blog.robtarr.net

So, here’s the story of getting my new job:

A few months ago I came across @bencallahan while looking for some info on less css. His name caught my eye because I don’t often come across local web developers on Twitter, so I started following him (on Twitter, I’m not a stalker). This led me to find out about his company – FORGE. FORGE is the kind of place that I have wanted to work at since I left full-time church work. The more I read about the company and saw the kinds of things that they do, the more I wanted to work there. The question then, became how to get a job there, not even knowing if they wanted to hire anybody. While trying to figure out the best way to ask for a job, I came across this. This started making me think, and after deliberating, and talking it over with Deb, I decided that the I would create a simple site to send to the guys at FORGE.

I went ahead and purchased heyforgepleasehireme.com, and started to lay out what would be on the page. After about a week of fitting in some time around an already busy schedule, I had a site that I was pretty proud of – making use of the new HTML5 tags and a smattering of CSS3 for good measure. All that was left was the delivery mechanism. While I was hoping I could come up with a way for FORGE to simply stumble across my new site, that didn’t seem reliable, and I had no idea how long it would take. After losing another possible job because a company I had a contact with had just hired somebody, I didn’t want to wait around too long. I decided to simply send the URL in a tweet to @forgeideas. It felt like such a significant tweet, I was hesitant. I was talking to Debbie and Dane about it on IM when Debbie typed, “Just send it!” So I did. An hour later, I got a message back from FORGE asking me to come have lunch and talk.

The rest, as they say, is history…

Lesson learned: it can pay to be creative when searching for a job. I could have easily sent a resume with a nice cover letter, but that wouldn’t have conveyed how much I wanted to work at FORGE. If you want something, go after it whole hog. When I first walked into FORGE, I was introduced as the guy who made the website

Dayton, Web Development

So, for the last 2 years we have been living with Deb’s parents as we tried to ride out the housing crisis… well we are out from underneath the Phoenix house and the time has come for us to find our own place to rent. So, the search for an affordable house, in a decent part of town, that will take our dogs, that has enough room for the 4 of us has begun.

We started looking around real estate sites on the Internet, and Craigslist.org; but most sites didn’t have a lot of rentals, and Craigslist is over-saturated with apartment complexes who apparently are paying people to post their openings every other hour.

So, we ended up just driving around a couple of neighborhoods (old school style) writing down numbers on for rent signs (I’m suppose to be calling them right now). Ironically, we ended up in the neighborhood of some people we know that Deb just started to reconnect with the other day.

All that to say that, The Tarr’s are MOVING OUT! If you know anyplace in the Dayton area for rent, let me know.

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