But first, some background.

I have a fabulous job. I work full-time for Tango Communications as a software engineer, writing Java code that occasionally does what I tell it to. Prior to that I did a lot of contract work as a sysadmin, both in LA (WorldSite Networks), and in the Bay Area (Cadence, SGI). Before that I worked full-time for Netcom, doing technical support and a variety of other things, some of them sysadmin-like.

I've never worked at any one longer than a year. Netcom as a job pretty much sucked entirely, although I met some nifty people (like Bill and Louie) and had a pretty good time. Then I became a contractor working through Taos Mountain Software, who tends not to leave people in the same place for very long. I sort of considered going permanent at SGI, which had the highest geek density of anywhere I've ever been, but about eight months into it we got a new manager who was completely psycho -- he spent a lot of time yelling at everyone for being too individual -- so I quickly dropped that idea, and Taos ended up moving me to Cadence. Cadence was sort of like Netcom; some the people were nice, but the actual work sucked large rocks.

Then we get to LA. My job in LA was pretty cool -- being senior sysadmin for a startup at my tender age is not an opportunity to scorn. But -- it was LA. It gave me hives. I started looking for a new job in Mountain View, and somehow Rachel got me an interview with Tango, and talked me into learning Java in three weeks, and here I am.

So here I am, working as a programmer, and I love it. I like the creative aspects of it. I like being able to be useful all the time, not just in moments of crisis. I like being able to plan my day, to move along the line of it at my own pace instead of moving from problem to problem with no end in sight. Control, I guess. I like the creativity and the control.

So that's what I do, more or less. But can I describe where I do it, and who I do it with? It's worth a try.

We're in a new building! Before we were crammed into a space about the size of my mother's house, two or three of us to each tiny cube, with everyone tripping over everyone else. Now we've got the bottom floor of a building in the Landings, which is in Mountain View -- off of Charleston, between Shoreline & Rengstorff. The space seems huge compared to where we were before; there are real multi-person bathrooms, and all the developers are sharing offices (with cubes inside them) while the management sit in a cube farm. I'm not exactly sure what to make of that, but it's probably best not to question this good fortune.

Tango is a small company -- currently we have something like twenty-five people, six of whom are in development. My project lead and thus pseudo-manager is Short Deadly Rachel, she of the red hair and many knives, whom I've known for almost four years now. She shares an office with Omi (another project lead) -- he's currently in India, but fortunately for everyone's sanity he'll be back in two weeks. Omi is around my age, but for some reason I tend to assume that he's older. He's intelligent, and funny, and likes a lot of chick music (Indigo Girls!), and does pottery, and drinks red wine. All of which is of course trivia, but despite having a good sense of him as a nice & interesting person I don't really know very much about him. We've been social together outside of work twice; last year at the Indigo Girls concert in Berkeley, and this year at the Lilith Fair. Plus lunches, but I'm not sure they count. He tends to ask me probing questions & then be surprised at the honesty I answer them with.

My office-mate is Vivek, another developer; he started a week after me, but despite my immense seniority I have allowed him the half of the office with windows. Not that it matters all that much; often the windows are mostly obscured by storyboards, and the unblocked pieces are conveniently visible from my cube anyway. Our view is mostly parking lot, but it's a parking lot with a lot of landscaping, so there are trees and flowering bush-like things, and I can see the sky. I've never had a seating arrangement at work that let me see outside before, and I'm quickly growing possessive of this one.

Vivek is cool. As mentioned yesterday, he reacted well to me hiding under my desk. He likes Rush. He asks intelligent questions, and says useful things, and doesn't talk too much or seem to care when I vanish under headphones for hours on end. I've lucked out in the office-mate lottery.

The other developers are Bhanu (who I never see) and Satish (the third project lead; I only see him when I need something added to the database). They both seem nice enough based on limited interaction.

There are lots more people, but I think I've overloaded my brain for the day.

Last night was Indian food and more panicking. The food was good. Jim and I went grocery shopping, and he was very calm and hugged me a lot when I explained that I was in a constant state of terror. I woke up still the same, but it evaporated once I got to work. How weird. This will be discussed in Millbrae next week.

I'm reading The Story of the Stone aka The Dream of the Red Chamber, which is a Chinese novel from 1750 or so. Much to my surprise I'm actively enjoying it; it's sort of Chinese Jane Austen, with lavish descriptions of gardens and clothing, and tons of atmosphere. Plus poetry, which since I've already read a lot of Chinese poetry in translation is really interesting. I am strongly thinking of stealing the description to use on a mud somewhere.

I continue to listen to Before and After Science. Maybe Trip will let me buy this CD from him?