Life update 2006

New Job

Geniant sign

Well, in case you have been awaiting some sort of follow-up regarding the previous blog post, Olga and I have made it safely to Dallas. It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks, making the drive down from Boise in four days. We moved in, I spent a week at the new job - Geniant EMC, and then we were off to Seattle for my brother's wedding. Needless to say, I've been pretty exhausted lately. So, please forgive the lack of updates around here.

She's Back

I neglected to mention that my wife did indeed return to the United States. I had blogged about it previously - here. She was back in her home country of Estonia from April 11th to November 23rd, 2006. It was a grueling experience, but praise the Lord - It's finally over. The churches who funded her college and grad schooling deemed that the time spent back home translating as a student could count towards her 2 years of repayment for her education.

So, those 12 months plus the 8 she just spent leaves her with only 4 months to go, which they are kindly allowing her to work off at her leisure. We will hopefully go over to help out on short-term mission trips over the next few years. If anyone knows of counseling offices hiring in Dallas, let me know. My wife is currently looking for employment related to her masters degree.

TXP Book

I have completed my portion of the forthcoming Friends of ED book, named Textpattern Solutions: PHP-Based Content Management Made Easy - ISBN 1590598326. It should be on store shelves by May '07. I have had a blast working on it, and am really looking forward to the chapters by the other authors, namely the one from Rob Sable on using TXP for e-commerce.

Seminary

This past semester, I took a class called Cross Cultural Leadership via correspondence from Asbury Seminary. For my final paper, I researched homelessness in Boise. I focused specifically on the Boise Rescue Mission, which helps men overcome alcohol and drug addiction and get back on their feet . The ministry was involved in a lawsuit over constitutional separation of church and state. I documented some testimonies and background info in my final paper entitled Broken Healers, also available on my Theology page.

Upcoming

I plan on writing an article in the next month or so for Digital Web Magazine, in which I will share some of my thoughts on web-dev and relate some of that to the reading I did for the aforementioned leadership class. I am also looking forward to the January meet-up for Refresh Dallas and SXSW in 2007. Hopefully next year will be as fulfilling, but more relaxing than this one.