I really wish I had a digital camera with me right now. I’d love to take a picture of the view from my hotel room window and upload it to this journal. I’m on the 4th floor of the hotel, and from here I can see the Columbia River, and beyond that, Mount Hood. Between the river and the mountain there are lots of trees. And at the moment, the sun is setting to the west, painting the clouds purple and pink. There is no snow on Mount Hood, but the view is still incredible. Each evening this week I’ve come home from work and stood at the window of the room and stared out at the window. It’s a great way to relax after a long day at the office up here.

Things have gotten just plain crazy up here. The original plan was that I would be up here through the end of September, but it’s starting to look like I might be here for a bit longer; possibly through the middle of October, when I fly out to Boston for the first of the trade shows. And between getting our own development environment up to speed, beginning to completely revise the product, preparing partner integrations, the implementation of an entirely new data model, interviewing candidates for our webmaster position, getting our new Perl developer ramped up, reading up on project and software management, and documenting the hell out of everything, it hasn’t been unusual for me to spend a full eight or nine hours at the office followed by another six or seven hours spent on-line in my hotel writing, developing code, creating new graphics, and chatting with co-workers on AIM and exchanging ideas.

This job is very different from any other job I’ve ever held; of course, most of that is because most of the jobs I’ve held have been with the huge bureaucratic institution that is the University, while this company I’m with now is a startup. The University was about nothing if not legacy systems that have been around for a decade or two; while here we’re playing around with new technologies and getting in on the ground floor with lots of different tools. At the University, employees had to pretty much beg for training or opportunities for advancement; here, constant training and education are pretty much expected. The pay is pretty good — not great — but it’s good, and the opportunities I can see coming are really exciting.

But right now, after nearly two solid weeks of these 15-16 hour days, I’m beat. The weekend in Washington was Jennifer was refreshing, as any time I spend with Jennifer is; but I really wasn’t built for this sort of work schedule.

I was warned about this sort of thing when I was first considering this job, and I certainly don’t regret the decision to take it. Though I admit I wasn’t expecting to be "on" 24/7. I was expecting some downtime during the week. The week of Labor Day was a short week — only four days — but I still managed to put in close to sixty hours that week.

Sounds like I’m complaining, doesn’t it? I’m not, though. I’m enjoying the pace to a degree; I thrive on working hard, on putting long hours in on a project that I know will end up working out well. But some of the other things I’d been hoping to do with my time right now — writing, reading, spending time with friends or exploring Portland — are definitely on hold for the time being.

My boss tells me that once we get our development environment implemented in Sacramento, along with our own instance of the database, things will calm down and we will all be able to enjoy normal working hours. I certainly hope so.

Meanwhile, though… I’ve got Mount Hood watching over me, and the Columbia River to guide me along.