I have not forgotten your generosity in helping my family to get out to Arkansas when we could no longer afford to live in the Bay Area. Therefore, in a continuing series, I'l be discussing our new lives in rural Arkansas until we can afford to live someplace else.
We'll get to how the job search has been going below the curly thing.
Unexpected good news on this front. It looks like, for some reason, that they don't get many Linux sysadmins out here so I've actually been getting job offers. Help desk and computer operator offers, but that beats the hell out of nothing.
There are some caveats, however. Most of the tech seems to be up in northwest Arkansas, in the Fayetteville area. Specifically, much of it is in Bentonville. If that name sounds vaguely familiar to you, that's because it's the corporate headquarters of Wal-Mart.
I am astounded at the level that Linux seems to have penetrated into Wal-Mart's infrastructure. I guess I shouldn't be, what with its price advantages, but I am. And with that is a desperate hunger for anyone who knows anything about Linux.
Unfortunately, what with me extremely uncertain that my parents will be OK on their own, we're talking a hundred mile drive to work. At least it's not an hour and a half of sitting in a traffic jam staring at someone's Bush/Cheney sticker, but this will not be fun. And both jobs that offered want me to work nights, so this will be even less fun.
Still, crappy low-level night jobs or not, it's better than getting nothing for nine months. And the pay on the one I accepted is comparable to Bay area wages, so we may be able to save money and get transferred back.
Things get better. Should the shutdown go through, this timely job will keep a roof over everyone's heads and food on the table. I may eventually get a new computer and a decent Internet connection out of this as well, but we'll see.