Jobs

Greetings, I figured I'd start using a real blog instead of where I was posting. I got away from my job at Philip Morris, where I was supposed to be designing a system for them, but ended up doing user requirements gathering and write-ups. Ugh. I am now working at nTelos, with a group of people that know what they are doing! We are writing a sales automation web app, using Microsoft's UIP application block (an implementation of MVC pattern), and several other frameworks. The first place I have worked (and I have a history) to actually reuse code instead of rewriting everything over and over. I am actually enjoying doing the work. I am signed on as 6 month contract to hire, but they may be going through a change of ownership near the end of that, so I may want to extend the contract so I don't end up working tons of overtime for a conversion and not getting paid for it.
I talked with a guy from the Darden graduate school of business at UVa on Friday about doing some part time work for them. I'm not sure I will have the time at this point, as nTelos has deadlines coming up, and I am going on vacation next week. That and they can only pay about half what I charge, but there is the possiblity of getting some good exposure there, so that might make up for the pay. I probably won't be able to work on this project, but the guy said he liked my qualifications, and even if we couldn't work something out on this one, he would definitely like to have me come in on future projects.

I have been slacking on getting the building of my house started. I need to get the ball rolling on purchasing a small piece of land from our neighbors that will sit between our land and the road so we can put our driveway in. Hopefully once that is done we will have the house done in 6 months or so. It will be good to get into our own house again. We have been living with my sister-in-law for the past year so we could save up some money for the house, and while it's not been too bad, I am ready to get back into my own place, and I'm sure the kids are as well (if you don't know, I have 5 girls, age 2-9).

My wife's grandfather passed away this Friday, so she went to WV yesterday and today to go to the funeral. He was 94. I didn't know him all that well, but he was pretty nice from what I did know of him, although he seemed a bit rigid in scheduling of his day (he had to have dinner at 6:00, or he wasn't happy). He was a chemist for someone when he worked, I can't remember who right now. I was also doing a little chemistry work for Albright & Wilson when they were in Ashland before I got my real job :)

Anyway, that's it for now.