Thanks to my friend Mark for showing me this awesome Wilco cover. Unlike the original, this works really well for good news.

I’ve been looking for a job in San Francisco very hard for the last couple months since I got up here. I’ve had nibbles, I’ve had bites.

And then, I had the events of the last week.

A few weeks ago, I’d applied for what sounded like a really ideal job at The Nerdery, a great, developer-driven, Minnesota-based company that’s aggressively expanding its Chicago office. Their website did an excellent job of making it sound like an absolutely ideal place to work. I had a first interview that I thought went very well, and I turned in a code sample I was pretty happy with.

I hadn’t heard from them before I left for Chicago, so I was a little disappointed, because the idea of moving back to Chicago to take such a great job had just seemed so perfect. I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted to move back until I was presented with the realistic possibility of doing so.

And then, after I dropped a check-in email to HR on Sunday, the chaos began.

I had my second interview with the Nerdery Monday morning, and loved it. They told me everything I wanted to hear, including that this page of raves from their employees was, in the experience of my interviewers, true. I left very, very excited about that prospect.

Apparently, that excitement set off some sort of alarm that only HR people can hear, because by the time Tuesday afternoon rolled around, I had booked three interviews with SF companies, had two, gotten a second rounder with one of those two and pulled a code sample out of my ass for that one, too.

Between the interviews, conversations with friends and family, and assorted negotiations I’ve done over the last few days (and maybe some yelling at the terrible Northwestern secondary Saturday night), my voice is completely shot. I slept about 10 hours out of 72.

Then the Nerdery’s offer hit my inbox.

I am very happy to announce that this morning I accepted a position as an Interactive Developer with the Nerdery’s Chicago office. I’ll be starting the week after Thanksgiving (when I’ll have to do a week of orientation at HQ in Minnesota).

I’ll be sad to leave San Francisco – This town has been exceptionally good to me in my short time here, and I’ve very much enjoyed my time in the city. I’m so glad I moved up here, even if it was for a short time, because it accelerated my learning in a way that I don’t believe would have been possible if I’d stayed in LA.

Moving up here absolutely put me in the mind frame and gave me the impetus to bring up my skill set far and fast enough that I was able to get this job, and for that, I can never thank San Francisco enough.

But Chicago is home. I may have grown up in DC, but I have never felt as home anywhere as I have in Chicago. The fact that I am jumping for joy to move there in the goddamn dead of winter after 8 years in California probably says something about how much I missed the place.

[By the way, Chicago folk: I will preemptively warn you that I will be whining about the cold this year. Next year, I'll have my tolerance for the cold back and I'll shut the fuck up, but please, spot me a winter.]

The logistics of all this are kind of nuts. The current plan is to leave SF on November 12, with my car towing a trailer full of my crap minus about 90% of my furniture, and my dad (who VERY generously offered to help with the driving so long as I didn’t make him miss his 75th birthday party, a concession I thought was entirely fair) and Chaplin keeping me company in the car.

We’re shooting to arrive in Chicago on November 16th, though that will change if the weather gets bad along the drive. Trying to find an apartment is already in motion — god, rent in Chicago is so delightfully cheap — and hopefully I’ll have that squared away before I show up.

I am exhausted. I am emotionally wrung out after the rollercoaster I’ve been on for the last week or so. I have so much insanity ahead of me.

But I am so, so happy about this job and this move.

I can’t just post a video for Via Chicago, because that would be way too easy. So instead, a fond audio farewell to California with an enjoyably random video.

A little job came through – two and a half weeks of work on a pilot presentation (basically, a dirt-cheap pilot), starting Monday. Normally this wouldn’t be terribly exciting, but it’s actually union work for once, so this job means a couple of things.

Most importantly, because it’s union and because of the way the health insurance works in my union, it’s just enough hours to let me keep my union health insurance through the end of the year, which will save me a whole pile of money over COBRA.

Almost as importantly, it’s getting me the hell out of the house. I needed something to forcibly break me out of my current cycle of reading everything on the internet then watching everything on television and then going back and reading whatever got posted on the internet while I was watching TV, and this should do nicely.

