Turning
25
10 Day Coundown
10 days left until I turn 25. The bands going good, my apartment is really nice, I started a business I haven't quite gotten off the ground, and honestly I wish I was a little further in life. I tried to get to California 3 times at this point and I got super close on my second try but I'm still working on it. Making pizzas in the meantime and probably going to switch to doing holiday lighting seasonally. Money is tight right now but I'm hoping Ill get some nice gifts for my birthday which gives me some consolation.
My dads side of the family is gonna give me a new computer rig for a few grand. I got a couple side projects I work on and I list them on my resume but progress has been kind of slow because my machine is a decade old at this point. Looking for the best PC's on the market and currently my top choice is the MSI Aegis RS2 Gaming Desktop but open to better suggestions. The most important component to me is the graphics card since I do so much work with computer graphics and making cool visuals. When I try to write apps on my desktop it is painstakingly slow and running calculations on my current GPU crashes my computer every couple of hours!
My moms side of the family is hopefully gonna get me a new bass for about 500 dollars for my birthday. I haven't had a decent bass to practice with since I fell off the stage playing at the Cubby Bear and broke my 5-string in half! Think I got carried away with all the free food and the beer we had on our tab. Its hard to organize people especially for the band since me and my guitarist are the only permanent 2 members and every show we have a different drummer or a different chick singing with us. One of our female vocalists is very good at covers and I'm trying to bring one on board who's really good at freestyling and improvising, but the third has the voice of a goddess. She sounds like Etta James, but even better.
Now as I'm getting older I realize how transactional having a job actually is. What you want does not matter, it comes down to what you have to do and this fact becomes especially prominent when your in a situation like mine and can barely pay rent. The employer qualifies you and sets the rules while you also set your needs and if it’s a fit it becomes contractual. I'd say in any relationship -- and especially in a work relationship or when money is involved -- trust is the most important thing you can possibly have. Both sides need to keep their promises or nobody wins.
Excited for my birthday though, the older you get the more you learn. Right now its October which is absolutely my favorite time of year, with its vibrant orange colors, the windy weather, getting birthday gifts, and decorating for Halloween. Need to try to look at the better side of life and keep chasing my dream to get out of this state. Was thinking of doing a D&D game and jam session for my birthday, and might even be able to finesse my grandparents into buying me some even more things for my favorite holiday!
The Weekend
One of the most challenging things I've found is organizing people -- especially on a consistent basis -- since everyone has a different schedule and different priorities. I've been trying to get a D&D game going for a while and I think I finally was able to put a full party of 4 together for tomorrow. We have a great mix of characters and background so its gonna be a really fun game. Hopefully I can get a new bass before my birthday as well so that way I'll be able to play out again and pick up rehearsals. Looking forward to trying out a new female vocalist for the band if I can get a drummer out.
As we walked to the library with my roommate I told him there was something very nice about gaming early on a Sunday morning, and I used to play cards all the time with my friends at the coffee shop a few blocks from our house. I told him that the D&D game I was prepping and printing stuff for was gonna be one of the most hilarious of all time and we have a lot of funny stories that would be perfect if we ever did a standup comedy routine.
One of the funniest stories is about how I initially met my guitarist. For years before I started my band I was always looking for musicians to join and jam with but nothing really clicked. One time I got a call from a guy (whos good friends with my now) that I hit up on Facebook who was thinking I'd audition for bass in his group. When I came by I was cramped in the corner of his garage barely able to play and I wasn't even plugged in! He kept telling me to play louder and I told him I was playing as loud as I could after which he told me to get out, I think it was because his drummer was talking shit about me. As I was leaving I told the guy I was just looking to jam and have a good time so I didn't understand what the big deal was and eventually he let up saying he might be jamming at an open mic in Lombard and I could come thru. The day I visited the bar is when I met my guitarist!
Speaking of music, my birthday is also going to be the 2nd year anniversary of when I started my band with my guitarist, its when we came up with the name and concept. I spent my 23rd birthday jamming with him and our first drummer after we'd met that summer. I still remember how hammered we got when we played back then! The interesting thing is, since the beginning I knew we could play any style and I always thought that chicks would dig our music, but I never realized that they would actually want to BE in the band. At one point we had 3 girls in the band so I keep joking about bringing a 4th one. The funniest part is its probably gonna happen soon!
