Chanukkah!

Well, it’s been a pretty exciting week in the life of me! First off, Happy Late Chanukkah! While everyone else is currently scrambling for gifts, our holiday has ended, and let me say, it was a good one!

First off, My older sister Evin, her husband Noah, and my niece Kesiah all moved to Atlanta last week from Chicago. Evin has lived up there for 10+ years, and Noah is a windy city native, but I guess the bad weather and our begging and the hopes for built-in babysitters was enough for them to move. We all got together last Friday night for Shabbat at the ‘rents’ house. Kesiah who is now 18 months old is cuter than cute. She is talking, and speaks hundreds of words. It’s going to be fun having everyone in town.

Second, I got a promotion at work! This has been something that I have been working on with my boss, and making goals and objectives to get there, and I am thrilled to have been promoted. Now I need to set my goals for my next promotion in 2009/2010! My official new title is Project Engineer. I started out here as an Engineering Aide when I was in college, and when I came on full time I was a Design Engineer. Just a few more years and I’ll be running the place ;-)

Lastly, our office moved. The old office was in Norcross, GA, and my ride to work was 5.8 miles and took me 10 minutes. 12 minutes when there was bad traffic and I hit all the lights. No such luck anymore. The new office moved from being up Peachtree Industrial to being in Duluth, GA up I-85, and so now I have to get on the highway and go farther to get to work. The truth is, the ride isn’t really all that bad. The commute takes about 10 minutes longer on a good day, but I hate being on the highway since there’s always the idiot that stalls in the center lane and halts traffic for 3 hours longer than the usual rush hour. On a positive note though, the old office was split into two buildings, so we weren’t all located together. The new building is huge, and we have a ton of extra space with everyone in a single location. In the old office, my cube was at “grand central” – the corner that everyone had to pass to get to a door, the bathroom, or the breakroom, so people were constantly congregated around my cube chatting (to either each other or to me). I don’t mind the talking, but it was quite distracting when I actually had work to do. I requested a more secluded spot in the new building, and boy did I get it! My new spot is essentially in a corner where no one will ever go unless they are specifically coming to see me. Perfect. And lastly, we have a rec room here. Complete with a pool table, ping pong table, couches and an Xbox 360 to play on the plasma TV equipped with Direct TV. Unfortunately I haven’t actually used it yet, but I’m sure I’ll get to soon. Everyone was so excited about the new office, that our annual office party usually held at a nice location was cancelled, and rescheduled to be in the new office. They maintained the formality of the party, and they “unwrapped” the gift of the breakroom during the party. I brough Scott as my date, so that was fun, and after the open bar party, we (with DZ, Trent, and Anke) went out to the Highlands for some more fun.

So overall it's been a pretty good couple weeks. Hope the update was as exciting for you to read as it was for me to experience! =) now time to cook for 14 people. Yikes!