Shane is Trulia Big Deal

Get it? Trulia big deal, truly a big deal! HAH!

It's a tad belated since he's been there almost a month now, but I just wanted to post how excited and proud I am of Shane for getting such an awesome new job as Senior Software Engineer at Trulia! 

Trulia is an all-in-one real estate site that gives you the local scoop about homes for sale, apartments for rent, neighborhood insights, and real estate markets and trends to help you figure out exactly what, where, and when to buy, sell, or rent.      

Source: Trulia.com

Right now he's working on Trulia's Email platform. Millions of emails go out every day to people buying, selling and renting homes and the agents and brokers that help them.  Shane is building tools to do it better and faster and build out for growth.  He's into that sort of thing.

Shane has always amazed me with how smart, talented, and dedicated he is to his craft and I'm so glad that Trulia can see that too.  He's amazing!!!

Volunteering

Last Friday, Shane and his team at work volunteered at a soup kitchen!

That's Shane in the top right

I don't really have any details other than Shane had fun with his friends. I just wanted to share his good deed :-)

New Job

For those of you who haven't heard, I'm employed!! I was hired by ThinkSmart, LLC for a project management position.  Tomorrow is my first day of work, so wish me luck!

Our first weekend

This past weekend was our first full weekend as Bay Area residents.  Sometimes it still feels surreal that we actually live here and we're not just tourists (though I'm sure that me walking around the city with a camera in my hand does nothing to convince others that we're not tourists).

Friday night we laid low mostly: quick trip to Best Buy, dinner of grilled cheese (gruyere, because we're fancy) and creamy tomato soup, watched an episode of Mad Men.  Saturday we mostly laid low again during the day: leftovers for lunch, unpacked a few boxes, watched some more Mad Men, and then Saturday night we had dinner at a friend's house! So exciting to have actual friends in the area!! My friend Kennedy moved to Europe a few years ago and just recently moved back to the States with her husband to Oakland! What are the chances we'd be reunited here?? Anyways, they had us over for a beautiful dinner in their new home and we were able to bring Archie to play with their dog, Traveller.  It was so great to get out and visit with them, and we're so excited to have them over for dinner next time (as soon as we get the rest of our dang furniture!).

Sunday we decided to be brave and wander the city.  I took my very first ride on the BART, got to see where Shane works, found some fabulous shopping (but didn't buy anything - we're still reeling from the expense of moving), learned about and visited one of the many San Francisco POPOS (more on these later), and ate dinner at a delicious hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant. I didn't document everything, but here's a few photos from our day...

BART map

On the BART!

On the escalator at the BART station!

Old timey mailbox in Shane's lobby! P.S. how cute is he??

Shane at his desk :-)

Scrum room!

Shane's office!

Formspring front desk

Cool sculpture near Shane's office

Do you smell updog?? Shout out to Becky and the whole OBX crew! See you in a week :-) 

Living in PST, Working in EST

As delighted as I am to be working from home, the Pacific time zone thing is sorta killin me.  For those of you not in-the-know, my Florida boss let me take my job to California until the end of the year, but I'm expected to keep my hours as close to the eastern time zone as possible.  My plan was to get up and log in to my work email at 6:00 a.m. PST (9:00 a.m. EST, which is the schedule I kept in Florida) and then make coffee, make breakfast, and ease into my morning.  Well, work had other plans.  This morning I was awoken at 5:15 a.m. PST (8:15 a.m. EST) with a phone call (which I had to take).  Yuck! Both for me and for Shane!

The up side to this is that by 2:00 p.m. PST my work day is over which leaves me almost the entire afternoon to do with as I please.  I'd like to think that I'll do something fun like take a yoga class, take a long walk with Archie, or do productive things around the house, but more than likely I'll end up taking a big, fat nap. Although, for the forseeable future I'm sure I'll spend it decorating our new place.... :-)

The moving truck arrives tomorrow!!!

Things I'll miss about my job

So yesterday was my last day in the Tampa office and although I'm keeping this position and working remotely, it still feels like the end.  The day was really nice -- everyone said how much they'll miss me and have enjoyed having me around and my boss took me out to lunch (sushi!).

As much as I've hated the 1 hour 15 minute commute everyday (2.5 hours roundtrip!), I am going to miss it a little. I have compiled a list of the things I will miss, as I say farewell to the Tampa office...

1. Howard Frankland Bridge

• Gorgeous view of the water
• On a good day you may find yourself driving with a pelican flying alongside which is super cool 

2. Free lunch

• Since it's a major regional office, they host a lot of employee trainings here and they always order enough food for the office staff to eat too

3. Coworker Deb

• Made me delicious ceviche on more than one occasion

• Left random treats on my desk for no reason

Easter egg!

I named him Fred

• Owns an adorable basset hound named Merlin and regularly sends me photos of him
• Made me a carrot cake for my last day in the office :-)

4. My boss (although he worked remotely at least 80% of the time so it's not like I saw him all that much in the office)

• Adores me and regularly tells me how awesome I am at my job
• Asked for our new address so he can send us a housewarming present. HE IS SO NICE!