By popular demand

Well, at least one person was interested.

Here's a picture of my office when at home:



When at ATS, I have a real cubicle; though I'm thinking about getting a yoga ball for there as well.

Politics and religion

I've often thought about whether I should try to be profound in my blog posts by talking about politics or religion. Most of my posts are about my life and family and more of a digital diary than any attempt to discuss hard hitting topics. It works well as a communication mechanism as well.

I've been reading my brother-in-law Eddie's blog. He's a history teacher and posts about politics and culture. I've started commenting and debating on his blog, but I don't think I want to get in to that here. Now religion is another story. Maybe I'll start trying to post deeply spiritual questions and start debates and win people over with my eloquent arguments.

More likely I'd just make a fool of myself, but since I've never been afraid of doing that maybe I'll give it a try.

What's new?

Yesterday was my first day on the new job. It involved mostly getting things set up and trying to figure out what in the world is going on (as most new jobs do). Today was more of the same starting off with a mound of paperwork that has to be filled out. But so far so good.

I'm back at ATS now, not as an employee but as a tenant. It's kind of weird to be back in the old office again. It's like going home to live with your parents after a while away. You're not really sure how you fit in and things will never quite be the same, but it is all oddly familiar. One thing is for sure, it's a lot quieter than the average 10 minute span at my house. The boys have 3 settings:

• Off
• Loud
• Noisy

and the first setting is only available with great force of will (on our part).

I'll post a pic of my home office constisting of 2 tray tables and a yoga ball. The yoga ball is actually quite comfortable (more than most office chairs) and the tray tables work well unless the boys bump into them or we need to get into the file cabinet that they sit in front of. We are so ready to move and get more space.

Cool time waster of the day

Here's a fun little game that's probably cool more from a tech aspect than actually being fun for hours on end: Goggles, flight simulator using Google Maps. It uses Flash and Google maps. I flew over Disneyland.

File this under things to do when you're on the last week of a job.

Deal or No Deal

A show I've taken to watching recently is "Deal or No Deal". It's especially good when you can fast forward through all the clapping and extra closeups.

Well I've felt like I've been playing my own similar game for a while and the time has come to say "Deal".

I've officially accepted the job with PFI and start work on Jan. 29. My last day at 21CSI will be next Thursday and I will take Friday off.

We're very excited and very relieved. It's alway hard to know what God's will is in matters like this, but I can definitely feel his hand guiding us along the way and pointing us in the right direction.

So close

I'm in the process of drafting my final employment notice and on the verge of accepting the offer I have. It's a very good offer but I've been waiting on another possiblity that I just interviewed last week that has a lot of potential. I haven't heard anything from them and am running out of time on the offer.

Anyways, as I considered accepting the offer and started to draft some emails to 21CSI and PFI, a wave of relief started to wash over me. It's a really calming feeling to have all the uncertainty start to slip away.

There's still the house to sell, but the great thing about this job is that we wouldn't have to move until we sold the house. We want that to be ASAP, but we won't be in a situation where I have to move on ahead of the family to start the job. I can work from here until we move.

I feel really good about this decision an unless things change dramaticly in the next 2 hours, it will be a done deal.

Rules for "24" characters

Well the season premiere of my favorite show "24" kicked of with a bang the last 2 nights. You had Jack Bauer going vampire on the terrorists and the typical "Jack doesn't know what he's doing, listen to me instead" from those in power in the government.

Here are my set of rules that all "24" characters should follow in order to safeguard the USA from terrorists:

1. Jack Bauer is always right
2. Never argue with Jack Bauer (see rule 1)
3. If you want to save the country, follow Jack Bauer's instructions immediately (see 1 and 2)
4. Never ever, under any circumstances, arrest Jack Bauer. Never. EVER!
5. If you think Jack Bauer is dead and want to cry, don't. He's alive and is still always right (see 1).

And now one for the terrorists:

• No matter how injured/captured/dead you think Jack Bauer is, never ever tell him your plans or what's really going on. If you do, he will get mad/inspired and kill your men and escape. (see good guy rule 5. This actually goes for any bad guy in any story when they capture the good guy, but it is especially true for Jack Bauer.)
  

And one in the spirit of all the Chuck Norris/Jack Bauer stuff flying around teh interwebz about how powerful they are:

• Jack Bauer has the ability to look directly at a nuclear explosion without going blind. Jack Bauer's eyes burn the nuclear explosion.

Next week is soooo far away and there's only 1 hour of 24. /cry

As we know it

Well it's a big week. On the job front, tomorrow (Tuesday) I'm getting an offer from a company in Austin, and Wednesday I have a phone interview with a company that makes games for mobile devices.

Sunday I get to lead worship again at church (always love doing that) and we have another Open House that afternoon. Top that off with the start of the new 24 season and you have the makings of a great day. It will be even better if lots of people come to see the house. Oh, and that's also Joshua's 4th birthday. He's been waiting for that for a long time.

Funny thing, I rarely watch football but I caught the 4th quarter of the Seahawks crazy win over the Cowboys. That was the most exciting quarter of football I've watched in a long time, maybe ever. I used to be a huge Cowboy fan and may be again shortly after our move to Texas, but for now I'm with the Seahawks. In addition I watched some of the Eagle/Giants game on Sunday (after just watching the same teams in the movie "Invincible"). I also watched a lot of the Florida/Ohio State game tonight. I think Kathryne's getting scared that I'm going to start watching sports all the time.

The boys won the wrestling match tonight. They ganged up on me. Sean finished a version of "Gulliver's Travels" that he got for Christmas. He's really tearing through those books now. We're sending off an application for a Christian school in Austin for next year. There's already a waiting list so we're hoping he can get in.

Enough rambling for tonight.

Another year, another Dilbert Desk Calendar

Happy new year everyone. This year for Christmas I got not one (1) but two (2) comic strip desk calendars. The Dilbert on is for the office. I also got a Far Side calendar which came as a shock to me because I distinctly remember a few years ago when a cow-irker had the "last" calender they were going to make. But Gary Larson decided to give his readers a treat and revive the calendar this year donating all his proceeds to a conservation group. It's kind of funny because the first comic is the one with the dinosaurs smoking cigarettes and the caption "The real reason dinosaurs became extinct" (paraphrased).

In other comic news, Bill Amend the creator of the Foxtrot comic strip has gone to a Sunday only strip. Foxtrot is always one of my favorites as he often runs week long homages to cool movies like those in the Star Wars and Spider-Man series. He also has the Jason character playing my favorite game World of Warcraft from time to time. I'll miss the daily dose especially since the Sunday ones aren't usually as funny and don't have story arcs.

Resolutions for this year:
Same as every year
"I, Matthew Lee, being of sound mind and able body do hereby resolve not to make any new year's resolutions."

As you can see I'm not good at keeping the few resolutions I make having paradoxically broken the only one (1) that I made. Maybe next year I'll do better.