered as early as March 17. The first I heard of it was in a letter from the company overseeing the liquidation of assets. The letter contained a proxy form to be filled out by creditors who couldn't actually attend a meeting in Birmingham, England happening April 2 - the day after I received the letter. In other words, too late for me to figure out what Wrox owes me for my work on Professional PHP4 Multimedia Programming and get it back in time to be counted. I don't expect to see one red cent in royalties beyond the advance I received last summer.

While I am annoyed by this development, the new job certainly softens the blow to the point where I'm inclined to shrug and be thankful that I got the advance, got the resume credit, got my goofy photo on a book cover, and already got paid for the tech review I did for a couple of other Wrox titles late last year.

So, that's why the silence all this past week. Until we get relocated to the Northampton area, I'm looking at an hour plus drive to and from work, so until I settle into a routine the web site and software updates may be sporadic.

*(if any of my new coworkers read this, and I have a feeling some of you will, please chalk this comment up to the paranoia fostered by my six years in tinseltown, the false-appearance capital of the known universe.)