This is another picture of the Maritz office-world. You can see more of the stuff in the background--namely that it is a big place. The whole building has about 450 employees. The top floor offices pictured here may have 100-150.

Yesterday was neat. I hung out with one of the Zoar youth group guys and hung around BG. Man, I miss having Grounds for Thought coffeeshop around. The coffee and people are really wonderful there. Then we saw "Hide and Seek" which was ok. In some ways it stunk, but it could have been much worse. If you see it, pay attention to the awful foley...it was really inaccurate and overdone.

Nate and Kavita (fellow BGSU grad students (invited me to the Hindu temple in Toledo/Sylvania for a tsunami relief dinner. It was educational and stuff. I cannot believe how much exposure Americans have to information in general, but how little of it is accurate religious material. I had no idea what to expect of the temple, but it was a lot more simple and plain than the image of it I had of it in my head. Anyway, it was a nice evening with some interesting dancing and ok food (but the food was bad in relation to Indian food, because even bad Indian food is at least average when compared to NW Ohio food). I was glad I went though.

This is my office cubicle. It is not a bad thing, for a cubicle. It is hardly a cube, really. It is fairly open and the walls are short.

I had to fight with my computer all day because we use SAS for statistics (and when you are a stats analyst, you tend to use it a lot). SAS is slow and old. They JUST made a GUI for it, and something about it or my machine makes working with SAS ridiculously slow. I kind of think I wasted the day. The sick thing is that I KNOW what I want to do, but I simply cannot do it. That is frustrating. But I have to sit back and say, heck, it is just a job and they ar doing it to themselves by how they are equipping their employees. That, and Maritz really does try. It is just that they are tied to the archaic SAS system. It may be the case that there simply is nothing better that exists.

CRHP weekend was GREAT. This is a mens weekend that was put on at Zoar by a bunch of guys from Grace United Methodist (just down the road). I was with the Grace team that took it to Zoar. I met a lot of great guys and made some friends who I cannot wait to meet back up with. What an emotional and spiritual kick!

Man, I wish I had more time. This whole "job" thing sure doesn't give me much free time to get the dissertation done. It is getting there, but I am already severely behind on my ability to graduate in May, if this is even reasonably possible. Still, life is very good.

Speaking of ugly wings, Chrysler actually puts this cheapo piece of plastic on their pimpin...ahem...Stratus. It really makes one wonder.

Work is decent. I am working on a really fun project in which I am looking for "what drives market share." How cool. I get to fish around in big datasets to generate a nice story that I will write up into an article. It is an excellent introduction to SAS (which I am not happy with because I am switching over from (the MUCH easier-to-use program) SPSS.

Sal let us borrow his DDR pad. It rocks. Anne must have played 3-4 hours yesterday. I just did a half hour. I think we will have to invest in a pad and interface (we are hooking up via parallel port right now and Anne wonders why the printer won't work).

There is something special about a bathroom window. You look out it everyday, so it provides hours of viewing entertainment over the course of a year. This is from my old BG apartment. Man. I will miss that bathroom window.

I get to go to the auto show again tomorrow! This time I go with Scott (my brother-in-law). He is the best person to go with because he is the best car encyclopedia I have ever known. He is the kind of person who knows the year that the headlamps changed on any random car of great or little significance. He also knows the car company business really well. It is weird to look around at work (automotive marketing) and see people who don't know the industry well (although there are MANY people who are really really good as well) and then see that Scott is not there. Man, it makes me think he has missed his calling. I really want to get my eventual goal out there of being able to get my own contract with an automotive company to do usability research. Maritz may be able to do that. After all, usability is likely to be very related to customer satisfaction. It is a lofty goal, but I feel fairly confident that I will be able to grow "beyond my britches" there within a few years. As of now, I am just learning how a corporation works. They have all sorts of protocols that I never saw coming. Oh well, I can worry about that later. I will think about the autoshow for now (well, Sunday).

This pimped-out LINCOLN LS with WING was a serious contribution to the Detroit autoshow. Hard to believe, huh? Thursday "Industry preview" day was a little bit crowded, especially because it was $60 a ticket. It was worth it for a paid day off work though!

This is the pipe that broke at our old house. It let sewage back up into our bathtub. This is why we should all have plastic plumbing--NOT BRASS.

The new place is looking nicer. I am adjusting to work well. I finally understand the software and network and environment in general enough to be productive. It is starting to feel pretty comfortable there.

We are starting a youth guys Bible study/hangout that I am leading. I hung out with two of the guys tonight and it was pretty cool. I cannot wait to get to know them all more. Anne will be at our apartment almost all Tuesday and most of Thursday, so I will have to find something to do (ahem, chicken wings). Maybe thursday would be a good dissertation day...

We had a lot of snow. This is "covered in three directions" spot in Zoar's patio-type area. This is what a table and chairs set looks like when there is no blowing of wind at all. Hey, I thought is was interesting.

Another surprise--my autocrossing civic is getting through the snow pretty darn well. It is probably due to the nice yokohama avid touring all seasons (good in the snow too!).

The first week of work was fun. We are moving from an OLD stats system to a new one that appears to be usable. Thank goodness--it is just in time.
I think I am adapting pretty well there. It is fairly comfortable at work...people are cool and laid back. They are also very intelligent and do very good work (at least the analysts who I hang around are). I cannot wait to get my hands (mouse?) on some of that cool automotive data.

Now to put the apartment together some more. It is going well, but there is still a lot to do.

I stuck the flash drive into the computer so there would be less clutter in the new apartment.

This is my first update in a while because I have a job and stuff. That, and we just got the cable modem this morning.

My new job is pretty fun. It is a cubicle. And a computer. And a hundred other people. We type and talk or go into meetings together.

The material that we get to work on is pretty engaging to me. We work on marketing stuff for all of the major (and non-major,I believe) automotive companies. I am floating between a few projects and trying to learn SAS (a different stats program than I have used in BGSU grad school). Things are going well.

Annie made it home from her trip to a conference in Nashville. It was only 6 days without her, but with such a big lifestyle change, it sure seemed like a lot longer. We are now nestling down in our nice new apartment. Things seem pretty good.

brady

from new years eve.
it is always a treat to see this lovely bradified face.
inother news, we have finished moving into our new apt in perryburg [734 green meadows drive]. i am very grateful to everyone who helped us move. the moving process went really well.

nye party

at randy's --- earlyddr fun stuff