I made slow-cooked pepper pork chops today and served it alongside pan-fried polenta and asparagus. (Polenta cut in heart shapes of course!)

My only variance from the instructions was that I could not wait around 1.5 hours to turn the heat down to Low, so I started it at High and as soon as it started bubbling I switched to Low and hit the road. Instead of 1.5*High + 4.5*Low I did about 10 hours on Low. (My new Crock Pot has a simple timer with four settings but doesn’t understand how to do two different stages all on its own.)

The meat felt a little dry texture-wise so perhaps it was too long. I enjoyed shredding the pork and spooning cooking juices and apple/onion mush over the bits. Maybe next time I will try cooking for the recommended time (or at least switching from Low to Warm at 8 hrs instead of 10 hrs).

Introducing the book – funny video clip about tech support, 2+ min.

From: ${company_s}
To: ${gconnor}
Personal and Confidential
February 6, 2007
RE: Offer of Employment
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For those of you who have been regularly tuning in to “Where’s gconnor interviewing now?” you will be pleased to find out that we may actually have a winner this time! Today’s interview was at Shutterfly and think they like me, and more importantly, I think I like them.

I’ll post details later. Brief overview, I met with 4 people, 5 if you count an almost-cameo appearance by the CIO. All of them seem very cool (well, I already knew ezray was cool). They have a real product to sell and they’re still a little bit startup-y but not as much so as the other place I interviewed last week. They have lots of servers and need more server-wranglers, which I am. Their group seems to be distinguished from other places I have checked out in that they have a strong role in finding technical direction, almost R&D like.

The downside for me is going to be the commute. Mapquest reports 36 minutes at the speed limit, but this morning it took me 1 hr 10 min to get there at 8:56. I don’t know if this is typical, but it’s 14 more miles of 101 than I currently drive to work and my normal commute is 40 to 50 min. This may be offset by arriving later (or much earlier, though I don’t know if I would lean that way unless most co-workers do) but we shall see. If the job turns out to be utterly wonderful then I may look to move closer somehow. (Fremont maybe?)

In other news, the company that was so excited about me last week phoned to say they’re still excited about me, but that they just got acquired, and they’re dealing with their new masters and still trying to get an offer out in the midst of that. So we’ll see what comes of that, but if it doesn’t come soon it may be a moot point.

Tomorrow: interview with Shutterfly. We shall see if “system engineer” and “senior sysadmin” are mostly compatible.

I haven’t blogged about the second interview with Netli. I should do so before I lose short-term memory of it, but I’ll be terse compared to the first round.

There is only one person they would still like me to meet, and that is the CEO, out last Tuesday with a fever of 104F. I am not sure if they will still have me meet him but I told them my availability and the HR lady (closest thing to a recruiter I’ve seen) said she might contact me for another meeting. I was given information on their benefits but not given an actual offer. I believe the hiring manager was out last week so hopefully I will hear something from them this week.
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