Niel and Christy

I'm writing this update from Aspen, Colorado. I'm attending something called BoostCon. You may be wondering what I'm doing here, and why Christy and Charlie aren't with me... After several months and lots of applications, I finally had some good interviews. One was over breakfast with a couple guys from a company in Orem called Gwava. They liked my resume and pretty much offered me a job right then. They said they would get back to me within a few days with an offer. I was pretty excited, and I told Christy that I wanted to take that job. However, there was another company that also wanted to interview me. I spotted a job posting on Monster.com for a company called Magpie in Salt Lake, and called up the recruiter in charge of it. I saw that I was a pretty good fit for the position, but the recruiter didn't think so. He sent them my resume anyway. Eventually he called back and told me they wanted to have me do an interview with someone from HR. That seemed to go pretty well, and they called me back for a technical interview with a few of the software engineers. They asked me programming questions, and made me write stuff on the whiteboard. I guess I did well enough there because they called me back for a 3rd interview, where I took a programming test, and then they took me to lunch. This was last Tuesday. Later that afternoon, I got a call from the HR lady I interviewed with originally with an official offer from Magpie. I told the guys at Gwava that I had received this offer, and they rushed to get something together by Wednesday afternoon (April 29th). After examining all the pros and cons of both offers, I decided to accept the one from Magpie. So I called to tell them I wanted to accept the offer, and they told me I could start Monday, May 4th. So I wrapped things up at Sensory Sweep, and my last day was Wednesday (before I actually accepted the offer.) All of Charlie's friends were sad to see him go. Poor Charlie won't get to go to work anymore. Thursday morning I got a call from Mike, the guy who interviewed me, and he asked if I was still planning on starting Monday (yesterday). I told him I was, and he told me he wouldn't be there because he had this conference to attend. Then he asked if I wanted to come along. I was pretty speechless. Of course, I said I'd love to go. So me, Mike and Brad, another guy who interviewed me, drove out Sunday afternoon, and I've been in Aspen ever since. Magpie is a subsidiary of TD Williamson, an oil and gas pipeline engineering company, so they have plenty of money to spend. All the meals in Aspen are pretty expensive, but the company's paying for them, so we've been enjoying the free food. This trip has been a great opportunity for me to get to know some of the guys on my team. Christy and I are so relieved that I actually have a paying job now. We've been extremely blessed. I still can't believe I'm in Aspen, and I have a new job! It might take a while to sink in. In other news, we're going to Pocatello, Idaho on Saturday (after I get back) to pick up a sister for Charlie. She's a pomeranian/chihuahua mix and looks just like Charlie. Who knows...she might be his long lost sister! I better wrap this up and leave something for next time. We love you all!