---
source: https://jimeh.me/blog/2010/my-life-2010-and-beyond/
date: 2010-04-25
archive: jimeh.me
tags:
  - life
---

# My Life, 2010 And Beyond…

We're 4 months into this year, and somehow I've already got more stories to tell
from this year than 2009.

![My Life, 2010 And Beyond…](https://jimeh.me/_astro/sergee-bee-R5gRnZC4iio-unsplash.-izSBnhX.jpg)

We're 4 months into this year, and somehow I've already got more stories to tell
from this year than 2009. And 2009 was a pretty eventful year with me spending a
week in London speaking at the
[Erlang Factory](http://www.erlang-factory.com/conference/London2009/speakers/jimmyhrberg)
conference, five weeks in Palo Alto as part of Facebook's
[fbFund](http://fbfund.com/people/#Gameyola) (dead link) seed fund, and finally
quitting my job in November for many different reasons, one of which to pursue a
freelance career.

## Right Now

I'm sitting on the ferry on my way to Athens. I've been on the island of
[Ios](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Ios%2C+Greece&sll=36.690514%2C25.354871&sspn=0.154444%2C0.277748&g=ios%2C+greece&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Ios%2C+Cyclades%2C+Greece&ll=36.721274%2C25.285034&spn=2.469964%2C4.44397&z=8)
for the past 2 weeks. I'm heading back to Athens to clean and organize my
apartment as I'm gonna try to sublet it during the summer while I'm working on
Ios. And I also have a few meetings regarding some freelance projects which are
coming close to the end.

I'm going back to Ios for the summer and work for one of my best friends fixing
computers, and managing his Internet Cafés. It's the same kind of work I did the
last three summers I spent on Ios before I moved to Athens a year and a half
ago. I've decided to do it cause for some reason I feel like a last summer on
Ios might do me good, and cause work-wise I'll be in charge of and responsible
for quite a few more things than I was last time. This means more money, and
opportunity to learn new things.

I'll still be freelancing part-time while I'm working in the internet cafe in
the evening, as all I do is just sit on my computer working, watching movies, or
playing games.

I'm not all too sure how I really feel about spending the summer on Ios though.
One of the biggest reasons I moved to Athens was to get off the island. Don't
get me wrong, it's a beautiful and peaceful little Greek island, but for me, it
almost served as a prison of sorts with so little things to do and no
opportunities for much of anything, that I felt like I was going crazy for the
last five of the twelve years I lived there. But I'm hoping it'll be a
worthwhile experience on more than just the financial level this summer.

## So Far This Year

Like I mentioned earlier, a lot has happened in the past four months. Among
other things, my girlfriend of three and a half years is now my ex-girlfriend as
of February 13th. I've had to deal with a bunch of seriously fucked up family
issues. I'm starting my own company with two friends, and it's the first time
serious effort is put into a project of my own. I've had to learn to manage both
my time and my money a lot better since I started freelancing in November. I've
become more social and outgoing. I've made some new friends, one of which I
suspect will probably be one of my best friends till the very day I die. The
list goes on…

## And Beyond…

Despite the fact that a breakup is never really a good or positive thing, I now
believe my breakup back in February has had a positive effect on me. It forced
change into my life, and I was in need of change. Not that I knew it at the time
though. Since then I've set out to change a number of things in my life, and
most importantly, about myself. So far, it's been moderately successful.

One of the ideas I've been toying with the past few months, is to start looking
for a job abroad for next year. Like in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, or
London. I have friends in all four cities, so finding work and a place to live
would hopefully not be too difficult.

San Francisco is currently the most tempting place, and the more I think about
it, the more I wanna go for it. The US with their gun craziness and such has
never really been that tempting. But the tech community in the bay area is
simply fantastic. And San Francisco as a city is also quite amazing and unique
compared to other places I've seen.

Last night a friend of mine who lives in San Francisco randomly dropped by my
house on Ios while he was there for a few days. And we got talking about San
Francisco, the job opportunities I'd have there compared to Greece. It's a
conversation that I believe has turned my loose thoughts about moving, into
serious consideration.

There's not that much state of the art technology advancements going on in
Greece. Most of tech-related jobs available here are generic grind work. Build
another site for another client based on template X, \*yawn\*. Sure, there are
jobs where you get to work on interesting and new technologies, but the pay is
still between almost to utterly insulting.

I've been offered €850 per month for jobs which I was beyond overqualified for,
and €1,100 for a lead-developer position within a highly successful digital
media design and development firm. I turned both those jobs down, and others
too. And just to be clear, I don't mean anything bad about these companies or
people. They're awesome and great people. I just get annoyed with how low the
average and even the "good" salaries are here in Greece, and have been for many
many years way before the recent financial chaos started here.

For these reasons, and more personal reasons, the thought of moving to say, San
Francisco, is really starting to grow on me. I want change, I wanna see a
different culture, be somewhere else, do something interesting, hopefully even
something which I truly love doing. If I'll go through with these thoughts
though, I don't know. This summer and autumn a lot of things will be happening.
I'll see how things go with the new company and project we're starting. How
things go with a few other projects I'm working on. And how I feel after the
summer and towards the end of the year.

However, I do believe I'm gonna start asking around for work. Even if it's for
next year, I'm hoping to get enough feedback (and maybe even job offers) so I
can get a good idea of what I'd be looking at if I decide to go for it.