Tango hired me! As of 15 June I start an exciting new career as a Java programmer. At the moment I'm too overwhelmed to have much of an opinion on this, other than that I'm happy. Eventually it will hit me that my job description just changed dramatically, and that should be interesting. I wonder how long it will take me to go from thinking of myself as a sysadmin to thinking of myself as a programmer?

Then again, will I quit being a sysadmin because I stopped working as one? I'm not sure. I don't think I quit being a journal-writer when I wasn't doing this journal. So maybe it's not giving up something so much as adding new things in to the mix. Plus there's also something in here about identifying with the work one does instead of identifying the work as a facet of a whole, but I am far too incoherently relieved & ecstatic to write about it right now. Consider it thought about.

So ... Tango! I'll be working with Rachel, and also with Omi. I'll be working in downtown Mountain View, at least to start with, which means I can have sushi for lunch whenever I want simply by walking a few blocks. This also means I'll be working right next to Bookbuyers, the huge used bookstore with nice employees and an immense sf section. If I'm not careful I'll spend all my hard-earned Java cash on sushi and books.

I'm getting stock options. I'm not sure what to think about that. It's an easy way to make employees invest themselves more thoroughly in the company, I suppose. Having never had stock before I'm not sure how (or if) it'll work. I think I'm invested already, though, given that Rachel put so much energy into getting me the interview & keeping me sane leading up to it. Not only do I want to do well on my own behalf, but I want to prove that her faith in me was not misplaced.

This is a weird feeling for me. I'm not sure if I like it.

I have seduced Earl to Java! Or at least he seems intrigued by it. He was looking through my new Java book right before I went to Mountain View, and muttering about writing something in Java to get the feel of it. I hope he does; it'd be fun to be able to talk to Earl about programming in more than the abstract -- although actually, he got pretty concrete when he was helping me understand things pre-interview.

Books. I read the new Pamela Dean, Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary over the weekend. I also reread Bridge of Birds, which is an absolutely exquisite novel by Barry Hughart. If you haven't read it you should go do so Right Now. It's back in print, so there's no excuse.

Now I'm back to working on the second of Dorothy Dunnet's Niccolo books, The Spring of the Ram. It's good, but very long. I need to finish them all before I move, or else pay my hideous fines at the Mountain View library so I can acquire copies. Why is it that so many things I want to read are out of print?