In January 2001 I burned the docklines (and left the workforce) in San Francisco and sailed (literally) to Mexico (see http://www.bitwrangler.com/wt/). I took an 18 month sabbatical and stretched it to almost 3 years, thanks to frugal living and no thanks to the down economy. I sailed 2,800 nautical miles to Hilo, and then kind of gunk holed my way to Oahu. I'm looking for work. The cruising kitty is pretty dry. Let's just say reentry into the workforce has not been as easy as I had planned, back when things were still humming along economically.
I'm flexible, although I would prefer open source related work, of course. My skill set is what I call utility infielder. There's a lot of sys admin work scattered about in my c.v. There's also quite a bit of code crunching, too -- I'm a classically trained engineer. I like to make things go. I'm struggling with getting the interview pipeline going. It's always tough rolling into a new town, I know, and I don't mind starting small, part time or even shift work (in fact, that would be kind of cool since I also teach SCUBA and would rather not give that up). It's been frustrating: At least once a month there's an article about the "brain drain" in Hawaii. I'd like to think that I've got a cup or two to put back into the supply. The $64 question is "who's hiring and how do get my voice heard over the din of other resumes flooding in." My resume is online at my web site, http://www.bitwrangler.com/kmayer/ and I've got a cell phone, 808-936-2034 -- it's a Hilo cell phone, I got it when I arrived, so you might need to dial 1-.... Some people have said that they get a strange message when they call from a land-line, which I wish could either reproduce or track down. Every time I try, I get through without trouble. Just another hitch in my getalong. Thanks, Ken
