California, here I come!

Surprise! I'm taking a job at Stanford University.

Sure surprised me. Sure surprised my bank account ... and those financial wonders keep on coming. Anyone want a great house in Fort Collins? Good location, spacious, lots of light, hardwood floors, unbelievably fabulous kitchen.

The backstory: I was collecting library programmer job descriptions to update the ones for my staff. They were obviously written by administrators and I surmise they have less than ideal appeal to a programmer. So in trolling for posted jobs on some email lists I belong to, I found a posting for a Stanford Libraries programming position. By the time I finished reading it, I thought "that sounds FUN!" I chewed on it for a bit, talked to my boss here, decided to apply. Turned out they had another position posted, and a third about to be posted. I applied for the other posted job as well, went out in October for an interview. Stanford has HUGE digital library efforts going on, with a great deal of cutting edge digital library programming required. For example, they are one of the original universities to sign up with Google for book scanning. They have no new space allocated for their on site stacks to grow -- they are that committed to digital access.

In the end, they posted a new position tailored to me. This got posted on Friday December 20, 2007: the Friday before Christmas vacation. I formally applied within 90 minutes. I had a verbal offer in mid-January. Then there was a long stretch negotiating a start date, a CSU end date and so on.

I just got back on Thursday from a trip to find housing. (Thank goodness for craigslist!) Luckily, I had already done some research before I got out there, so I was over sticker shock. My bank account isn't over it, but I suppose I am. My offer letter in the mail crossed my trip, but we managed to do all the paperwork.

End date at Colorado State: Friday, March 14, 2008. This allows me to avoid paying back my moving allowance from CSU.

Start date at Stanford: Monday March 24, 2008. While I was in town to house hunt, I essentially "worked" for a couple of days; they are eager for me to start. Me too.

I hope to post details about my new digs a little later today.

Do you hear that? It sounds like a toilet flushing -- must be money from my Fort Collins house being flushed away. The sticker price hasn't gone down ... but the closing costs, assorted money spent on landscaping, a new washer/dryer, etc. Ooomph.