I feel like life can be a slow ascent sometimes and you can learn a lot from failure. Right now I'm hoping I can make my 4th attempt to get to California, this time with a fashion ecommerce company based in the Bay area. Every time I tried to get out of Chicago in the past I was dealing with very smart people and was forced to learn new skills and play my cards right. The 1st time I tried I learned a lot about graphics programming and the last time I tried I had to write some of the best quality code in my life. The 2nd time (the one I started this series with) I had to hone my knowledge in STEM, rehearse all my interview answers as well as learn C# development while writing a demonstration in the MAUI framework.
In the meantime I'm working at a pizza place and will probably start holiday lighting next week and make better money. Like I've said in the past, persistence and luck is a winning combination. And who knows, maybe I'll get lucky next time?
Sunday Morning D&D
Theres something really nice about waking up early Sunday morning and gaming with friends, I used to play cards a few years back with 2 guys I met at the coffee shop but 4 people I've noticed always makes the most balanced dynamic. After all the effort I can put into organizing people today it finally payed off and we were able to get a D&D game going.
I kind of created a rough outline for the plot and our characters but the game ended up really being a joint effort with the DM. Originally I had an epic story in mind where my "mage hunter" rouge character is tracking a nefarious magic user called the "jester molester" for tampering with the words of King Jame's bible. In order to escape me and my ranger ally in the game, my roomates criminal bard character I was trying to capture played a song that angered the gods so much got us teleported into a mysterious realm run by a mythical deity.
The plan me and my roommate had in mind involved a goddess called the "Valkyrie" similar to the one in Norse mythology who resurrects warriors at dawn on the D&D plane of Ysgard. Our mission would be to grant her the gift of death to be free of immortality in exchange for a cubegate or some means of multiverse travel. When I got to the plane I figured we would encounter the other 2 members of our party fighting in eternal battle since they were the most evenly matched for each other: one was a half-lion male riding on the back of a manticore and the other was a giant with a cannon trying to blast him out of the sky. But since the DM is the one that writes the story it definitely didn't go the way I expected.
Instead, one of the first things that happened is me and my roommates character got polymorphed into elks. The 2 players I thought would hate each other actually became guardians of the goddess of the hunt and came after us together. Once we both got killed they brought us back as offerings to the goddess of the hunt and it seemed like the satyr we originally got teleported with turned cloak and became friends with the goddess. Every day we get polymorphed and hunted before coming back again at dawn when the cycle repeats.
It was a pretty wild story and it was full of humor and satire! Me and my roommates character had none of the equipment or weapons I started with and none of the instruments the bard had started with so we are completely going at it from scratch. But that’s ok because if we start off in captivity next session I have a daring escape plan that might actually work!
The most interesting thing is I feel like this is the point that I reached in my life where I have to go back to the basics, do some manual work until I can save up for a car or find another tech job. But I feel like just like in our D&D game anything is a possibility…
Shoestring Budget
Looks like I might not have enough to pay rent this month, got a check smaller than I expected from my pizza delivery job, got some cash from my roommate and I thought I was gonna get an extra 500$ or 600$ for scrapping my old car but it didn't quite work out.
Apparently when I bought the car because I didn't pay in full there was still a lien on it and even though I had all the paperwork from when I bought the car the tow truck guy explained to me that with the hassle it takes to talk to the company, pay the fee to get the lien removed and pay the DMV to reinstate the title he would take the car off me for free and that was the best I could probably get. Reluctantly I agreed since with the amount of money I needed to spend on repairs you might as well just get a new car at that point.
Might not be able to afford to buy a new bass unless a friend helps me out with a birthday gift, Ill make a deal that I'll let them visit me in Cali if they get me a present! The computer my dad ordered is also taking longer to come than expected which is a shame because developing on my rig is super slow and tedious. If I can't get in that fashion ecommerce company based in the Bay area I have another opportunity that might be available in Chicago but it would require a substantial amount of work and studying on my part.
As good as I am at writing applications and even though I've spent a considerable amount of time working with low-level graphics and C++, I still feel like learning Android on the OS level is a whole other level. This opportunity is the city sounds pretty cool with AI enabled peripheral devices and its also very high paying and the competition is on a whole other level, since few people have experience with AOSP. I doubt I could pull it off but you never know until you try. Unfortunately I cant even get on Amazon to order the right book I need to read up on the subject!
