Feeling flighty…. upcoming changes

I’m long overdue for a “here’s my life and what I’m up to post”, although the 30 days of me posts are doing a bit to help keep the hits coming into the blog. (I suspect it’s all from bots but I’m ever hopeful). ;-)

The Glorious Amberdms Corporation

Amberdms is going resonably well, but whilst as a single person I can earn a very nice wage from it, it’s not growing big enough, fast enough, to justify having three full time staff.

I’ve made the decision to drop off some of the lower profit support work that’s driving me crazy (low-level windows support) to focus on the much more interesting Linux support and engineering work as well as web application development and our open source billing system.

This will drop Amberdms back to a one-person operation, so @macropiper and @honorarykiwi are off to other opportunities from mid October and it’ll be back to myself.

I’ll really miss working with the guys, but it will be nice having a massive drop in expenses and being able to focusing on delivering quality Linux engineering and web application development services.

Whether I’ll keep working as an independent via the Amberdms brand, sell Amberdms or return to employment and run Amberdms as a side venture is yet to be decided.

Wellington or the World?

Those of you who know me, will know that I’ve lived in Wellington for 20+ years. Whilst I’ve been overseas to Australia many times, I’ve never really lived properly in any other city before, my only out of Wellington visits have been for holidays, conferences or work trips.

I’m currently having a debate with myself about going overseas to live for a year or two – Australia is an obvious choice since it’s only a 4 hour flight away and my New Zealand citizenship means I can pretty much get off the plane, get it stamped and go and apply for work.

The other options is that I could go to Europe for a while – being an NZ citizen and part of the commonwealth makes getting into the UK reasonably easy (plus dad is still a British citizen) and a good earning job over there would be ideal to fund a bit of travel around Europe and I can bring back a fair bit of savings to NZ in the future.

I love Wellington and would most likely return, but I think it would be pretty great to have a change and live overseas for a while.

Wellington is feeling far too small lately, I can’t even get coffee or lunch without meeting someone I know…

Job Offers?

I love working for myself, the main reason I’m considering not remaining as an independent is that a regular employment will be a bit less stressful and will make it easier to apply for a mortgage in future when I go to buy property.

I’ve been talking with a couple Wellington companies who are very interested, but also talking to some international companies about opportunities that may or may not go anywhere.

If you are/know of any companies looking for someone with far too much Linux experience, web application development in PHP, Perl scripting and a lot of business and pre-sales soft skills, I’m keen to talk. Bonus points if you’re located somewhere exotic.

Cruise for a bit?

I’ll be over in AU for linux.conf.au 2011 at the end of January, a few people have suggested that I spend Nov/Dec/Jan in New Zealand to enjoy the summer, have a few relaxing months over the quieter new year period and tidy up affairs/sell my junk before heading overseas.

I’m tempted to visit AU and couch surf for a bit across a few different cities – eg Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart/Tasmania. (Assuming of course my delightful friends who’s couches I’ve just volunteered don’t mind a geek lying on their couch for a few days. Right guys? Please? I’ll even fix any Windows problems for you?)

It would be great to meet a bunch of my internet friends properly IRL as well as being in AU would be idea of job interview opportunities if I don’t have anything else lined up by then.

Meanwhile I have plenty of development jobs for NZ firms that I can continue to work on remotely – considering most of my customers I see once every few months, this wouldn’t be an issue, and AU/NZ only has a 2-3 hour time difference.

Am I sane?

Is this the right idea? I’m not sure, although I do know I need to make some change to go down from 60-80 hour work week to 40-50 to retain what little sanity I have left.

The idea of living overseas for sometime is very tempting, but I’m not totally sure on the idea just yet. It’s growing on me though.

Expect more updates soon. :-)

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10 Responses to Feeling flighty…. upcoming changes

  1. Tim Harman says:

    Do it!

    Get out there, see the world, have fun, spend some money, enjoy your freedom and do what you can while you’re young!

    I’m forever grateful to my lovely wife for actually grabbing me and saying “We’re going to travel Tim” because if she hadn’t I’d never have gone anywhere (well, apart from having moved to NZ in the first place.) I’m so glad we did move to the UK for a couple of years, plus all the other travel we’ve done.

    So yes, you’re sane. Run around and do crazy stuff. It’s fun. You’ll love it.

    Tim

  2. miss wordy says:

    hey so firstly if you chose to come to launceston i will be happy to offer you a spare bed with me and the almost husband post november for a couple of weeks.
    Secondly, i have lived in a few different places and i have to say it has made me a more interesting person and do it while you can because chances are there will be a time you cant.

  3. Kai says:

    It’s an easy answer: Yes.

    a) Looking into getting a UK passport right _now_. If your dad is a UK citizen there’s a chance that you can get it too. If so, you could live and work in any EU country freely.

    b) Don’t go just to Australia. It’s too easy and too convenient. Go to Europe, start in the UK if you like, but don’t make the common mistake to hang out with other Kiwis in the Kiwi pubs in London but just use the UK as a starting point.
    Go to other countries where you can get along with English for a start and learn the language and work there (Finland and some other scandinavian countries or Holland come to mind) Or better – start learning a useful language now while being here to get a head start.

    c) Don’t fall for the urban myth to go overseas to “make money” for a few years and then taking your savings back here. Living in Europe is more expensive in different ways and if you don’t want to live in shit hole flat next to the railway line in London and not get out and travel etc. you’ll find that you wont save more or less than you’re able to save here.

    d) Traveling will make you a more open and different person (not saying you are not btw). Sometimes I wish everyone growing up in NZ would be forced out of the country for a minimum of two years (and not allowed into AU and the UK during that time) so that people actually have to make the experience. :-)

    • Jethro Carr says:

      Thanks Kai. :-)

      a) Yup, going to follow up getting a UK passport in the next week or so, looks like it should make Europe much easier to travel.

      b) I get what you’re saying here, it would be neat to work somewhere more multilingual, as long as I can get a job where business is conducted in English so I can actually communicate with others whilst I learn another language :-)

      c) Yeah, don’t expect to save more money as I like a decent standard of living, but the savings will get a bit of a boost with the exchange rate should I return to NZ.

      d) LOL, but yes, it would be good to get a different perspective of the world, meet some new people and learn some new skills.

  4. Bex says:

    Are you sane?

    No.

    But that’s just in general, not because you’re considering going to Aussie.

    Although, they do keep featuring in “When Animals Attack” that the flattie watches… just don’t go cuddle a crocodile! Or a spider. Or a snake…

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