Category: Flashback

3 things that made me think of living in Boston 23 years ago

I’ve been meaning to blog more, though I don’t have any real reason too. Not sure why I feel the sudden urge to blog the following, but hey, I’m going for it. Someday maybe I’ll have deep and interesting posts like Nancy Wood’s I’d Rather Be Defying Gravity Blog, or interesting tech posts like Nicole Ouellette’s Breaking Even Inc. blog, but for now, I’m pretty sure it’s neither, but here’s what I’ve got:

From some strange set of random of news, events and others facebook posts, I’ve been thinking back to my brief time living in Boston in early 1990. I had moved in with my friend Sean Elliot as one of his many housemates (6 I think.. Becky, Jeff, Mark & Katie(?), Sean & Thom) on Calumet Street in Jamaica Plain, NY. My room was barely big enough for my bed, guitar and computer, but it was enough. Here’s what’s triggered these memories this past week;

mhawkins-window-view
Photo stolen from Marshall Hawkin’s facebook page

My college roommate and friend, Marshall Hawkins, posted a photo on Facebook from his office window at the Unitarian Universalist Association on 25 Beacon Street. Not sure exactly where his office is, but that view is very similar to the one I had when I worked in the UUA development office from January through April 1990. I hadn’t thought about working there for a long time, wow, 23 years.

I just happened up the job I had there through our apartment mate Becky (who had moved out by then actually) when she said ‘Matt you know computers right? The computer guy in the UUA development office was in a car accident and they need someone to help out ASAP’. So I interviewed and started a job where I figured out their database through random guessing and phone calls with the person who had just started months earlier, Ted Windt, who was stuck in a hospital for months. He eventually returned to work and we ended up becoming friends. I even returned to work at the UUA for a few more weeks in the fall of 1990 after I got off Star.

Photo of Sandy's music, from Cambridge Day
Photo of Sandy’s music, from The Cambridge Day

Sandy’s Music Closing – I received an e-mail on a mailing list with news I’m on about a small music store in Boston closing. Big deal right? Well, this store is one I somehow found while wandering Boston 23 years ago, and it was one of my favorites. It was really a small ‘hole in the wall’ kind of place, packed to the gills with instruments, music books and hard to find folk CDs, cassettes and LPs. I spent way too much time & money there on folk CDs, harmonicas, guitar strings, music books and even an concertina I could never figure out and finally traded in. I’m sad to hear it’s closing though I have to admit I haven’t been back there for a long, long time and didn’t know it was still open. I’m still sad to hear it’s gone, and that it’s owner is having health problems. Best wishes Sandy. Oh, and a lead in to my next entry, I bought all my Christine Lavin CDs there (long before I even owned a CD player).

Christine Lavin and Marshall after the show
Christine Lavin and Marshall after the show

Christine Lavin – I had the honor of seeing Christine Lavin perform at Williams College this week, and I even dragged my 6 year old son, Marshall (yes, same name as my friend mentioned above, and not completely coincedentally) to the show. He actually had a great time, stood up and cheered when she did her baton act and even got 2 of her glow sticks (which as of last night were still glowing) off her batons. Marshall and I even went on stage and sang ‘Sensitive New Age Guys’ (I had to explain to him what this meant on the drive home!).

I even sat in on her visit to a songwriting class the next day. While I haven’t written a song for over 22+ years, I would credit the silly ones I did write with some influence from Christine, so I really couldn’t ‘let the moment slip away’ (a Christine Lavin song reference) and not attend this class just to hear Christine talk about the craft she has mastered so well. I believe I was the only non-student attending this though they had announced it was open to the public.

This, among many other things, baffles me, how can a concert, let alone a free class with Christine, not be standing room only? In my book she’s as big a star as any other musician I know of, though clearly my perception of ‘star’, let alone my idea of what good music is, is most definitely not in alignment with popular culture. Anyways, it was great to hear her and say hello, though I suspect I probably talked too much and she just chalked up another tally on her ‘Strangers talk to me’ list, but she was kind and humored my bothering her well 🙂

And to loosely tie the above back into the title of this post, Christine’s CDs were a big part of my music intake during this time. I was always amazed how she could mix songs that made me think, laugh & cry all together on one CD.

Oh and finally.. after all of the above early 1990 references to Boston, in 1990 I went out to work open-up on Star Island in April 1990 and shortly after that met the wonderful woman I eventually married, Emily Hayden.

So … 1990 was a good and memorable year in many ways.

 

A topsy turvy year

“It’s been a ‘topsy turvy’ year” .. this was a line from a friends year-end letter I read a few months ago and it’s been stuck in my head since, indeed, this past year has been crazy for us.