Tomorrow is my first day of doing holiday lighting so hopefully it goes well, it's definitely gonna pay more than what I'm currently doing. Money is tight but I also have to confess the fact that I put myself in this situation since I partied too hard and even managed to do a trip to San Francisco and Vegas while burning through my savings. My biggest regret is that I didn't buy a new car and kept doing flooring instead of having fun because it really bit me in the ass. But that’s ok, life has ups and downs and you gotta just learn to adapt and flow like water.
Eagle Vision
Just did my first day of holiday lighting this morning and went to work in the pizza place right after. Its funny because me and my manager saw the Galactic Ambassadors mom and dad today, but that story is too long and too funny to repeat once more!
I've worked every kind of job there is, from retail to restaurants, from demolition to sewage to tree-cutting work so this gig felt like a decent fit for me. I'm used to working seasonally after all… It got me thinking about the 3 most promising leads I had for tech roles, one based in Chicago, one based in Milwaukee, and my favorite in the Bay area.
I feel like people value your time more once you seem like you are busy or your time is valuable. Now since I'm working 2 jobs it almost feels like my odds of getting back into tech are higher rather than lower. However, I've got to think carefully cause I'm about to spend the last of my money on this months rent and all opportunities come with their own challenges.
The Chicago company is trying to implement an embedded Android device in some kind of AI peripheral device, and as good as I am at apps understanding the phone on an operating system takes a whole other level of intelligence. The smart home company I spent pretty much all of last month interviewing for already had their own Android devices on custom hardware but this new company needed a guy who could do it all from scratch! Maybe if I read the right books and got a faster PC for my birthday that could handle the workload I might be able to pull it off.
The Milwaukee company was the newest lead I found out about and as far as I can tell it is for an actual recruiting firm who's job is to find talent. Even if its not as exciting as the other 2 roles it's still a good stepping stone that could teach me about how the industry actually works and what types of algorithms decide which candidates succeed in the job market. The office is about an hour drive north for me which is a bit complicated to reach without reliable transportation but thankfully the requirements are 2 days onsite and the rest remote. So it might be manageable but not having a car poses its own challenges.
The third opportunity is the fashion ecommerce company based in the Redwood City just in-between San Francisco and San Jose. This one is my favorite since I've had my mind set on getting to California for over half a year at this point. Obviously, starting your life over in a new city is its own hurdle and comes with its own set of risks. Don't know if I can rely on my connections or get the right girl to stay with while I find a permanent place out there but I got my fingers crossed for this one.
Me and my roommate often talk about the concept of the "eagle vision" and we even have song lyrics and a D&D spell that incorporates this idea. It means to see the bigger picture, zoom out and have a birds eye view in order to be successful. But as I was relaxing yesterday I realized that (just like chasing the white rabbit) the eagle vision also has a double meaning. If you think about why eagles evolved to have one of the best senses of sight in the animal kingdom, its because they can see their prey from an incredible distance. And that’s how I need to treat this job search in tech, I need to laser focus on my goals and keep pursuing them.
Wednesday
5 Minutes to Midnight
Wednesday
So I spent the last of my money on rent and had a friend take me out for food and shopping the day before my birthday. I told her about the 3 tech opportunities I had coming up and she told me about her recent road trip with a screaming toddler in the back of her car.
The recruiter that hit me up about the Chicago position called me earlier that morning and we had one of the craziest conversations. After he greeted me in Russian and told me he was Assyrian he told me about the role as well as suggestions for when I was going to discuss the position with the company founder. The wild part was when we were done with the job details he told me more about himself and that he is looking to produce his own show online. When I mentioned we played in a band he told me he'd love to do something together!
What's even more exciting was after I talked to the founder explaining my background and discussing the position I asked about the possibility of setting up an interview to which he seemed to agree on Friday. But before he could even agree to meet up ar 3pm the company from California sent me an invitation to interview virtually! So 2 companies are essentially competing for my attention and I will likely get a call from the 3rd company in Milwaukee as well the same day.
It's about 10 minutes before midnight and I'm thinking about how much has gone by these past 2 years. Working at the pizza place with my guitarist right now and it's crazy to think we started this band and came up with the name that long ago! I'm sure we jammed once or twice before I turned 23 but the midnight of is when I had a feeling we were gonna last a long time after endlessly searching for the right musicians. We sounded pretty good back then and we sound even better now. The best part is I may have found a bass in my mom's budget so I plan to spend tomorrow watching movies and jamming!
