Time out from New York

"Unsolved murders mounting" read this morning's newspaper headline, with the first paragraph as follows:

"Calgary cops are working endless hours after a spate of violence and carnage in
the city has left six people dead in less than a week. With four fresh
murder cases since Friday, police now have six unsolved killings on the
books since August 1 in the wake of last week's shootings, beatings and
hit-and-runs."

It reminds of an alert that might pop up in my favourite game, SimCity, requiring more police stations to be placed. (I know, I'm a geek!)

For a city about one quarter the size of Melbourne, this is somewhat disconcerting and explains the feeling of unease I felt as I walked around the deserted downtown area yesterday passing mainly vagrants and youths hanging out in the city on the public holiday.

Of course, if I lived in Calgary, I'm not sure I also wouldn't have violent tendencies at times. It is somewhat of a non-entity with very little to differentiate itself from any other Canadian city except perhaps the absence of landmarks and attractions. The nine years that have passed since my last visit have not done much to enhance it's appeal. In fact, I don't recall the downtown area being so seedy.

But tourism is not my purpose for this visit. I am here for one and one purpose only - to get my US visa. You may ask why Calgary of all places to obtain a visa? Well, it was the soonest appointment I could get.

So, I went to the consulate and after an arduous 2 hours I think I got my visa. They didn't tell me anything, but apparently when then send you away and tell you to return the following day to collect your passport - your in! I must say though, that for an American consulate, there didn't seem to be too many people working there that were born in in the US, judging by the thick accents I heard.

A week is a long time in New York!

In the last week, I have got a job and signed a lease on a new apartment! Things can happen very quickly here if the stars are aligned and such was the case for me this week. I had been starting to despair as the recruiting arm of my visa sponsor had failed to produce even 1 interview for me to attend in the 2 weeks I had been here.
When I arrived in New York I contacted a former Australian I had found through LinkedIn ( a business networking website) who said he could recommend me to his contacts but would need to meet me first. He finally returned my call and we made an appointment to meet last Monday.
We spoke for half an hour and he explained that he was a CTO (Chief Technical Officer) and had established a CTO club with about 70 members CTOs. He was happy to forward my resume to those CTOs but had a few other avenues he wished to try. The first was a role with his company. He sent me immediately downtown to a colleague to speak with him. However, it was not a role that I was too keen about so we both decided that it was not the best fit.
I then emailed the CTO and asked him to send my resume to others. He sent it to 2 people, one who contacted me that evening and the other contacted me the following day. The first to contact me was Amy, who loved my resume and had the most perfect role for me. She described it, I agreed and we arranged to meet the following day (Tuesday).
On Tuesday I met with Amy and her two partners. Together, they comprise the entire company. Small, yes, but ideally suited to me as there were about 5 different projects they reeled off the top of their heads that I could get involved in. They all come from a marketing background but the company has a distinct online focus which is ideal for someone with my background. I can provide the technical complement to their expertise. At the end of the interview it was clear that we were all keen to proceed. Yay!
I half expected I would need to take a job that I was really not excited about, but this job has the potential to be better than anything that I could have gotten in Melbourne so I'm ecstatic!
On the housing front, I decided now that I had a job, I would spend the remainder of my week looking at places just to get a feel for the housing market. But after being shown a sequence of overpriced crap and then seeing an amazing apartment in a fantastic building for less than the overpriced crap, I figured it was an opportunity too god to waste. In New York, you need to take a place as soon as you see it or tomorrow it will be gone, so I took it! Only later I found out the reason it was so well priced was it was in a rent-controlled building, Brilliant! I had to make an arrangement with my existing (subletting) landlord to end early, but as I said, when you find a good place, you don't mess around!
My apartment is in this building www.thecarolineny.com and I move in in 2 weeks!