Archives for August 2010

As part of our preparation for our upcoming move to the Philippines we’ll be holding a moving sale on 8/14/10 and 8/15/10.  If you’re around the Portland area, feel free to drop by.  I’ve put together a page listing some of the bigger items that we’ll be selling.  You can check it out here:  moving sale list.  Hope to see you there!

The two or three people who actually read this blog might be wondering why things suddenly went silent a couple months ago.  The explanation is quite simple.  I reached the cusp of a long term goal that involved a big career change, and I wasn’t ready for my current employer to find about about it just yet.  The decision process was also quite intense, so I pulled back on social media altogether to focus on making the right call.

By now you may be wondering OK, what’s the big deal anyway?  It’s this: I have been interested in living and working in another country for a number of years now.  I always thought that it was unlikely that it would actually happen.  But it did, and what’s more, I was actually offered two very different positions in two very different places.

The first position was a systems engineering and information security job in Kuwait working as a civilian contractor at a US military base.  The second position was a data modeler and reporting lead for a large investment bank in the Philippines.  I was offered the Kuwait position first.  The money was really good, so I accepted.  Then a few days later the Philippines offer came through.  It was for less money, so at first I thought I’d stick with the Kuwait job. But then I started really looking at the numbers and realized that I wasn’t taking cost of living and travel costs into account.  When I factored that in, everything came out pretty close, and both positions penciled out significantly ahead of my current situation. 

In the end, I chose the Philippines, because the Kuwait position required a 60 hour per week schedule, and I felt that the weather and the culture would be less amenable to my family.  My wife is from the Philippines, so I already have a fair idea what to expect there.  Yes, there are some some things that aren’t as nice as in the US, but it will be a good experience for us and our kids, at least for a while.  And we should be able to save some money too.

The other advantage to going to the Philippines is that I have long had an interest in building outsource businesses.  The Philippines has become a significant outsourcing destination over the last few years.  I definitely have a lot of great ideas for startups that I should really be able to kick into gear after I get there. 

We are scheduled to leave Portland on August 28.  So it’s coming right at us.  We definitely have a TON of things to get done before we leave.  The big moving sale is planned for next weekend (August 14 and 15), and there will be lots of stuff going on craigslist. 

There’s a lot more of this story to be told, but I’ll save those thoughts for future posts.  Stay tuned…