School has been going on for a few weeks now... and it's not any fun. I'm not working this term as I'm taking a heavy load so that I can graduate this term (so that I can start at Amazon in January).

We are starting the process of renting a house for December! A couple of (some say big) coincidences came together while we were in Seattle last month, and we ended up taking a look at a very nice house that was for sale (and about to become available for lease too).

We really liked the house, but it was a little on the extreme of what we wanted to spend on rent. Over the last few days, we've talked to the owners several times, and they lowered the rent to the point that we couldn't say no!

I signed my papers for Amazon a couple of days ago!

On a more depressing note, between Jacob, Ethan, and Makaylin, there have been 8 pukings in our house and one in the van over the last two days. I gave Ethan a bucket to puke into and told him that if he gets all of his puke in there next time, he'll get 10 pennies (they love pennies). And today I felt so sick I haven't eaten anything except a couple of grapes.

In other news: Rachel has been looking for places for us to live (hard to do when you want to work downtown, have less than a 45 minute commute, and be as cheap as you can on rent).

I had a great interview with a local company, but they told me that they couldn't make any commitments as far out as January. I really like the people there. The University called be back for a second interview too!

I also had my interview with Amazon:

First interview was ok, but there was a problem involving some geometry that I didn't know.

The second interview was lunch, with someone who may be my future manager. It was great talking to him, but our lunch was really slow so we had to have them box it up (and all of my interviews were thereafter running 15 minutes late.

Third interview was the "bar raiser." The bar raiser is someone from another team that has special interview training and is supposed to insure that the hire is high quality. This was probably my best interview.

The next interview was a little rocky. On the ride home I was thinking about how foolish I was for not giving a really simple solution.

The fifth interview was pretty good, but we were cut off about fifteen minutes short (because all my interviews were running late and we were supposed to meet my recruiter in a different room. He ended up giving me some homework and told me to turn it in by the next morning.

The homework was pretty fun and since I only had my netbook, I did it in Javascript.

Before my recruiter meet with me, the manager of the managers of the teams I was interviewing with stopped by to chat for a few minutes. He wasn't scheduled to, but he said that he happened to be around, so he wanted to tell me more about the company. It was nice talking to him, and just like everyone else, he was really nice.

Then I met with my recruiter, who told me that they usually meet with the people before the interviews to tell people what to expect... She made sure she had the facts straight about when I was graduating and what degree I was earning. She also told me to expect to hear from them in one week.

Then I spent my time in airports working on my homework.

We got a call yesterday (two days after my interviews) saying that they were going to make an offer. I almost didn't believe her; I was just expecting a "it was close, but not at this time." I'm so glad I interviewed with Google as the format was the same and this time I knew what to prepare for (I basically studied the wrong material for the Google interviews).

We'll be moving in December (after I graduate) to Seattle. I'll be working on a product called Webstore (http://webstore.amazon.com/) with some pretty awesome people!

Today I asked Ethan what he was doing on the potty chair and he said that he was going #2. I asked him why and he said:

"Because I get chocolate milk... and ten pennies... and licorice."

I'm guessing that that list is going to keep getting longer and longer until he actually goes.


I had an interview with the University today. It went ok, but I really wasn't prepared for it. They asked me questions like "tell me about a time you and a co-worker had a disagreement." Not that I was expecting the Google/Amazon type of questions, but still. I'd give myself a C+ and would be surprised if they called me back.

I've got two other interviews set up for this next week, so that's good. One is with a local company that I think would be awesome to work for and the other is the onsite with Amazon. Hopefully I can convince someone to take a risky bet...

On the ride home yesterday, Rachel was telling me something Ethan had done and I said:

"Ethan, you're cute"

And he said:

"Yep, I am cute, and funny too!"

Ethan is kind of trying to get potty trained. After a big accident (and I mean really big...), Rachel put a diaper on him (after a long shower). He started freaking out saying that he wanted to go potty (the only reason he wanted to go potty was because he wanted licorice) and Rachel kept saying that he couldn't, he had to wear a diaper because of his accident. Then Jacob said:

"If the kid wants to go potty, then let the kid go potty."

(we think he must have gotten "the kid" from his grandpa)

Things have been going well. I've had a second phone interview with Amazon and they are scheduling an onsite interview for me. I also have an interview with the UO and am trying to get one with a local company. Hopefully I'll be able to get a job lined up ;).

Jacob said that he wants me to be done with school so that I'll play my guitar again... he's not the only one!

Just got off the phone with with Amazon (for my first phone interview). I feel like I did well enough to get a second phone interview - we'll find out in about a week!

For the Mormons: The stake president called me last week and asked if I could meet with our area authority and ten other SPs... They wanted to ask me (and two other EQPs) about our service and how they can support their EQPs in general. We were only there for the first hour, but it was a pretty awesome meeting. They started with a hymn and a kneeling prayer, and then we read and studied the scriptures for about 30 minutes. They then asked us a lot of questions about our service and how they could support us. All in all it was a very spiritual meeting.