Since I never seem to write in here anymore I might as well put up a year in review since so much has happened in 2008.

January – Was still at Sapient and just got pulled into doing the godawful Doral site. That was an eye opener because it made me realize I really really didn’t want to be in the advertising industry. I still have some friends there, and they do some good work, but it’s not for me.

February – Most of February was a blur because I was trying to finish up things at Sapient and I believe around this time I started to realize more and more that I needed to find a new job because I was miserable at Sapient. Jamie was still working at the Shelter and doing decent there.

March – Had another birthday and I seem to remember right around that time is when I started to get a 1st, then 2nd interview with the Zeta people in Vancouver. By the end of the month I had an offer on the table and put in my resignation on the day of my birthday at Sapient. That was a fun birthday mostly because of the prospect of starting a new job, and also because the party Jamie threw was awesome. Though in true ‘good’ party fashion I remember everything up until a certain point, but damned if it wasn’t good before that point.

April – In the beginning of the month I started to get into the groove of working from home, which turns out I liked, or at least liked then. I think somewhere in the middle of the month Jamie lost her job and was put in limbo because the Zeta job was only supposed to last a few months before we moved up to Vancouver.

May – Jamie and I took a trip up to Vancouver to visit my coworkers and also look around the area in the hopes we could find a decent place to live in eventually. It’s also where Jamie had a little rough time our first day over there. Otherwise the trip was awesome, and we even got to meet up with an old friend of mine in Seattle and his then gf/now fiancee. At the end of the month we went to Jamaica for Jamie’s little sister’s wedding in Jamaica and man was that awesome.

June – This month was somewhat of a bummer simply because not a lot happened. I worked, Jamie started working part-time at the gay paper [I think it was around this time] and that was about it. I think also around this time I might’ve started to realize that working from home was fun, but it also wasn’t conducive to me being productive.

July – This was a huge month. But only right at the end because it’s when I proposed to Jamie finally after a long time of knowing she was the one, but not having the right moment + ring to do it. Thankfully by this time I had both things set and popped the question while we were up in Pittsburgh for my family reunion. The rest of the month however, went by with not a whole helluva lot of fanfare.

August – I just remember that now is when we started to try to go crazy finding dates and venues to have the wedding in, even though we had both promised ourselves we wouldn’t go crazy right off the bat.

September – By now the 3-month trial period at Zeta had long since lapsed and I was starting to figure they weren’t in that much of a hurry to get my work permit and move me up there. However Jamie and I did the necessary paperwork to try to start the whole process of getting a work permit. Turns out that it wasn’t nearly as easy as we thought and we’d find that out. We heard back from the Canadian Embassy about my work permit and were informed that we needed a lot more information. Most of which could be provided by Zeta but we weren’t sure how to proceed. While we were trying to figure out what to do an old work buddy informed me of the fact that they were looking for some help up at EA in Orlando. I didn’t think I would actually get the job but figured I’d be stupid to not try for it at least. Jamie’s birthday was at the end of the month but instead of being able to really celebrate it here, we could only go out for a few hours because we had to catch an early flight up to Pittsburgh to look at potential venues that weekend. Thankfully by the end of the weekend we found an awesome venue, picked out a date and were a helluva lot happier and less stressed out than before.

October – By the first week in October I had gotten an official offer from EA and while it was a bit of a paycut from Zeta I knew I had to take it because making videogames has always been something I would jokingly put in the ‘If you could do any job, what would it be?’ list. I put in the 2-weeks at Zeta and started a whirlwind process of finding a new place to live and eventually starting work there by the 20th of the month.

November – Was spent mostly getting used to living in Orlando and everything that came with it. Work wasn’t too crazy but that was because I was still trying to get a real understand of just what I was doing there. Right before Thanksgiving I got a call from my mother about my dad going into the ER, turns out he had gotten two subdural hematoma’s and needed to have surgery to relieve the swelling in his brain. It was a bit touch and go in the beginning, but thankfully by the time the month was over he was better, but still not back to 100%. Thanksgiving was a low-key affair that Jamie and I spent at our new place in Orlando just hanging out because frankly after hearing what happened with my dad I wasn’t in much celebrating mood.

December – Jamie’s dad visited the first week of the month and that was nice. It was also one of the few times in my life I’ve seen two men over the age of 40 smack-talking with some 10 year old kids at a Go-Kart track. Work got better and better as I started to find my groove. Our final trip of the year was the trip to Pittsburgh and Ohio to visit the family for Christmas. This year was a bit different because I wanted to spend a few extra days with my dad since work was completely closed for the annual Christmas break period. In the end it was a good thing because Christmas Eve my grandma had to go to the ER because she could barely hold herself up. Seemingly like dad she took a turn for the worse, before seemingly doing a 180 and making a surprising recovery. As of this moment I believe she’s still in the hospital, so I keep hoping she’ll make more of a recover but she’s 96 so who knows.

This was a year filled with two new jobs, a new hole in my dad’s head, a new ring on Jamie’s finger, and a new town to live in. If that doesn’t make for a crazy year I don’t know what does, and 2009 looks like it’ll be even bigger and better!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 at 12:59 am and is filed under 2008, dad, EA, Jamie, Orlando, review, work, Zeta. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.