I'm moving to San Francisco. Well, rather, I'm already living here but my things aren't.
2014 has been a strange year for me. My employer laid off a number of folks which I got caught up in and at the same time SYNHAK, the Akron hackerspace, was melting down around our ears. Lots of internal strife brought about for various reasons that culminated in a new board banning their founder (myself).
For a few months I tried my hand at starting a robotics company, Phong Robotics. It still lives on as a side project with some cool technology coming out of it, but nothing that can sustain my addiction to food and housing. After three months my savings were spent and the board of SYNHAK was continuing to harass me by blaming me for things I had no real connection with. Enough was enough and I decided to move on to a healthier environment.
This is what brings me to San Francisco.
My first visit to this city was in 2011 for a weekend during Camp KDE. It was also my first visit to Noisebridge, and my introduction to the idea of hackerspaces. Three years later in December of 2013, I visted the city again for a week to spend New Year's with my friend Ryan Rix. It was a much needed break from the world, and also helped to boost his spirits as burnout started to become apparent on both of us. This was my first real vacation in years.
A few months later in May I visited again for the Bay Area Maker Faire. Even though the faire was just a weekend, I worked out of Noisebridge on Phong Robotics, lived with Ryan and his roomates and even moderated a Noisebridge meeting. It was by far the healthiest thing I've done for myself in the last few years.
Two months later in the end of June I had just about run out of money and was completely fed up with my situation in Akron. So I pulled the trigger and started putting a plan together to eject. The first step was applying for a Real Grown Up Job. A friend of Ryan's worked at Uber which made a logical target to apply for.
For various reasons related to bay area politics and cultural preservation, I did not get the job. However, they still paid for my flight out here. After my initial job offer with them was rescinded by their CTO, I had about 4 days left before my flight back to Akron had to leave.
It left without me, though I've begun to eke out an existence here in the bay area. Resumes are being sent out and a number of on-site engineering interviews are happening next week. The whole experience has been terribly exciting to say the least.
In addition, I've taken up participation at Noisebridge. When SYNHAK collapsed, I lost my playground for building neat projects, experimenting with ideas, and learning from cool people. Noisebridge is currently undergoing a reboot process wherein the space is closed for the month of July while we catch up on 5 years of building entropy. My contributions so far have been some limited managerial input but plenty of carpentry work.
I'm excited to see where this goes.