Back among the living, I think.

It's been a strange adjustment. While I thank you for the congratulations on the new job, no congratulations are really in order. Our department was taken over by another department, no one was laid off, and I was placed into a new job by forces outside my control. I've been spending the last week trying to get a handle on the parameters of the new job — which is in many ways unlike anything I've ever done before.

But I have been knitting! Not much, admittedly. I started this pair of socks, a birthday (oops) gift for my mother (her birthday is 4th of July) around July 1. The first sock is a little short, so I will rip back the toe and lengthen it. It's an original design again, this time with a little fake "granny square" lace inset on either side just above the ankle.

I'm a little mystified reading my own notes from the first sock, so hopefully the second one is identical. I guess we'll see! This, again, is Fixation. April, I'm sorry. I'll have to make it up to you somehow. I know it hurts you to look at all this Evil Yarn. But it's summertime and I cannot bear my wool at the moment.

Since I know folks are curious (many e-mails and comments), here is some information about my new job. Skip it if you are easily bored or not familiar with IT jargon! It's clearly marked off by lines. Just skip to the kitty pics, I won't be offended.

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The new job is Manager of Infrastructure Coordination and Outreach for the department of Administrative Computing and Telecommunications. It looks like my staff will be organizing training, outreach, and focus groups, and facilitating communication between ACT's technical staff and customers. I'll be helping coordinate projects across ACT and be involved in the development and rollout of IT policy. I have four employees, all creative type folks.

What I was before was Manager of Network Services and Support for the Office of Network Operations. I managed the managers of the Help Desk, the Hostmaster, the (e-mail) Postmaster, Active Directory, ResNet, Exchange, and Research and Development (programmers). I had 5 direct reports, and oversaw a department of about 30 people. Most of them were technical types.

So, lots of change and challenge. At first I was dismayed, because the new position seems a lot smaller in scope than the old one, but I am working hard to make lemonade out of lemons. Hopefully, I can prove myself and grow this new position to be exciting too. I have some very talented staff and hey, quality is better than quantity, eh? ;-)

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Okay! Now that all that boring stuff is over, I am going to waste your time with pictures of my lonnnnnngggggg kitty, because I have no further knitting to show off.



You can tell it's summer, huh!