Its been a crazy day with so many people calling me and hearing complaints throughout while my mind is all over the place with the amount of things I'm juggling. Will probably clock out of my shift soon and hit up the bar near us that still works till 1am. I'll be 25 in 5 minutes and couldn't be more excited. Looking forward to tomorrow...
Thursday
Happy Birthday!
Thursday
Woke up on my birthday with -100$ in the bank! Apparently my internet provider was still allowed to bill me even though I literally have no money and every time I thought I'd make a little extra cash it ended up not working out. But its all good, nothing was gonna ruin my day. I filled my bird feeders, finished up the Halloween décor, and about to run some errands.
The best part is I got a new 5-string bass from my mom and I'm super excited to play it today! It will be just like we did 2 years ago where we just formed the band, hung out past midnight when I turned 23, and then went to my guitarists old crib where we jammed all day for my birthday. Also looking forward to tomorrow since I have that California ecommerce company interview and it looks like right after I'm hopping on the train to meet the founder of that headphone company in Chicago. I might even get a call from a 3rd company since I told the recruiter I was available Friday. I'm guessing its gonna be 3 companies vying for my attention on the same day, which is definitely a first for me.
Ended up having a great jam where I didn't just play bass but keyboard and guitar too. I guess being around musicians so often and experimenting with different genres has made me versatile in instruments just as interviewing for these competitive tech roles has made me a beast when it came to writing software. Hopefully I can get the guy we were jamming with out again and we can slowly start picking up band practice since I really want to have a solid lineup for another show next month.
I guess I'm still super stressed but looking forward to tomorrow where I have 2 interviews lined up back to back. I know I need to prepare for them as well as I can, especially for the Chicago company that expects me to have knowledge of Android on the OS level. But I know I'll be good. After all, its not the first time I've tried something like this before!
Friday
Family Surprise
Friday
Woke up this morning to another call from a different recruiter for an opportunity I didn't land 3 months ago! I find it crazy how many different recruiters can be involved in reaching out for the same tech job and in this particular instance it was for a company manufacturing car tuners not far from where I live. Unfortunately I missed my shot that time since C++ knowledge was expected and I got too relaxed and tripped up on some of the most basic questions. It's incredible how "what is a heap and a stack" can be so fundamental to programming but you still have to pause and think of the correct answer. Its like asking someone who uses English every day "what is a verb and a predicate?"
I still had 2 interviews to look forward to that day, one from the fashion ecommerce company in California and the other from the headphone company in Chicago. I definitely did some prep work this time by going over some of the Kotlin syntax and doing research with respect to AOSP for the other company.
Unfortunately I didn't do as well as I thought I would for the California opportunity since I usually do better at coding challenges. Kotlin is a weird language and at first I forgot the distinction between MutableList and a regular List as there are mutable and immutable type differences in the language. I also forgot that the upper bound in a for loop is inclusive -- so I had to do 0..(size - 1) instead of just 0..size for the range -- and I had to look up on Google how to replace the first occurrence of one string inside another. I made it through the coding challenge but I doubt this will go any further and my dream will have to wait...
The real interesting interview kicked off in the evening with the Chicago company which ended up being one of the easiest commutes I made in my life. Literally a 5 minute walk to the train a 30 minute ride and a 5 minute walk to the office! When I got in I met a really cool chick working on firmware and liked the setup, it definitely felt like the Cali startup vibe back at home.
When I met the founder of this headphone company we sat down, he showed me his product and I explained exactly how Id approach implementing the features he wanted, including a background service to relay communication. I had C++ experience on Android after all, published apps on the app stores and experience with Bluetooth and the audio space. I told him my legend as well, including the reason I left my last long-term tech job and how I ended up interviewing with doctors and scientists on my second try to get to Cali.
But when it came time to address the elephant in the room and talk about AOSP experience I was straight up and told him that it might not be necessarily for the project. When I originally heard about the role 3 months ago it was through a different recruiter than the one who got me the interview. What seemed intimidating to me at the time was that the company was trying to roll it's own OS which is a monumental task. But that was not the case since they were using a regular phone running regular Android and the OS is owned by the manufacturer! When our interview ended I told him and one of his employees I was in a cool funk band, that we played in one of the nicest venues in Chicago this summer, and ill invite the founder if I get another show in the near future.
