Monday, my first day on the job, started easily enough. I came in at 10 a.m., after the live show had finished (it runs from 6-10 a.m., EST), and started my day by meeting with my new boss. I also got a temporary desk to sit at, which is right next to the stairway which leads up to where Radiolab and On The Media, so there’s a chance the fanboy in me might spot Jad or Brooke.

After my first meeting, I had another meeting, and then another meeting. I met our managing editor and our general manager. After that was an editorial meeting and then a training in a social media “optimization” application called Social Flow (it sends out your tweets based on when the relevant topic is trending and then allows you to track engagement tweet by tweet). Then my new co-worker (who was also starting today) and I ate lunch in a little café a few blocks from the station that reminded me a lot of Portland. They didn’t take cash, there was art on the walls, a lot of vegan food, and a gaggle of hipsters on fixies sitting around out front. Once back at WNYC, I had more meetings with different staff members, an afternoon editorial meeting (they usually hold two per day). My co-worker and I finished up the day with two brief meetings with associate producers for the show who have taken an interest in digital content production. Allies are great, and it sounds like I’m going to have a lot of them.

After work I went out for dinner with an old Couchsurfing friend in Hell’s Kitchen. I got home way too late, considering I had to be at work at 5 a.m. the next morning, but it ended up not making much of a difference because I couldn’t get to sleep anyway. The next morning I started at 5 a.m. and continued working for most of the day. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to give that update, plus another for Wednesday, tomorrow.

Today I’ll board a plane for New York to start a new job on a radio show called The Takeaway. Excluding study abroad in college, I’ve never lived outside of Oregon, and I’ve never had a job that offered a benefits package. To me, this is a really big deal.

When I applied for the job at the end of last year, I had no plan to move across the country. The temporary job I was working at Oregon Public Broadcasting was coming to an end. I knew that I wanted to continue to work in public radio, but there wasn’t much work available in Portland. I could either try out a different line of work or attempt to find a job in another city. I decided to try the latter first.

This was no small consideration. I grew up in Oregon and Portland now feels like home. Most of my family lives here and I see them often. Most importantly, though, is that my partner will be unable to join me, at least for now. To move for a job would mean a long distance relationship, which sucks.

But I went ahead with it anyway, submitting applications for jobs in the twin cities, New York, Pasadena, Los Angeles, Washington, and Boston. I never said to myself, “I’m going to move across the country for work,” I just wanted to feel like I was in control of my life, that I wasn’t just sitting around waiting for things to happen.

For a long time I didn’t hear from anyone. I’d sent off over a dozen applications and figured the numbers game would work in my favor. Eventually, it did. I received an email from someone at WGBH requesting a phone interview.

I prepared for it in the best way I knew how: line up my experiences with the job description, do a ton of background research, practice, practice, practice, and dress up, even though they’d never see what I look like. Even so, I got off to a terrible start. I stumbled a lot and felt disorganized. Eventually I forgot myself and forgot that it was a job interview. I talked about things I’d done well and things I wanted to do in the future. The rest of the interview turned out alright.

Normally getting one interview would leave me on the edge of my seat, checking my email constantly, but my mediocre performance allowed me to write off any hope of hearing from them again, so forgot about it.

A week or so later they invited me interview in person. I caught a flight for Boston a few days later and kept thinking to myself: “Regardless of how the interview turned out a free trip to Boston is victory enough.”

On my way to the interview I kept noticing good omens. I’m not usually one for signs, but I couldn’t help but see a beautiful view from an airplane window as an encouraging sign. Then there was the nice server at the restaurant in Fenway where I ate dinner. On the desk of the man I interviewed with first was a small stress ball made to look like a globe. I had squeezed an identical one thousands of times in preparation for the interview.

From my first interview to my last I was uncharacteristically at ease. I joked with my interviewers and felt like I was nailing every question. At one point I even thought to myself: “This could actually happen.” I will never understand why I was so calm, but I was. It was easily the best job interview I’ve ever had.

A few weeks later, on a Friday, one of the people I interviewed with called me and offered me a job as the web editor for The Takeaway, a show that’s produced by WNYC in partnership with WGBH. I’d do most of my work in Boston and travel to New York every few months.

That was almost a month ago. Since then I’ve left my producer job at Oregon Public Broadcasting. I’ve sold or given away most of my belongings and packed the rest into a suitcase and four boxes to be shipped out once I have an address in Boston. I’ve said countless goodbyes. I’ve researched Boston endlessly and tried in vain to secure a place to live. The one thing I haven’t done is come to terms with the fact that where I live and where I grew up are now two different places. That’s going to take some time.

Right now I live in the Sheraton Hotel in Tribeca. In a week, I’ll live in a temporary apartment in Boston. Hopefully by then I’ll have my feet under me and a real place to live.

Over the weekend I went to my niece’s birthday party. I recorded tape and took photographs and then put the two together into an audio slideshow. It’s my first. The baby in the slideshow is Frank, Claudia’s younger brother.

Day 31: I'm realizing very quickly that unfocused emitted light is much more interesting than unfocused reflected light. To that end, I'm looking for light sources and photographing them for this week's set of unfocused photographs. This one is the home screen of my phone.

Day 25: This photograph is typical of my photos a day in a few ways. It was taken literally right as the sun was setting. I have a tendency to put things off until late in the day, till that last sliver of light is disappearing behind Forest Park in the west. I headed out with my camera a few minutes before this photo was taken in hopes of capturing the feeling of a bluebird day near the end of October. I failed at that, I think. I was going to go to a nearby park to show the bare trees contrasted with the blue sky but I ran out of time. Even so, this is a decent alternative. My house is in the center of the city and flanked by several car dealerships so it's difficult to capture spare, empty images. That makes it difficult to focus an image on a subject. But this photograph has a fair amount of breathing room, clean lines, and a clear subject. I like it.

Day 24: My sister Kjerstine had a baby today. She named him Frank and gave him the middle name Alexander, after me. I got the word in the late afternoon that she was headed to the hospital. I waited for an update from my mother, Dawn, who was at the hospital with Kjerstine. She sent me this text message a little after five o'clock. It reads "Update. Things are moving quickly. Almost fully dilated, completely effaced, baby's head is engaged in the pelvis. When she starts to push I will leave the room and update. Doc says it will be soon!"

I was in the car a couple hours later headed down to Newberg to see him. On the way Rachael and I recorded an audio postcard for Frank to listen to when he gets older. I'll be editing that tape soon.