>>>What's the story on the new job?
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>>A contracting company out of Omaha had a client in the Chicago area with a desperate need for a VFP developer. They found me online. It's funny in a way because I had been searching high and low and they found me. It just goes to show a lot of opportunities are never advertised.
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>>The app is a pretty large one. It runs most of the company. It is reasonably well written, with hiccups. They were dying in the two weeks from when the remaining developer quit until I started. They couldn't send out invoices, little things like that ;-)
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>>What we don't know yet is how much direct maintenance was being done on the system. The user department heads say Man would do "back door" things to fix problems. That's really his name. The other codeveloper of the system, his brother, is named Minh. The company was acquired by a large nationally known company in May and some did not take it well, including Minh and Man.
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>>Taking your advice, I quoted the highest hourly rate I could say without giggling ;-) They only knocked it down $7 an hour. I am happy. The commute is not so bad, about two hours a day round trip. The worst stretch is a construction zone on the way home, which will be temporary. I am listening to a lot of classical and jazz.
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>Congrats on the job Mike.
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>Is that a drive or train commute ?

Drive. sadly. The previous commute was too good to last. I got on the train 10 minutes from home and the stop was adjacent to my office building. I walked through the parking garage and was at my desk in 2 or 3 minutes.

I knew at the time it was too good to last. I am happy to commute like so many million others.