I left the interview thinking it went well when I got the news from the recruiter that the founder didn't think I could catch up on the skills he was looking for. Even though I'd just spent my last 5$ on the train I didn't mind that I didn't get the job because I wanted to help the company grow and sometimes growth means hearing the hard truth. That's what my roommate does for me since I spent so much time burning through my savings and partying! When I came home he was chilling with my mom and my stepdad since they decided to pay me a surprise visit. It was a pretty hectic day but at least it came to a happy ending where we ate and had cake.
Saturday
Looking Back
Saturday
Today was going to be my last day of celebration with my dad's side of the family with my grandparents and sister. If my mom's side is more creative and anti-establishment then my dad's side is the more traditional and conservative side. I like to say one got me into music and the other got me into programming which is fitting cause my mom got me a bass and my dad got me a new PC!
It got me thinking about the events of last night and how crazy I must have been telling off a CEO who raised millions while I just spent my last few dollars to make my way there for an interview! I must have really bruised his ego since he's been looking for a particular engineer for half a year and I ended up telling him he's been looking for the wrong guy all along.
The funny thing is even though I'm more broke than I've ever been the recruiter was more upset about me not landing the role than I was, telling me "we both lost!" I made sure to send followup emails to both of them explaining that AOSP developers customize Android for a living and that shipping a stock phone defeats the purpose of having that type of developer. Customizing Android for a phone also involves voiding the warranty and getting rid of the MDM service built into the phone which is a big deal for the product that company was trying to create. The companies that do hire for that position arent startups with millions but established institutions with billions of dollars since they are the ones designing the OS to work with their own smartphones or for custom hardware. And asking a large smartphone company for access to customize their OS source code is like asking Coca Cola for their secret recipe, which is never gonna happen!
I even gave the founder and the recruiter a recommendation in my followup emails to reach out to the smart home company I interviewed for last month who have their own version of Android running on built-in displays for fridges, dishwashers, and other appliances with custom radios they use for transmitting communication. I think I made the right move because I was more concerned with the founder not hiring the wrong person for that position than I was with kissing ass to get a 6 figure salary. I still wanted to keep open communication channels with everyone because you never know what opportunities might come down the road and I respected both the recruiter and company founder very much. Plus the recruiter is a cool guy with his own show and I can only guess where that relationship is going to go!
The only thing eventful that happened today was when I celebrated with my dad's side of the family. I ended up telling them my interview story and they once more brought up the same debate I have with them about going to college when I'd rather do things my way. I need theory to make music as much as I need a stupid diploma! I just gotta keep persistent and I know I'll get lucky. Eventually...
Sunday
Communist Plants
Sunday
Woke up this morning to a cold rainy day, I made a commitment to go out today with members of a communist party. In case you don’t know there are several communist parties across the country and this one actually has a surprising following with members that talk across the nation and occasionally even meet up. If you think about the non-mainstream parties like the Green Party and the Libertarian Party, this is kind of similar in principle as a combination of a 3rd party and an activist movement.
The problem is when I tried to sign up this morning I got caught up in an infinite loop on Telegram sending me back to the website for the onboarding process. But it should still be fun catching up with the Chicago members at the very least when I go out there. My friend joked that we were gathering to plant "communist plants" that day.
I initially met some of the party members about half a year ago when they all gathered in Chicago since it is a central state and its easier to congregate there. I really liked their ideals but most of all I liked the fact that they didn't have the same anti-Russia sentiment that most of the rest of America does. They love Communism and most of them like Putin, and a couple even like Stalin! I ended up linking up with a couple of the chapter members from New York to explore my city's downtown, and one of them even stayed the next night at my place where we hung out and played video games.
I think no-matter what happens next week I need to remember I'll be good either way. I think it takes a man to admit when he's wrong and could have done better but it also takes a man to stand his ground when he's right about something. It's what I did with both the California opportunity and the Chicago opportunity 2 days ago. When I didn't do as well as I thought with the fashion ecommerce company, I ended up emailing a thank you note explaining I use several languages in my day-to-day development so I had to remember some specifics of Kotlin while attempting the coding challenge.
With the headphone company, I respected what the founder was building so I told him the truth despite the fact that I was more broke than I'd ever been in my life and he could offer me a 6 figure salary! I feel like I may have bruised his ego a bit but I know I'll be good, lets just see how things pan out next week. Sometimes you need to hear hard truths in order to grow and step up to the next level in life.