The last time I was looking for a job before moving to Florida I just wanted to get out of the area I was living in.  I just did not care how I did on interviews there. I tried but did not give my full effort until this opportunity came along.

I’ve even started to consider jobs  with a 1 hour commute and will even take the loss of breaking my lease if i can find another Florida opportunity if nothing comes up quick enough. Now I am just doing my best fighting the hardest to stay in Florida. Regardless even a small move to a new city I will again yet to have to reinvent myself and start from scratch (not totally from scratch but still have to relocate). Maybe it will be a good thing if it comes to that. Nothing says I can’t get a job elsewhere in the state and come back to Tampa when I can. Locals are always giving preference to Florida jobs 1st. Protecting my dream of remaining here is worth the sacrifice of a minor set back.

Still hard to believe I lasted 1 1/2 years on a contract that was initially supposed to be for 6 months.  I’m also turning 30 next month and I would really like a nice city that I can call home and remain for years not just the short 18 months I have worked here. Living here for me is pure paradise and I don’t regret the experience of it at all. I know and heard of many people who would give anything to live in Florida but have never had the opportunity.

On a positive note I just completed  Ace the IT Interview by Paula Moreira. This was really worth the read. It gives some help and ideas that I vastly need to help my needed interview skills. I’m sure I’ve learned enough to improve my chances of landing a job with this book. My goal is now 10% ( (100% / 50) * 5 Books) completed.   Now I just have to finish the next 45 books and my goal will be achieved. I’ve now just  just started a book about JSF and hope to focus on learning that during my downtime.

The only thing bad I can say is who in there right mind would tolerate a 15% pay cut (vacation time amounted to the 15% cut). If I were my former coworkers I would start looking. It’s a insult and degrading to take such a pay cut.

On a positive note I purchased the Amazon Kindle 2 weeks ago and it has been enhancing my reading productivity. I have now become closer to reaching my goal of reading 50 books.  I just completed my 1st truly technical book on my Kindle. The book is  Oracle 11g For Dummies by Michael Wessler. Don’t let the For Dummies scare you it really is a complicated book on Oracle DBA stuff. I learned alot of cool stuff into the background of what Oracle DBA’s do which is something I was curious about. My goal is now 8% ( (100% / 50) * 4 Books) completed.   Now I just have to finish the next 46 books and my goal will be achieved.

I also finally upgraded to Windows 7 awhile back and it’s by far the best Windows version yet. I can’t believe how slick it is. It’s stable as anything and it works better than any version I have seen.

Now things always happen for a reason and I’m sure this happened for a great reason.

My goal is now 6% ( (100% / 50) * 3 Books) completed.   Now I just have to finish the next 47 books and my goal will be achieved.

My goal is now 4% ( (100% / 50) * 2 Books) completed.   Now I just have to finish the next 48 books and my goal will be achieved.

My goal is now 2% ( (100% / 50) * 1 Book) completed. While it may seem I have such a long way to go every book helps put me 1 step closer to reaching my goal.

In the coming months my plan is to purchase a Amazon Kindle which will allow me to more easily and quickly enable to read more books faster. It’s not the easiest thing in the world trying to hold and read a 400-500+ page computer book comfortably.  Storing them and finding them is another matter as well.  Getting a Kindle should solve most of these problems in the coming months.

I have come to a  reasonable solution to my problem. I can and will read way more books than I have been reading. I will set myself to a realistic goal of reading 50 computer books by January 1, 2015 . Doing this will allow me to be a more confident and knowledgeable programmer than I am now. I will keep updated on my progress in this blog to show how close I am to reaching this goal.