Josh Bancroft’s TinyScreenfuls.com

Emma at the beach, originally uploaded by Josh Bancroft.

We took an impromptu trip to the Oregon Coast on Saturday, to play at the beach. We went to Ecola State Park, which is right next to Cannon Beach, my favorite place on the coast. The park was beautiful - several miles of roads and trails in dense, old growth forest. Almost eerie - I felt like I was in a Tolkien story or something.

The beach we went to was called Indian beach. It was a short hike from the parking area, which kicked my butt considering all the stuff I was carrying (chairs, umbrella, bags, etc.). But the beach was very nice - tons of surfers! I think we were the only ones there that weren’t surfing, playing in the water, or otherwise making use of a wetsuit.

Emma played and played and played - I don’t think she stopped for a second. She found every hole on the beach and buried herself in it, then made a few of her own. For some reason, though, she was acting terrified of the water. I think she was just being silly - she’s played in the water before.

Gabe absolutely loved the sand. Eating it, crawling in it, finding treasures (shells, wood, feathers, seaweed, etc.). All of it went into his mouth at some point. He would crawl around on the sand with surprising speed - like a little sea turtle, leaving his funny looking tracks behind him.

We played all day until we were exhausted, then drove home the “scenic route” up through Astoria, Oregon (famous home of “The Goonies” and “Kindergarten Cop”!). We stopped for dinner at Pig’n Pancake, an Oregon Coast institution, and then enjoyed the drive back to Portland down Highway 30. Speaking of which, what is it with towns in Oregon named after mountains in Washington (Ranier and St. Helens, I’m looking at you!).

For some reason, I love driving by the decommissioned Trojan nuclear power plant on Hwy 30. They demolished the cooling tower last year, but the plant is still there. There’s a huge park on the plant grounds - Rachel says they used to have family reunions there every year, in the shadow of the cooling tower. That’s kind of creepy.

Intel Software Network, where I work, has an open position for a “senior” web developer. We’re looking for someone to help us do some fun, interesting stuff with our site. Most of our stuff is .NET based, but we have some PHP, too (on the blog, mostly), and who knows what the future holds. It’s an awesome team to work for - my boss is the hiring manager, and the spot is on our team directly. I’ve been in this group for about 6 months (at Intel for 7 years), and it’s the best job I’ve ever had. I love coming to work every day. Seriously.

I tend to think of our group as a little web 2.0 startup inside of greater monolithic Intel. We have a lot of freedom and incentive to try new and interesting things, with support from management, avoiding most of the bureaucracy. It’s great.

For more info, see this blog post from my boss, Bill Pearson, with a link to the job description. Or, you can go here, and search for job req. #537806.

You can apply in the job listing page - definitely do so if you’re interested! Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck! Tell Bill that you heard about it here.