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Simon Willison’s Weblog

I’m in Kansas

If you’ve been wondering why the site has been so quiet for the past few days, here’s the reason: I’ve moved to the States! To cut a long story short, I’m here in sunny Lawrence for a couple of weeks preparing for a year long industrial placement at the Lawrence Journal-World, which should start for real in October (depending on my Visa application). To call this an exciting opportunity would be an understatement. The team I’m working with have won a ton of awards, and have a fearsome reputation within the industry. I’m joining Adrian Holovaty (recently interviewed on zlog) as a web developer working on KUSports, LJWorld and the excellent Lawrence.com. The company itself is remarkably forward thinking, especially in its approach to the web (no need to support Netscape 4)—there’s a good overview of what makes the Journal World special here, which includes a video interview with my boss, Rob Curley.

As part of my new role, I’m knee deep in PostgreSQL, Python, mod_python, Red Hat and Apache so expect plenty of blogging on those subjects over the next few days. It’s all good.

Posted 27th August 2003 at 7:11 am

This is I’m in Kansas by Simon Willison, posted on 27th August 2003.

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16 comments

  1. kansas?!!! ;)

    guyc - 27th August 2003 07:28 - #

  2. MrVista ? ;) Yup, Kansas. Wizard of Oz jokes go down like a ton of rocks here, I tell ya.

    Simon Willison - 27th August 2003 07:35 - #

  3. Wow, sounds pretty exciting (well not the Kansas part so much but...) and I'm sure they're excited to have you. Best of luck.

    Keith - 27th August 2003 07:50 - #

  4. Congrats mate :-) Let me know if you have any linux or apache troubles - I've done a fair bit of unix/linux admin and have setup quite a few Apache servers in my time!

    Sam Newman - 27th August 2003 12:22 - #

  5. Congratulations! The job sounds like a dream gig, and I've heard good things about Lawrence as well (e.g., Lawrence is to Kansas as Austin is to Texas).

    jacob - 27th August 2003 15:01 - #

  6. Have a pint at Free State for me. Lawrence is a great town - hope you like it as much as I did.

    Graham - 27th August 2003 16:08 - #

  7. Congrats. We need more people like you in the US...cheers!

    Paul Scrivens - 27th August 2003 16:18 - #

  8. Simon, congrats on the move and the new job! Best of luck with both.

    Ethan - 27th August 2003 16:19 - #

  9. If you're ever out in Denver, look me up. I'm sure your site has helped me out once or twice ... I probably owe you a beer (or a few shots of Petron).

    Nathan - 27th August 2003 17:30 - #

  10. Congratulations Simon! Is this part of the degree or are you taking a year out?

    Peter Bowyer - 27th August 2003 21:19 - #

  11. It's part of my degree - officially it counts as an "Industrial Placement" year. Thanks to everyone who's extended a welcome, it's looking set to be a great year.

    Simon Willison - 27th August 2003 21:49 - #

  12. Just typical. Britain trains up a young web developer then ships them of to the US as soon as they reach their prime ;) Congratulations

    zlog - 27th August 2003 22:59 - #

  13. Heya Simon, Good luck with the job! You're prefect for it (and vice-versa too, I suppose :). Too bad you aren't a bit closer to California or else you could come and visit. Have Fun!

    Tristan Caulfield - 27th August 2003 23:15 - #

  14. Kansas? Oh yeh, Wizard of Oz! Congratulations Simon. I look forward to hearing about your experiences and reading all your Python insights. Make sure you get out to (at least one) of our beautiful coasts. t.

    timfm - 27th August 2003 23:21 - #

  15. >Congrats. We need more people like you in the US...cheers! Hmm, actually we need more people like Simon in SWEDEN too. Simon, come to Sweden instead. OK? :)

    Lars - 29th August 2003 09:58 - #

  16. So then Simon, looks like we'll not be getting to a meetup in Bristol anytime soon then ;)

    And what can I say? When you're back in Bath, I'll probably be in New Zealand or Fiji or somewhere like that ...

    Ian Lloyd - 3rd September 2003 14:39 - #

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