22 March 2008 Update
Sat Mar 22, 08 5:27 pm
I am writing this email from a 24x7 prayer vigil organized by many of the churches in Carlisle during Holy Week. I am a prayer bouncer (security/door keeper) at the church hosting the prayer vigil. My shift is from midnight Friday until 0800 Saturday morning. I am in my second hour while I write this update.
*Settling In*
I attended a going away party for a friend from the office and entirely unpacked the very evening I arrived in Carlisle. I was in the office from my very first full day in Carlisle. Thanks for your prayers for safety in my travels. They were answered. I really settled quickly in to my life back here in Carlisle. I was out most every evening for a week after getting back to friends and for other activities.
The water garden (see photos of the difficulties I had last fall) was in need of a bit of work when I got back. The water feature had stopped running because of the leaves and sludge in the water. My housemate thought it had been turned off! I cleaned it up a bit and since a bit of algae was starting to grow I also added bleach. This time I used 100% bleach.
I am in a new small group at church. They reorganized things a bit while I was away and so I have a new group of people to become better acquainted with. I will also be put back on the rota for setup, sound and video project. I just received a call from someone at church to help with the sound at their wedding next weekend.
*Work*
I had a few days of relative quiet work at the office upon my return. I found enough things to finish up from my former position to keep busy. A week after my return I had a meeting with my managers, Kirk and Arthur. We dove right into the tasks of my new position. Our meeting covered the high level direction of IT within OM and where my work will fit into those objectives. It is exciting to see how I can play a real integral role in hopefully making these goals a reality and assisting the Gospel to spread more effectively.
I have a few projects that I am juggling as part of my new position. One of them is to give direction for OM USA as they migrate their entire email solution to Microsoft Exchange. They have at least 40 GB of email and about 100-150 people to migrate over the next few months to a mail server we are hosting for them here in Carlisle. I am giving them advice to make the migration as painless as possible.
Part of the direction of OM is to move many more OM'ers to Microsoft Exchange. As an organization we don't really want to deal with all the administrative tasks related to managing Exchange. Therefore, I am negotiating with a 3rd party company to host and manage the administration of a highly available Exchange system. I spent quite a bit of time with my managers to identify the administrative tasks related to administering Exchange and where we wanted the division of labour between OM and a 3rd party. I have just begun my negotiation with two companies and require wisdom as I explain what we want and try to negotiate an affordable price for this service.
I am also performing a bit of research into packet shaping as a solution to better utilize a finite internet connection. A packet shaper "shapes" the flow of data going across an internet connection to make the use of the link more efficient. This research is initially being done for OM Ships for their satellite links, but could likely be used by other fields that would like to better utilize their internet connections.
*Easter Weekend*
In England we get Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays. Because I like doing things and not sitting around for a long weekend, I organized a number of activities over the Easter holidays for myself and others in the office. Yesterday I went walking in the Lake District. It was really fun because the weather turned quite adventuresome in the afternoon. We had gale force winds while on the top of one of the fells (mountains) and coupled with the hail it was quite fun and a bit dangerous. Coming down the mountain I had to even crawl because of the speed of the wind. The morning part of the walk was quite uneventful and I got a few good photos. Walking up Dollywagon Pike 
.
Tonight I am calling and hosting a dance at the office. Sunday morning many of the churches will come together for a sunrise service at the cemetery in town. On Monday, I have invited the office around to my place for a pancake brunch and for those that want to stay around we will watch a movie or play games. Should be quite nice.
*Photos*
I have some photos from a missions trip to Mexico a few years back, a few photos taken teaching at my brother's fiancée's technology class, and from my walk in the Lake District.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leonhedding/sets/
*Prayer Requests*
1. That God would work in the hearts of the sales people that I am negotiating a large outsourced email solution so that they will give us a good deal
2. Continued wisdom in my work
3. That I have a good work/life balance
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