Last day in my Michigan House

This is my last remaining hours in my Michigan House on the Golf Course. I have spent the last 3 days selling all my possessions and packing a few personal items and shipping them to Texas. I will have very little after today, except my car, allot of clothes and paper work. I even sold all 4 of my beds. I have been sleeping on the floor, ontop of an old feather bed. I do still "own" 3 houses in Michigan, but I dont live in any of them. The are all rented out, while I share a home in Texas. The picture to the right is the last remain items I need to sell. I was able to sell just about everything. Now just allot of odds and ends and tons of cables. You know you are a techie, when you have a house full of cables and cords. Do you need anything? Just drop me a note. Maybe the new owners will mail it for me.

My first Blog...

Wow.. I finally got my own Blog.. For a guy that is so into technology, you would have thought that I would have done this a long time ago. For most people, I seem like an early adopter of most technology. But to me, I always see someone else ahead of me and that makes me want to leap ahead. I guess it all depends on where you are in the technology road map. There is always someone that knows more then you and then someone that knows allot less then you. That's what makes technology fun. Everyone is at a different point and you can always share something with someone about something. I am learning something all the time. Blogging has been around for a while, so its not really new to me. It's really just something that I finally decided to do like the last few things I decided to get on board with:

Gmail account (atn1972@gmail.com)- I moved recently and had to cancel my Comcast cable.. I should have known better and stuck with a web mail account years ago. Hopefully, Google stays around for a while and I don't have to change my personal email for awhile.. I do have a Yahoo, AOL and Hotmail account, but yahoo has to much junk, AOL sounds like they are going under soon and Hotmail is just to slow. Gmail is simple and works on my phone, a Motorola Q9c with IMAP protocol. It also has a cool Photo upload feature to share photos. I used it to sell all my stuff on Craig's List. You can check out my public album at http://picasaweb.google.com/atn1972

New Cell Phone - My current phone is a Motorola Q9c, from Sprint. I had to get a new phone after losing my job. I had Razor before, and several Blackberry phones from Sprint, Nextel and ATT. We tried them all. The Blackberry's are nice, but a bit to expensive for a personal phone. I got the Q9c using the Sprint SERO plan. $30 for 500 minutes, free data, unlimited nights and weekend. It was the best cell phone deal out there. The cost now is double that. So I was lucky to get it. I also got $100 off the phone. The best part is that I can use the phone as a "modem" and its unlimited data for about $35/month with taxes. The speed is like 128Kbps and plenty fast for what I need. It has really come in handy when I travel for work and cant get Internet access. I use a USB cable most of the time, but it can also connect with Bluetooth which is just a bit slower and kills the battery. Using the cable keeps the phone charged, which is convenient. The phone also works during the data session, but if a call comes it, it will drop the Internet connection until you hang up. All-in all its a great phone with great features... The phone also has a GPS chip in it, which means I can use google maps to navigate with my car. It comes in handy especially if you want to do a search for something local.

MySpace Page - I finally got a MySpace page. It seem everyone was doing it, so I did too.. Not to much on it, but I have meet a few interesting people on it and found some old friends. I think I might try Facebook next. It seems to be more professional and less junk. MySpace has lots of junk and people trying to get you to sign up for some porn site.

CraigsList.org - This site is simply amazing. Its a free online classified ad site. You can post things for free and buy or sell just about anything. It's like an Ebay, but better.. Its all local. You sell you stuff to people that live around you. Or you buy stuff from people around you. There is no bidding, just the stated price and you go to pickup your items. I sold all the contents of my house in about a week. 80% of my large furniture was sold within 6 hrs. I was simply amazed!

Life Update

(This was originally massed emailed to all my email contacts on 7-21-2008..)

Hello Friends and Family,

Sorry for the mass email, but this is the easiest way to get everyone up to date with my current contact information. For those of your who don't know yet, I have finally moved out of Michigan to Texas after 15 years in Michigan between college and work life. I had to get a new email address, since Comcast does not service the Austin, TX area. So my new email address is ATN1972@gmail.com Please update your records. My Comcast email account will eventually be cancelled.

My cell phone number is staying the same as well as my home phone number. My home phone is actually an Internet Vonage phone line that is being forwarded to my mobile number. Just use my mobile phone and you should always be able to call me or text message me.

