Bad Backs and Newport News

I will start with the Bad Back part first. I have this issue, a continual issue with my lower back. For long periods of time it can be great. Other times problematic. Same thing goes with my left hip. Currently both are killing me. As in right freaking now. I will live, and it will get better, but for now I try either to remain lying down or standing. Currently I am standing while typing at the kitchen counter. The counter is high enough that I don't have to bend over to type. Not exactly sure what set it off, but it is possible that my cycling this week did it combined with moving bikes around at the shop. Mom-in-law thinks it my be a partially ruptured disc. Sweet. Not bad enough to have surgery or anything, just bad enough to hurt and limit what I can do for a bit. Anyway, things could be worse.

Above is a pic just at the eastern outskirts of town of Newport, Oregon. You can see the ocean in it. Pretty sweet stuff. It was a beautiful morning. Yesterday I interviewed with a firm there. I even knew one of the lawyers there from life back at the dorms at BYU. He didn't recognize my name, but once he saw my face it all came back to him. We lived on the same floor during our freshman year.

I think if I wanted the job, I have could have had it. They basically said as much at the end of the interview. Yea! But you can't get too excited about things yet. Afterall, one has to analyze the whole deal. Unlike the bike shop where low pay is a temporary issue, getting involved with a firm that doesn't pay is a little harder to get out of. Plus, moving the family down to Newport is a big deal. It is a very nice town on the coast, and the ocean is beautiful to see, but it only has a population of 10,000. Still the live there is very tempting. The partners who inteviewed me are my type of guys. Hardworking but laid back. The inteview lasted about 2 hours and the coversation probably could have gone on quite a bit longer.

Without going into all of the details, it was a fair compensation plan and a great working environment. But, probably the situation that would work for a guy with large loans and multiple kids and a wife who would not be working. The town is small and just can't support a lot of lawyers. The average wage of the other associate lawyers at the firm is probably $50K-$70K. That ain't going to cut it after practicing for 5-10 years, which is who long some had been there. The trade off is that the annual billing hours are about 1100 to 1300 hours. So there is lots of time for other things. That would be sweet, but we need more money. Here in Portland we have a network of support, and Bridget has a part time job and does some day care that brings in some extra money. That would all be gone. With the network gone the pay has to be higher there than here in Portland really for me to accept a job. So I had to pass.

Yeah, kind of a bummer, but at least I had a great interview. I regained some confidence and momentum in this whole job search thing. Anyway, I will keep on going. On the whole my mood is better; it is just to bad my body is breaking down on me.