Christmas Vacation

This Christmas, I’ve been lucky enough to get the week off! I requested it back in January, but when I transitioned to this new software engineer position I wasn’t sure that I would still have the days off. Luckily, my new team was happy to let me take the time off so I’ll be enjoying a full 9 days of fun with Barbara!

We had originally thought about going somewhere fun for our 5th anniversary, which lands on December 22nd. Unfortunately, though, we’ve had to scale back on that a bit. We’ve decided instead to stay around the D/FW area and enjoy some Christmas light displays, go out to eat, see a movie, and enjoy some prime relaxation on the new couches we got on a Black Friday sale. There are quite a few free lights displays and Christmas attractions around the area, so I think we’re going to have a blast! We’re also going to do a bit of Christmas shopping for each other. We’ve decided to buy a few presents for each other, and then use the rest of our Christmas budget to enjoy some last-minute Christmas deals and have fun together.

My new job is going very well so far! I’m enjoying learning about the different systems used, and how they interact with each other. My team focuses on Unix-based applications, so I feel right at home after all the experience I’ve had with Linux. I’ve gone through some detailed training on developing secure software, and it was definitely very interesting to learn about the hundreds of different ways hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in code. I’ve started to handle some of the more basic tickets, and as soon as the last few access requests finally go through I’ll be able to take a more active role in the team. It’s definitely been a great learning experience. A lot of the functionality is sparsely documented and so in many cases it takes a thorough examination of the code itself in order to determine how the system works. Hopefully I’ll be able to help fix that - as I learn more about the systems we work with I’d like to help the team create some detailed documentation similar to the reference material I helped my last department put together.

Barbara is doing well at home. She’s really enjoying being out of the rat race and getting to focus on the home as a priority. She now has much more time to develop her social relationships and creative skills, and I’ve been excited to see the positive changes in her through the months!

We are greatly enjoying Northwood Church and we’ve been very inspired by the current sermon series stressing Northwood’s focus on ministry as their main priority. I’ve really been motivated to find a way to use the talent God has given me in ministry, so I’m going to be contacting Northwood during my vacation next week to see if I can help out with systems implementation or web development at any of the churches they are helping to plant. I’m really hoping that I’ll find a good opportunity to use my excitement for technology in a way that will glorify Him.

We’re excited about being able to spend time with both sides of our family this Christmas week, and I really think this is going to be a fantastic Christmas! I’ll try to post again towards the end of the week to talk about what happened during the week and what our plans are for 2009. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!