Here is a summary of what's happened in my life recently: After over 11 years at my first company, right after college, the company finally let me go. My company wasn't profitable and losing millions of dollars for over 10 years. it needed to be restructured, again. I have probably been thru 5 of these "restructurings" in the years prior and this year my number was finally up. I was pretty prepared for it, since I seen my boss go suddenly, the Vice President go and a number of other high level Director position being eliminated. I probably should have left long ago, but the experience was great and I learned allot. If you ever want to learn a broad area of things, work for a small company. It was probably one of the best decision I have ever made.

I found a job at a small software company based in Austin, TX called, Optimal Electronics . They create software to help electronics manufactures' be more productive and efficient. I was in the middle of recommending there solution at my previous company. They had a position open up and I took it. The job requires some traveling and since I enjoy seeing the world and visiting various companies, I decided to take it. I just had to just relocate to Austin, TX in 30 days.

Luckily, Austin is one of the best big cities in the USA to live in. Just look it up on google. And if you are a high tech worker, it is the home of many high technology companies. If this small company doesn't work out, then I'm sure I would be able to find something else fairly easily in the area. I still have my homes in Michigan and trying to sell my primary residency. My other 2 houses are fully rented out, so I'm not to worried about them. If anyone wants a great house on the Golf Course let me know. You can check out the listing here, it is for sale or lease. Michigan isn't the best place to buy a home now, but I'm hoping for the best. Actually, I have a potential lease to own offer on the table right now.. Hopefully it goes thru. Wish me luck...

So far Austin has been great and the job is exciting. There are a ton of places to eat here. Austin has the most restaurants per capital of any city in the USA. That is good for me, since I love to eat out. My main hobby is Texas Hold'em Poker and while its illegal in Texas (kind of ironic?) I am able to find home games and can meet new people all the time and make new friends. I have meet one special friend and she has really helped me out a ton with adjusting to the new life style. We have allot in common and its nice to know someone like that down here. I do miss all my old friends and family, so keep in touch and contract me to get more detailed information. I am looking forward to hearing from everyone.

Below is my current address information: (It may change again soon after I settle my Michigan home situation, but is good right now 7-21-2008)

Anthony Nguyen

ATN1972@gmail.com <--- Note new email address

PO Box 27348
Austin, TX 78755

Work:(512) 372-3415

Cell: (810) 287-0563

Home: (810) 235-3776

IM MSN & AOL: nguyen1972

Yahoo ID: anthonydonnellye

http://www.myspace.com/anthonydonnellye

Moving to Austin...

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This week I started my new life.  I left everything behind in my house.  I packed only my essential things and loaded my car and drove down to Austin, Texas.  The drive was around 1400 miles from Grand Blanc, Michigan.  It took me 2 days to get there.  I really hate long drives, especially when I am driving. 

This drive didn't feel to bad.  The time went by very quickly.  I was really looking forward to starting a new life.  I have a new job, a new home, a new location and a new live in girl friend, Jennefer.

I meet Jennefer on MySpace.  I found her by searching for girls in the Austin, TX area.  I noticed her pretty picture and read her profile.  She said that she played poker, I was impressed!  I sent her an email telling her that I would be relocating to Austin and would like to find some games.  

In Michigan, there are plenty of home games, charity games and Casino games.  I found out during my interview that all Casinos are illegal in Texas and Poker is also not allowed.  Can you believe that?  Texas Hold'em is illegal in Texas?

Anyways, we exchanged some emails and then IM addresses and then phone numbers.  We spend hours on the phone.  I wasn't working so I could spend all night on the phone and we did.  We talked for hours over the past month.  Luckily, I have free nights and weekend.  When I checked my minutes it was well over 2000 hrs in the month of June. Wow!

We had allot in common.  Besides playing Poker, we both work in IT, were never married, Asian, the same age,  lived on our own at a young age and very dedicated to working hard.  Needless to say I was very excited about meeting her in person finally and getting on with my life.  I had been out of work for two months and trying to be a poker pro.  It was fun but I was staying up late and getting up even later.  It was like I was working 2nd shift.

Last Day

Today was my last day at Magna Electronics, formerly Magna Donnelly Electronics, formerly Donnelly Electronics. In any case, it has been about 12 years at the same work location. Basically I have held onto the same company location since graduating from college in the Spring of 1996.

They say on average most people change jobs every 3-5 years. I have been lucky to have had such a stable career path for so long. I started at the company as employee #2, but technically was not on the payroll until 6 months later. So the official records showed me as employee #20 something, but really I had help start the company with the original owner David Taylor, months before.