Merry Christmas Everyone

Well it has been forever since I’ve written but my thoughts have been here. I’ve wondered how you were doing and even stole peeks when I could. I just couldn’t get motivated to write. My energies had been sucked elsewhere. It had been a long year and it is only now that I am getting some much needed rest. I discovered a few weeks ago that I still had 28 days of vacation so I have been taking what I could.

So what has been going on that has filled my moments? It’s been a mix of the normal things (i.e. soccer) as well as what seems to be an increase in work things. There has been so much going on in our school, it is not funny, much of it with political baggage. The new acting dean has even gone so far as to look into how IT support is provided and appointed a committee to look into it. This group came up with recommendations without (1) talking to the IT staff nor (2) having a clue concerning what we do. We are very decentralized with people like me and DD working specificially for a department (computer science) and others supporting mulltiple departments with less technical needs. I won’t say that change isn’t needed. The current model has some groups receiving significantly (IMnsHO) less high level IT management than what I provide. The problem though is that no one wants to truly centralize our services because everyone wants to protect their silo of control. That includes my department. So what we are left with was some weak set of recommendations that no one is happy with. *Sigh* But I really don’t want to vent here.

A big part of my workload also includes teaching and working on my MS. The teaching is farily constant but I cannot resist trying to tweak the courses each time they are offered. The studies on the other hand continue to demand more time. In the spring I took an advanced elective which was very interesting but the reading was a killer. There was no text book. Instead we were reading conference papers – tons of them. We had to summarize each and on a few occasions even present the authors work to the rest of the class. For a procrastinator like me, it was hell. Had to work every day 🙂 On top of that, we had to write a paper based on the work of others. I made the mistake of being a little too broad on my topic. The paper was huge and required about 6 straight weeks of writing. I didn’t get done until hours before the cutoff. All is well that ends well; I was very happy with my grade. All that keeps me from my degree now is research. The fall I didn’t get as much done because I cannot figure out what to pursue. I think I finally have a handle on it so need to get started. Let me tell you that there will be quite a party when this is all finished.

The last interesting change to my life is that I now have a 21 yo daughter. No… not a long lost Surprise… Shame on you for thinking that! My niece really needed a place to stay while she gets back on her feet financially and we are in the best position to provide her with that. She is very good and helps out a lot around here. My girls lover her (when she isn’t telling them what chores they need to work on). Still, she is a bit of the stereotypical 21 yo. Loves to go out and doesn’t always make the smartest of choices. Oh well… I thnk I need a bigger man-cave…

Well that is a short update for 2008. I hope your was great and may 2009 be even better. Love you all even if I’ve been MIA for a while. Happy holidays!