If I intended to stay in showbiz, I’d be excited for a chance at making a good impression on a new set of contacts, but at this point I’m just happy to be able to have in-person conversations with other humans that do not include the words “Thanks for coming to 24 Hour Fitness!” more than a couple times a week.

And hey, it’s more money than unemployment. Woo!

I got tossed a research project, which is very good for the pocketbook but not so good for having time to do much else. So instead, it’s time for a little shameless bragging in photographic form.

Left: January 27, 2007, about three weeks before I finally snapped and decided to do something about my weight.

Right: April 29, 2009.

Ladies and gentlemen: The power of “eat less, exercise more.”

25 months and 1 day after I set out to lose 80 pounds I have lost…80 pounds!

I decided a while back I want to try and take off another 20 to get down to a BMI of 25, so I’m not done working out like a nutbar or keeping a ridiculously close eye on my food intake, but still, I’m pretty happy.

I honestly didn’t know if I could do it when I set out. I had tried to lose weight so many times and had it come roaring back after three or four months that I just didn’t know if I could do it.

And it definitely took me longer than I wanted it too – I initially set the fairly unrealistic goal of losing it all in 18 months, and then revised that to two years. I can’t tell you how frustrated I was that I hadn’t hit that goal (missed it by three very stubborn pounds), but I learned some time ago that plateaus are a big, frustrating part of this process.

But to finally, finally, FINALLY be where I wanted to be, 25 months and one day later, feels pretty goddamn great.

Two years after I set out to lose eighty pounds, I have swam and swam and ellipticaled and biked and I have now lost…seventy seven pounds.

So the pace I set for myself last year was a little ridiculous – I wanted to lose 38 pounds in eight months, and I didn’t really take into account how much harder it is to take the weight off when a) I’m actually working all the time and b) once I’ve gotten the easy pounds off.

I’ve still got three really fucking stubborn pounds that won’t come off, and the evil that is the Craft Service Table is fighting back at me, calling out to me with its delicious croissants and mini-cupcakes and banana cream pudding and on and on and on.

But when I start to get discouraged after some fluctuation, I have to look at what’s changed:

I used to wear double XL men’s American Apparel shirts. Now I wear a large.

I used to wear 44 inch Levi’s loose fit jeans, which weren’t all that loose. Now I wear 34 inch loose fit jeans, and they actually are loose-fitting.

I used to be 5’4″ tall on a good day. I thought the doctor made a mistake at my physical this year when she listed me at 5’5″. They measured three times. I was so overweight it was compressing my spine by an INCH.

I’m now within three pounds of weighing what I weighed my junior year of high school, when I was in the best shape I’ve ever been since I stopped growing (or at least thought I had).

I used to have a BMI of 42.9, which was almost 3 points over Morbidly Obese. I now have a BMI of 28.8., which is now finally out of Obese and simply at Overweight.

I have come a long damn way. And I’m close to my original goal. Original, because the goal has changed. I have come this far, I can go farther. I can get my BMI to 25, the top of the normal range. Ain’t no way in hell I can get to the middle of that range, I’m just built too stockily. But I can get to the top of the normal range.

To do this, I have to lose 23 more pounds, for an even 100 total. This is going to be…well, very difficult. I’m aiming to have it done by this time next year, but I know it’s not going to come off terribly fast anymore.

These are the pounds that have been on for 10+ years, and these are going to be the ones that are the hardest to convince to go. These are the ones that demand I start eating salad and vegetables on a regular basis, that I work out hard five days a week period end of discussion no matter what.

Of course, I’m on the verge of being unemployed again early next month, so I’ll be back on the broke-ass diet, the single most effective diet and exercise program I’ve ever been on. Not having the money for alcohol or eating out and having time to work out for over an hour every day tends to help with weight loss.

But as slow and painful as it will be, I still have confidence that because I have come so goddamn far that I can go just a bit further. It can be done. It’s only a matter of time.

“rosa parks sat,

so that martin luther king jr. could walk,

martin luther king jr. walked,

so that barack obama could run.

barack obama ran, so we could fly”

-The mural currently up on a building I drive by every morning on my way to work.

