A Tale of Two Dinners and a Camping Trip

A few weeks ago, the CEO of Vertigo Software, a company with an office here in Portland, mentioned on Twitter that the company was hiring, and asked people to send him an email if they were interested. Shaun has followed the company for a long time. He was interested, and he emailed. He got a reply that night. Then he got an email from their HR department. That night. Containing a request for an interview the following Monday. Over the next week or two, he made it through an informal screening interview and a technical phone interview.

The final hurdle was an in-person coding challenge. Two weeks ago today, Shaun went in to the Vertigo Portland office. He was given the specs for a project and two and a half hours to have at it. When the time was up, they had lunch at the Produce Row Cafe. Then he presented his work and answered questions. Then he was interviewed some more.

Shaun was so fried by the pressure of not wanting to blow his chance of working at the company that he very most wanted to work at that he didn't even call me when he was done. He just came on home.

And went camping!

Beacon Rock with the Morgan family is always fun. How enchanting is this spot? Here, David is serving up foil packets of carrots and potatoes and onions and garlic and sausage that were cooked on the campfire. Which is exactly what you should eat when you're camping, especially when you've had a soul-draining day of job interviews.

It wasn't, perhaps, the most relaxing weekend. Shaun was expecting to hear if he got the job on Friday or Monday. When we didn't hear Friday, it meant a weekend of wondering. Also, on Saturday night a drunk old man got stuck in his tent at the campsite next to us. At the campsite next to the Morgans, a very very very very very untalented jackass got out his guitar at 11:00 and sang to all of his buddies at the top of his lungs for several hours. I didn't let Shaun go ask them to quiet down (my overactive imagination saw it all ending with terrible, bloody violence) and we were out of cell range, so we couldn't call the ranger. It was rather satisfying to tell on them the next morning when the ranger came by, though.

One of those milestones that you don't know you were waiting for until it arrives: the boys deciding on their own to play Uno together in the tent.

Gotta make your own fun when you're camping.

Walking up to "Little Beacon Rock."

How cute is Mila? Her folks do an amazing job of managing her diabetes and keeping her healthy.

Carved into the picnic bench at our campsite.

Lisa Marie, Ezra, and Mila getting serious with the s'mores.

So Monday came and we waited. And waited. 3:30 rolled around...I needed to go to the store to get something for dinner. But would it be a celebration or a consolation meal? Surely we would hear any minute. I couldn't bring myself to go shopping. And Shaun came home with no word and we had no food in the house.

So Shaun pulled everything out of the freezer. Everything. Eight fish sticks. Five taquitos. A handful of wedge potatoes. Two mozzarella sticks. Twelve mini quiches. There was also one leftover piece of pizza in the fridge that Willem claimed before we even started cooking. Shaun made a careful timeline of when to put all the food in and when to flip it and when to take it out. So this was dinner. Not one of my proudest homemaking (or lack thereof) moments.

Well, I certainly wasn't going to let that happen again. The next afternoon I decided to take a chance and bought some salmon steaks at Whole Foods. And missed the call. And noticed when I got back in the car. And called Shaun back. And found out that we would be having celebratory pan-roasted salmon for dinner.

Shaun starts the new job on July 11. Cheers to him!