before/after

Apparently Mr. Galore started a new job in November. At least, that's the word on the street. Before, getting to the what, a typical outfit in old and new position should set the tone:

Before	After

To start with the obvious: gone are the days of Guns 'n Roses shirts (an anniversary gift from Mrs. Galore), the scruffy jeans, shaving whenever it suited, and wearing untied tennis shoes. Fortunately, the blue hair has persevered. Though I'm not much for the new dress code, it gives me much amusement that I am now the proud owner of 11 button up shirts all purchased 24-hours before my first day from Value Village (includes the shirt I'm wearing above).

So with that drum roll done, I'm working on a major internal web content management project for Fisher Communications. For those hailing from or with experience in the northwest, it's the home of KOMO News in Seattle, KATU in Portland, and everyone's favorite weather anchor. I'm serving in the role of senior web developer. You can Google for their current sites but I don't and won't have anything to do with them.

It would be impossible to summarize what got me to this point, but I suppose it all started with a rather compelling (for a nerd like me) job description that I gave a few reads over. I suppose that's how it goes with these things. With that, all of a sudden the wheels were turning. That was way back in August, but it feels like the whole process happened in 2 weeks tops.

An incredibly wise friend and former colleague, told me not to compare and contrast every daily joy and concern to what has been an amazing ~7 years working for ONE/Northwest, but to keep an open mind about the transition.

With that in mind, I'm still very much feeling my way around, but the upshot is that I'm happy. I get to work with really amazingly interesting (for a nerd like me) open source tools and technologies that would cause many of you to fall asleep. I like my co-workers. I like the challenge of trying something new. I like the general problem space of helping the content producers be excellent at local and regional journalism because I think it's the right time to pay attention to things that are happening in one's neighborhood, city, and region. I like the architecture at my building. I like digging deeply into one project, rather than feeling pulled in many directions that's inevitable with consulting.

With that said, it's not all good news. Even though I was ready for a change (7 years at one job, and the only "real job" I've ever had, is a long time), I had to say goodbye to an incredible group of people, who were my friends, serving incredible clients in the name of the worthy cause that is treating our natural resources and our earth as though we wanted it to be around for many generations more. And for that loss, I definitely grieve. Also, ONE/Northwest had way better coffee.