I’ve accepted a job in Johnson City, TN. I am officially off the market.

I think it’s going to be a very cool place to work. Fast paced, challenging, with good people to work with. I’m excited. And really, what more can you ask for?

My thanks to the various companies who reached out to me the past month and a half. Some of you had some very nice offers with some really intriguing job opportunities. Sadly, most of them were not in the Tri-Cities area of TN where I needed to move to

But who knows what the future holds? I am selling a house I bought four months ago because I thought I was going to be here in Idaho for another 2-5 years. I am not clairvoyant; situations change. We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, very much looking forward to moving to VA/TN and seeing how this all plays out. Time to begin again!

To get an idea of what I have done and what I can do, check out my resume or my CV on Careers.StackOverflow.com. Also, browse this blog

Why am I looking for work?

For the past five years I have had the privilege of working for Randy Buttenhoff at Nez Perce County. It’s been one of the best jobs I’ve ever had, and the best job I’ve had as a software developer. I work for a great boss who gives me all the tools I need to be successful. At various points in time our team has passed most of The Joel Test. I’ve been able to work with great coworkers who are really good human beings. I’ve also been given the ability to continue to grow as a software developer: to attend conferences, read blogs, experiment with new technologies and tools and keep up with the rapidly changing pace of this profession. I have enjoyed growing as a software developer.

But life has a way of throwing surprising events at us. Sometimes those events are laced with sorrow; sometimes they are good; and sometimes, if we’re lucky, they’re wonderful. Recently, I became engaged to the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. She has plans for her immediate future and I support those plans, and so that means I will be moving to her. Hey, I’m a software developer, or as I like to say, a professional problem solver – I can write software anywhere in the world. It’s a scary thing to pick up your life and move across the country, but for the right reasons, and the right people, it can be worth it. It can even be easy.

I am specifically looking for work in or near the Kingsport, Tennessee area. I will be moving to Gate City, Virginia, just across the border from Kingsport, and Kingsport seems like the most likely place to find my kind of work. I am, however, also very open to the idea of working remotely or in a consultation capacity, which is something I’ve done in the past.

What kind of work am I looking for?

My preference is work with the .NET platform (C# variety). It is where I have spent the most time in the last decade and where I am comfortable. I really like a lot of the tools and technologies and feel like I can solve problems pretty quick with my currently favored technology stack (C#.NET, SQL Server, NHibernate, FluentNhibernate, NUnit, StructureMap, etc.). That is not to say that I am opposed to new tools or technologies – far from it. If an employer thought I would be a good fit for a position as a Ruby on Rails developer, by all means, talk to me.

Most of my current work takes place in WinForms development, but I also enjoy ASP.NET development and have done some very basic WPF work as well. I especially like what I am seeing out of the ASP.NET MVC camp and the FubuMVC stuff from Jeremy Miller, Chad Meyers, et. al.

I would like to work somewhere where I have the same freedoms that I have now to continue to learn and grow as a software developer. The landscape of computer programming changes so rapidly; we owe it to our profession and our customers to stay up-to-date, continue to learn new technologies and tools and grow as problem solvers. I would like to work somewhere much like where I work now: where I am given the tools and hardware to be successful and given the time and support to continue to grow. It would be especially nice to work somewhere where there was a budget for developers to attend conference such as Agile Austin and the PDC. I attended the first Agile Open Spaces conference in Austin a few years ago and met many of the people in the C#.NET world that I admire. I also learned a lot and grew quite a bit from that conference.

At any rate, I’m on the market and openly looking for a new job. I would like to have a new job lined up by August at the latest. My current employer supports my decision and knows the reason for my move, so references from him are available on request. If you know of anyone near Kingsport, TN who needs a talented .NET developer, send them my way, eh?

-Chris

A lot of people think their vote won’t make a difference, or that their voice will never be heard. But if we all felt that way, then the system would be broken. There’s a lot more good than bad in this country, and the only way to begin to fix what’s bad is to get out and vote. Also, suffrage rights didn’t come without incredible struggle for a lot of people in this country — women and blacks in particular. To me, not voting would be a huge slap in their faces.

I can’t remember ever being so excited for an election day. This could be a landmark day in American history, and we’ll all be present to witness it. Provided, of course, the Republicans don’t cheat their way to victory once again.

Recently, Jeff made a post about DRM-Free Music. Like all his posts, it’s a great read. But that’s not what I wanted to write about.

What I wanted to mention was this nugget from Jeff that had me laughing:

I’m sure that the moment man discovered fire, there was some guy nearby saying, “Too smoky. Can burn you. Lame.”

I laughed because, regardless of context, this is so true. There are people in this world who can manage to see the negative in everything. And from now on, when I run into those people, I’m going to recall this phrase that has stuck in my head.

And I’m going to smile

Thanks Jeff.