Tuesday afternoon I am stepping onto an airplane and saying goodbye, again, to the Midwest. Having been laid off from my job as a jack-of-all-trades engineer at a small ISP in January, I've spent the last few months doing consulting work as a freelance engineer all over the country. Sometimes I was doing network engineering, other times a little database and software engineering, and once I even consulted for a television show in Seattle.

But to be honest, I'm not the kind of person that likes to travel by plane very much, so I've been job-hunting at the same time. I'd work for a client in San Francisco during the day, and interview for jobs in my spare time. But flying from coast to coast and back to the Midwest all the time isn't really my thing, even though I love to fly. But I only love to fly when I'm the pilot, not when I have to sit in coach and listen to everything that goes with it.

But the few months of freelance consulting I've done has paid off, and one of the clients I consulted for in Boston has offered me a full-time position. I'll still be doing a fair amount of traveling, I'm certain, but nowhere near as much as I've done over the last few months. Primarily I'll be working in the Boston and larger New England area, instead of flying to the east coast one week, and the west coast the following week.

I'm extremely excited about the job, to be perfectly honest. It's not just that I get to move back to my favorite city in the entire world, Boston, but I'm going to get paid to help companies reduce their carbon footprint.

Yep. You heard that right. My job title is going to be Environmental Computing Engineer, and basically I'm going to go from company to company, figuring out exactly what their network's carbon footprint is, and coming up with ways to reduce that carbon footprint, and offset whatever is left.

Six months ago I wouldn't have thought it would be possible to make any money doing this kind of work, but after I got laid off, I started looking and there are a lot of companies out there who really want to do the right thing and help slow climate change. Once I get to Boston, in about a week, my calendar is already booked for the next two months consulting with a wide range of companies, from law firms and doctors office and even a few small factories and import warehouses.

One thing I'm going to try and incorporate in my network designs is a shift towards renewable energy resources. So far what I've found is that localized renewable energy can be extremely effective in helping to reduce a carbon footprint, but only if the location is right.

A good example is my own apartment that I've bought and will be moving into next week in Boston's North End. While I have roof access to my building and I'm going to be able to put up a little bit of equipment, I can't exactly cover the roof with solar panels. The city itself has restrictions, and so does the building owners.

Figuring out how to bring renewable energy into urban spaces such as offices and apartments is going to be my biggest challenge, but I'm relishing in the idea that people are willing to pay me to figure out exactly how to do it.

So what does all of this mean for this blog? Not much, really. I'll still be blogging and writing about the same topics, although I'll more than likely write more about some of the challenges I've come up against with my new job. Other than that, I expect life to continue on as always, just from a different city with a different job.

Truth be told, however, I can't wait to get back to Boston. I'm sure that I'll be a little slower on posts next week since I'll be flying into Boston on Tuesday afternoon, staying in a hotel that evening, and moving into my new apartment all day on Wednesday. But I've got the entire rest of the week to get settled in and won't actually start working until the following Monday, even though I've already started looking at upcoming client jobs.

I'm also hoping to visit some of my old haunts once I get settled in. I lived in Boston in 1996-1997 while I was in the Coast Guard, and I've missed it ever since. I've tried living in a number of different cities since then, but none of them are anything like Boston.

Over the years, I've lived in Seattle, San Francisco, Pensacola, Indianapolis, New York, and a few smaller cities in-between, but by far my favorite has been Boston, and I can't wait to get back.