briandmyers, as an expat what has your experience been like? If I recall correctly, you've been abroad for quite some time now. What's the situation in the accent department? You still sound like a yank?
I moved to NZ from Oklahoma in 1998, and have not regretted it since, not even a little. It was a big jump, but we jumped with both feet anyway - me, my wife (Arizonan by birth) and a teen-aged son. We soon had a half-Kiwi grandson, and we've adopted new family ties here. Got my NZ citizenship in 2008. This land is now my home, and I love it dearly. It's tough to not see friends and family for long periods of time, but everything else is good. My accent won't go away, so most Kiwis assume I'm a tourist or a short-timer until they get to know me. I regret that I haven't had much spare time lately to follow conversations on hubski.
Good to hear from you Brian. How is the new gig going? I know you had a lot on your plate. You ever hear anything regarding the honey/beer you sent my way? I didn't. Someday I'll have to come to NZ to get my share.
The package ended up being sent back to NZ, and they sent me a letter saying I could have it, if I paid the return postage - which I ain't gonna do. One of these days I'll try again, and just describe the contents differently - i.e. it's not beer, it's a live yeast culture. And perhaps some insect vomit as well :-) The new job keeps me extremely busy, but in a good way. Full days and plenty of work to be done. I'm doing programming work on point-of-sale payment terminals. Not sexy, but challenging (lots of crypto stuff).
POS for many types of businesses or specifically for... say, restaurants? I've dealt with a number of POS companies in the past and some seem great and others really take you to the cleaners. Hopefully you're with the good-guys. Good luck! Let me know if you ever get around to sending some yeast cultures ;-)
I just work on the payment terminals - we often have to communicate with POS software systems, but we don't do that side of things ourselves. We do the financial and security side of things. Most of my work is for overseas systems - UK, Malaysia, and Australia so far.