So I was to be a tester. I readied my belongings in Kimberly Dorm, but found that my lack of funds would make the move tricky at best, much less living up there. Jason, having accepted a similar position, was already living at home (quite far from SuperMac) again and commuting. His girlfriend and I snapped up a chance at borrowing a school vehicle and drove up one day, and in the space of 24 hours we had secured a place to live a mere mile from work. The hefty price tag for this two-bedroom, two-bath domicile was $975. Well beyond my means at the time.

Matt Masterson again came to my rescue when it came time for the big move. He convinced the campus facilities people that he needed to borrow the school van (with HMC logo emblazened on the side) to move some equipment on the very same day that the summer chemistry lab rats planned to use it to see a movie in Westwood. He was to join me, but felt he would be too tired, so I talked my friend Thuc into driving up with me

The day came, and Thuc and I hit the road. We eventually found ourselves moving into the apartment we had rented, and Thuc was on his way about 24 hours later. He got a speeding ticket on The Grapevine, and was questioned as to why he was driving a college van around so late at night, alone, without his shirt off, listening to Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, and so fast. He was only slightly busted, and took traffic school to get out of it.

But there I was, ready to start work on Monday morning. I met Shannon downstairs, who walked me to the weekly meeting held in the Red Room. My first real job had begun after quite a bit of hassle and effort from many people, and I found myself quite pleased with my decision to forgo ego and choose employment. This would be a key lesson. I was also informed by Mike Mathog, eventually, that my interview answers were so text-book that he had a difficult time gleaning anything about my personality from me, and I had been sitting right there. More mental notes.

My job responsibilities changed quite quickly, since someone quit soon after I joined. SuperMac was making high end (or "Over Priced") video cards for Macintosh computers at the time, and my original task was to test them with a suite of applications (along with a number of others, including Jason) and ensure their quality. With the passing of the torch, though, I inherited the dubious honor of benchmarking them.

Not quite what I had in mind when I signed up for all those engineering course, but at least I got a stop watch. I would actually time and measure as many things that our graphic accelerator cards did as possible, and I would keep careful configuration records for proper comparison with our competition. So it was sort of scientific. But not for me.

So said Lou Doctor, when he refused to save my position just 75-or-so days later. I was relieved of my duties (as were a host of others) in the SuperMac Lay Offs, Part 1. It was October 1, 1993. For some reason, I was not really all that concerned. I am not sure why, but I wasn't.

October 1 was a Friday. The weekend was shorter than usual, but there wasn't anything particularly different about Monday. Until I got a call from Andrew Eisner. It seems that he had just gotten a call from a friend of his at Storm Technologies about their need for a temporary employee or two to test a product of theirs that was due to ship. He gave them my name, and after the briefest of phone interviews, I was hired on for exactly 80 hours of work. No more, no less. As an independent contractor.

I had to take a bus, since I had no car at the time. I was overly concerned with my appearance again, but once I had arrived, I met a number of employees there, including a character named Ult Mundane who wore thigh-high leather boots and jeans. I stopped worrying so much. Surprise surprise, though, I was to work those 80 hours with Irene Calder, who was then dating Bruce Berkoff (and who was also laid off when I was, since she was working at SuperMac with David).

It was a fun two weeks, and since Irene is such a kind spirit, she drove me home every night after work (saving me bus rides and much waiting, and we went for Thai Food about three times over that two weeks. It was one one of those occasions that I learned Oum's name (though I had seen her before, I actually spoke to her then). We also went there on one occasion with the third temporary contractor person, who ended up having gone to Stanford with my best friend from elementary school. Weird.

We tested PhotoFlash, which was written by Storm for Apple Computer. We found more bugs than they hoped we would, I guess, because our second week proved to be not as fun as the first week. But, we survived, and in the mean time, my friend Dave Duran from SuperMac sent my resume over to his friend at Apple where he used to work as a contractor. Thanks to the two week time limit on my contract with Storm, and the fact that I had started on a Friday (having been unemployed for a grand total of four days at that point) I was able to schedule an interview with someone named Linda Adams at a part of Apple called "Apple Quality."

Luckily, Linda was not available when I arrived, so I was interviewed instead by Jess Gibson and Ray Ocol. They were wavering, and one of the last questions they asked me was what Macintosh applications I was familiar with. I hadn't prepared myself for this, so I faltered. They were called away for a moment, so I had a second shot, and I listed every Mac thing I would on a sheet of notebook paper. I think that saved me, because I got mail from Jess on Sunday that he wanted me to start right away. I was to be making some $7 dollars more per hour than my first job.