I’m currently in Jacksonville doing training sessions for work. After training today, I made it out to Jacksonville Beach and then enjoyed the downtown riverfront at night. Today, I’ll share some beach pictures.
Categories
Category: Work
So this past Thursday was my company’s Christmas party. As part of our bonus, we all received an iPod Touch. I still love my black 5th generation 60gig iPod. Too much music for the Touch. But being able to blog or surf anywhere with wifi sure is cool. Still getting used to the screen keyboard, but I think this will make me one cool PDA.
It’s been a crazy month for me. I’ve accepted a full time position with Digital Sandbox as a project engineer. I helped the company move to McLean, VA. I’m looking for a house (I’m most interested in one in Reston), and am currently applying for loans.
We’re also 10 days out from vtONE (updates will be on vt-one.com). I’m very excited about this event. As a leadership team, we’ve risked a lot with this event. We’re stretching ourselves beyond what we can do, and believing that God will deliver. After all, if we could change Virginia Tech through our own human effort, why bother with God? We want this event to be completely about what God is doing, and not at all about us. We’re praying that this night (March 31) would rock peoples world for the glory of God. With 10+% of the campus active Christians, it should look different. And we’re believing that God wants to start making the change with us. I would covet your prayers for this upcoming event.
Once we get past these next two weeks, I’m hoping to return to a more normal blogging schedule. I’ve been stretched thin in the areas that tend to make me want to blog, and so this blog has been short changed.
Last night, 4.3 degrees here. Coldest I’ve ever seen in Blacksburg. Today: several inches of snow and a balmy 28 degrees, also featuring some municipal golf course action. Also got two job offers from Digital Sandbox today. It was a good day.
Interview By Proxy
From Stephan …After digging through a pile of resumes for a junior developer position, I settled on a few for an in-person interview. When the day came around for one particular candidate’s interview, the receptionist told me that there were two people in the waiting room wanting to see me. By all accounts, a husband and wife. That was a bit confusing, but I called them into a meeting room and had the following conversation …
Stephan: So what is it that I can do for you?
Man: Yes, we have come for the interview.
Stephan: Interview? For the programming position?
Man: Yes, we come to do interview for our son Rajib.
Stephan: Excuse me? You’re here on his behalf?
Man: Yes, we do interview. He’s very good boy and he do good job to you.
Woman: Yes, very good boy.
Stephan: Ummm … err … I normally talk to candidates directly …
Man: Yes, we here for him. You interview with us.I wasn’t really sure what to do, so I did the interview. I asked all the technical questions I had and I’m happy to report that not only were they answered very well, but Rajib was apparently more than willing to work long hours, be a team player, and contribute a lot. After all, his father told me so. But unfortunately for Rajib, an *actual* candidate turned up and secured the position.
It’s been more than a week since classes ended. Well, actually, I have an assignment that I need to do sometime this week for one of last semester’s classes (long story), but I’ve enjoyed my week off. Several highlights from this week:
Snowshoe – The conditions were the worst I’d ever seen at Snowshoe (only about half open as well), but it was still a blast. Drove up in the morning from Blacksburg, tore up the slopes all day on my board, drove to Washington in the afternoon/evening. I left Snowshoe a little earlier than originally planned because the powder had blown away, revealing ice from their unseasonably warm temperatures and melting/refreezing.
My trip back took me through Cass, WV (5 miles from Snowshoe–the whole town is a historic park) and also past the
fifty story tall Green Bank Radio Telescope (which is the reason cell phones don’t work at Snowshoe–it’s in the national radio quiet zone). Some day, I want to visit both these places. Also saw a beautiful sunset in the Virginia mountains. I even made it to the interstate just as it was getting dark, which made the trip much more enjoyable. I love back roads, but not in the dark.- Total Praise gospel song at Frontline – Total Praise is the Frontline choir. On Sunday, they helped lead worship and did an awesome Kirk Franklin gospel song (Now Behold the Lamb). The song was perfect gospel stylistically, the best I’ve ever seen for a choir that doesn’t usually do gospel and doesn’t have many black members.
- Digital Sandbox – Good to spend four days back with the peeps at Digital Sandbox. Being near to Christmas, the commute wasn’t that bad most mornings. The office is moving closer in come March. I eventually would like to live very close to Washington–perhaps in Arlington, so closer in is good for me.
- National Christmas Tree – Monday night, my family took my mom’s parents and sister downtown to see the national tree. Even at night, it was over 50 degrees, which made it one of the most fun times of seeing the tree that I can remember. Although the Yule log isn’t quite as fun when it’s warm out.
- Annual Cookie Baking – Today was the day of the annual Poch family
cookie baking. We made molasses cookies a few days ago and today made several batches of cutout sugar cookies and also rosettes. Well, I made most of the rosettes, which we made outside on a little burner to keep the mess out of the kitchen.
Tomorrow, we start the family celebrations mid-afternoon, which will go until Christmas night. Then, a few quieter days with the family, some more celebrations, some shopping, and I’m off to Atlanta for the Peach Bowl (Go Hokies!) and Passion 07.
It’s about devil employee stories. Very long and time consuming, but lots of funny comments.
It’s data security. Digital Sandbox style. Hey, we couldn’t get the hard drive to load, but we wanted to make sure that the user’s personal data was gone. This is what happens when engineers put their heads together. And have access to fire.
Categories
Keeping Busy and Cooking
I’ve been busy the last few days. We’re getting a lot of new people at work, and I’m on a project in addition to doing IT, so I’ve been keeping busy. I’ve also been doing a lot of cooking in the evenings. Tonight, it was my oat fudge bars recipe. We’ll see how they came out in the morning. Also, if there is no rain, I will have a cool post for you (hopefully with pictures) tomorrow night.
UPDATE: they’ve picked the rain date, so the adventure is Thursday.
Hope you all had an opportunity to celebrate national doughnut day. I celebrated by bringing Krispy Kreme in to work for breakfast today. Mmmm Krispy Kreme. Okay, I admit it. I’ve had four today.