As much of a cynic as I am, and as much as the thing that stuck in my mind most about the inauguration ceremony was Roberts and Obama working together to flub the first couple lines of the Oath of Office (seriously guys: rehearse!), to see what this day has meant to my black friends in particular has been truly heartwarming.

I can’t possibly fathom the depth of the importance of this day to them, but the joy I’ve seen in my friends’ eyes, heard in my friends’ voices, and even read in my friends’ Facebook status messages gives me just a little taste of this world-redefining moment.

It takes a hell of a lot to melt the heart of a cynic, especially one like mine, crusted ten years ago in the bile of the Clinton Impeachment and hardened fifteen years ago in the fights over Marion Barry and D.C.’s self-determination after his drug conviction and subsequent re-election.

But today I am happy for this nation as a whole for every political reason I cast my vote for Obama in November. And on a more personal level, I am very, very happy to see so many of my friends so overwhelmed with joy.

This time, they actually let me spring him as promised. I don’t know who’s happier, me or him.

He’s doing fairly okay – I have to keep a close eye on him to make sure he’s not trying to lick his stitches or chew off his fentanyl patch (being held on by the blue bandage on his foot), but for the most part he just wants to sit, be stoned, and snuggle.

He does find time to hate his new haircut, which took odd looking patches off of all four of his legs, plus all his belly fur. He looks like some demented person tried to shave him like a poodle and was stopped just before they got to his tail.

But really, he’s being super sweet and cuddly, and really happy to be out of the hospital. Unless, of course, I try to medicate him. This was him after my first round of chasing him down to dope him up:

Anyway, very, very happy to finally have him home and have him apparently be on the mend. Couple more pictures over at my Flickr.

Edited to add: Oh, and his collar’s off because I’m here keeping a close eye on him. He still has to wear the satellite dish when I’m asleep or at work for the next couple weeks, but at least as long as I can keep watch on him he’s free of that misery.

I got a job! I start Monday morning, and since the show has a 13 episode order, I’ll be employed for at least a few months this time. I cannot even begin to describe my relief and excitement.

Especially because I will FINALLY have enough hours to qualify for Union insurance and be able to stop coughing up huge chunks of cash for health insurance as of the end of the year.

Ah, the small joys of adulthood.

I suppose I should say something here before it starts, since I will likely be sucked into a black hole for a couple months once it does: I’ve got a new job starting Wednesday.

I’m leaving the HBO pilot I’m on as a PA up in Santa Clarita to work on a Fox pilot as an APOC (assistant production office coordinator) downtown. The good news on this change is severalfold:

First, this brings me back roughly to the level I was on back at House, though on a wholly different track. This track will have me joining a union and thereby getting health insurance that isn’t tied to my job, which is a huge thing for my broke ass at the moment.

Secondly, my base pay is finally back to where it was. Oddly, I probably won’t take home as much as I do at my current job, if only because I’m not driving 400-800 miles a week for work and getting mileage for it. However, I also won’t be having to buy 3-5 tanks of gas a week, so it evens out.

Thirdly, I won’t have to drive anywhere near as much. 15 miles to downtown instead of 35 to Santa Clarita, and very few (if any) runs. My poor car, which I’ve driven almost eight thousand miles over the last two months, is ready for the break.

Hopefully, if the show gets picked up to go to series, they’ll take me along for the ride, bringing yet another period of random employment to an end. But, if it doesn’t get picked up (or they elect not to take me with them if they do), I’ll at least be in the union, and it’ll be a hell of a lot easier for me to get another job.

So all in all, I’m pretty excited about this, although I’m fairly nervous since I have a short time to make an impression, and I have to knock it out of the park pretty much immediately and constantly.

The bad news is that with the shooting schedule perilously close to the SAG strike deadline, I may be working a Saturday or four, so we’ll see what shred of my sanity remains after we wrap. Whee!

I realized today when I finally shed one very, very tenacious pound: I am lying about my weight on my driver’s license.

The difference from the previous state of affairs? I am now officially one pound lighter than my driver’s license claims I am, instead of being 20 pounds heavier, as I was when I first moved out here.

29 to go. Woo!