I was up early of course, excited for my first day at Urban Airship. I wasn’t hungry but made myself eat so that I wouldn’t have a nervous, grumbly stomach until lunch. Andrew made me a thermos of my favorite tea and Wayne drove me there. As we were exiting the freeway he suddenly stopped slowing down and there was a van in front of us. I was so confused until he said, “Whoa!” and then the car beeped and the dash lights all lit up. Something bad had happened and he no longer had power brakes! We were right at UA so he dropped me off and then took side streets all the way to the dealership.

I saw Amanda walk in ahead of me so I hurried to catch up but she was nowhere to be found once I was inside. The front desk people didn’t even look up at me when I walked in and since I didn’t see her I assumed she headed upstairs. I went to the elevators and someone was getting in ahead of me. He pushed the button for 3 and up we went. When I got out of the elevator I still didn’t see her though so I messaged her. She was still downstairs but had gone to the restroom! Back downstairs I went and met her in the lobby. The HR person soon came to get us and took us back upstairs. Their new Community Manager, Randy, was also with us for his first day so we all got a tour of the building. They have a very nice gym, bike storage, kitchen and so forth. Amanda was disappointed to see that they didn’t have an espresso machine though.

We were then taken into a room where we were given our laptops, taken through the basics of our UA email accounts and then the paperwork. There wasn’t a ton for us so that went quickly and then we were off to our work area in the engineering department. Unfortunately they have had a lot of new hires so didn’t have desks for us yet. We opted to sit in the Hangar, which is their spacious area filled with all manner of couches and chairs. We spent pretty much the entire day setting up our dev environments and customizing the laptops the way we wanted them. Amanda and I went to Los Gorditos for lunch of course and then she stopped at Tilt for a real coffee. I looked up at the building where UA is located and just couldn’t believe I worked there! That’s where my current job is. Yes it’s just six weeks but it’s an amazing opportunity that I hope leads to more amazing opportunities.

All of the Mozillians were coming to Portland for a work week and I was invited to their evening social/party along with the other Ascenders so we could have a reunion. I hopped on a streetcar and headed over. Luckily I was there early enough to get in, check my coat and bags and hit the food tables. The food was great and they had plenty of vegan options! There were SO many people there. It was packed and loud but so awesome to see Kronda, Lukas, Dino, Katt, Jim, Barbara, Yenni and Jessica. I was really hoping more of us would have come though. I also got to see Richard from Air Mozilla and was able to meet Peter, my upcoming Air Mozilla mentor. We did a lot of socializing, I thanked Lukas likely to the point of annoyance, and then called it a night. Amanda was so kind and drove me, Barbara and Kronda home.

Once I got home we had to turn around and head to the airport to pick up Dale, Miri and baby Michael. We left Penny at our house though so we could have one last night and day with her. I miss having a dog. Our timing was perfect as they had just gotten their bags and were headed out the door as we pulled up. They were so happy to be home! By the time we dropped them off it was 23:00 and my bedtime so we came home and went straight to bed.

Today I learned that Mozilla has an apartment in Paris!