A year ago today I found my job at The Jackson Laboratory would be ending in a few months. This came as quite a shock since I had no idea this was coming. There were 4 of us working as System Administrators in the Mouse Genome Informatics department and all of us were given 4 months notice about our positions ending at the end of the current grant cycle. While I realize 4 months notice is more than generous notice in todays environment, this was still devastating. I had been working at the lab for over 13 years and, frankly, never expected to just be let go. Our (my office mates and I) worst case scenario in our heads was that we might get merged into the central IT department. This is indeed what happened, just sans us (well to be fair they created one new position and one of my office mates go that position, but he had to apply and compete for it, there was no institutional respect for the years we’d put in). So, yes, I was shocked, and yes, I’m still a bit bitter in being let go from a place I had put so much into. Sigh.

But that’s just the beginning of the ‘topsy turvy’-ness. First off, while I guess I should have known better, I hadn’t even updated my résumé in over 11 years. In that time period the standards and expectations for résumés had changed so I had to redo this pretty much from scratch. This took way longer than it should have, probably cause I’m inheritently a pretty humble person. I work hard and do a good job and I expect others to recognize and respect that. Résumé and cover letter writing (and interviewing) is a decidely NON-HUMBLE experience and it just drove me nuts to have to boast about my skills and experience.

Also, since thanks to Downeast Maine’s economy and lack of IT related businesses, there were literally NO jobs in the area that I could even apply for. So not only did I lose my workplace of over 13 years, but we realized we were going to have to relocate and sell our house. What a great time to sell a house and to job hunt! WHEE! FUN!

At first I started looking elsewhere in Maine and found a lead at Maine Today Media which publishes the Portland Press Herald and several other papers in the state, as well as running a number of websites. They had recently had a large number of staff turnovers in their IT department and were looking to fill these positions. I liked the person I interviewed with there and it may have worked out but I felt like the team there was going to be too small, the possible pressure of ‘OMG fix this or we cant go to press!’ wasn’t recognized in the salary they offered.

Another friend found a job lead at the company he’d been working at just north of Boston. There was a possibility here to work from home most of the time and that sounded great. However, this job seemed pretty ‘intense’ and the they made me a job offer on Friday and wanted me there Monday morning, and to top it off I didn’t feel they offered me a fair salary. My summary of this job was “yeah I could work from home, but I’d get an ulcer from home too”

I also interviewed at the Harvard Business School and part of the Harvard Medical School but the idea of commuting into Boston from Southern NH (Where Emily has family) was not appealing.

I did get a phone interview and in person interview at the Dartmouth School of Engineering. This was really interesting and I liked the people I met there, but I guess I was choice #2 and whomever was choice number 1 selfishly took the job! So close…

So at this point it was now mid-may and all my current job leads were ones I wasn’t excited about. I had sent my résumé too dozens of places, most of which never even acknowledged receipt.

Then I got a phone interview from Williams College for a web developer position. Williams is in Williamstown, MA and is in western Mass.. like REALLY western Mass, it’s literally in the top left corner of Massachusetts, bordering NY & VT. That was further than we had hoped to have to move but… there wasn’t much else to consider at this point. So I did a phone interview for that position which went ok though they had some tough curveball questions about wordpress that I hadn’t encountered before. I think I spent a 1/2 hour after the call googling and reading up on the questions I didn’t know the answer too. However they also mentioned they had a unix sysadmin position open there and asked if I’d like to be considered for that. I am certain I hadn’t seen this posted anywhere and they said they thought there were some problems in getting it advertised, so this was just pure luck that I found out about it. I did a phone interview for that position on Friday and was invited out for an in person interview the following Monday, and had an offer from them the next Wednesday.

So in early July we moved all our junk belongings, 2 dogs and 4 cats to a college owned rental house in Williamstown and started our new life in the land of far, far away from what we considered home. We left 13 years of friends, the UU church we’d been attending the entire time we were there, Owen’s gymnastics coach & team, and Matt’s volunteer DJ & Board member position at Community Radio WERU 89.9 FM. This was fairly traumatic. While it was great to have a job, especially one that sounded exciting at a nice workplace with good benefits, we didn’t want to leave. I blogged about this last May here.

We also dropped off over 60 bags/boxes of stuff to goodwill and filled a large 18′ dumpster with over 2 tons of stuff we didn’t need/want to move.

Since then it’s been a whirlwhind of new job, new people, new area, new gymnastics team/coach for Owen, a hurricane, a snow storm in October, a cat dying, a car dying and most recently house hunting.

We made an offer on a house today that costs way more than we really should be buying but basically if we want to live here that’s the going rate for the size of house we’d fit in. It’s a great house and we have our fingers crossed it will work out though we’ll be grimacing every month when we’re paying bills, though at least we’ll be doing that in a house we love. 🙂

So here’s hoping our year of chaos and change is over and we can coast for a while with just a “normal” level of randomness and life. If not.. well I’ll blog about that next year.

-Matt