Friday, December 19, 2008

"Christmas Letter" Blog Entry

As was so aptly pointed out to me, most Christmas letters begin with "I can't believe another year has gone by already!" or something to that effect. But mine shall not.

This has been the longest year ever. For the universe is slowing down, extending time that is measured; and, in addition, it was a leap year, 366 days. A lot has happened in those 366 days. The biggest events were my graduation from college with my degree in Industrial Engineering and minor in Business Administration; being hired by the world’s largest technology distributor and a leading technology sales, marketing and logistics company as an Industrial Engineer; and the purchase of my first home.

The whole concept of a Christmas Letter seems strange to me. I suppose that historically they were written to update a large group of people on a yearly basis with the past events of said year. This letter would be sent to close friends and family, but was primarily directed towards those that one might only communicate with once a year, via the Christmas Letter. And so it seems strange to me to communicate with people only once a year, as this is the computer age. Activities are updated on a daily basis via Facebook, Myspace, Blogger, LinkedIn, or any other variety of online forums. And so, close friends, close family, distant friends, distant family, complete strangers can have insight to every one of my actions that I share with the world.

Regardless, as in general Christmas Letter format, I shall expound on the large events of my life. I graduated on May 17th, 2008. The ceremony was held outside on the dell, and it was significantly warm in the traditional black robes. I did the "walk across the stage," the announcer said my name correctly (they go through everyone's name prior to the real ceremony), and received my college diploma.

About a month and a half earlier I had interviewed with Ingram Micro. The interview went well and I was impressed with their operation. I received a job offer a little while before graduation and I accepted their offer. The company does warehousing, shipping, internal logistics, and third-party logistics work for their own inventory as well as for some major corporations. My job title is Industrial Engineer and I work on a number of projects to improve layout and product flow efficiency. One of the major projects I am working on is the implementation of a labor management system, used to improve employees productivity.

I completed the home buying process on June 30th. The entire process went fairly quickly I'm told, though I thought a month was a long time. But I suppose buying a house isn't quite like buying a hamburger at McDonald's, at least not yet. My house is just over 1300 square feet; 1.5 baths, 3 bedrooms, 2 car garage, shed, a small yard. I use one of the bedrooms as an office where I have my computer and all my books. I sleep in the master bedroom and maintain one of the other bedrooms as the guest room.

So I have obtained my Engineering degree, an Engineering job that I am very happy with, and a very nice home in a nice area with nice neighbors. I have my Ford Taurus that is still running well.

I have good friends in many different places. However, no new romantic developments. Which, for the most part, may be a good thing as I will be traveling approximately 32 weeks out of the 52 next year. But that's for next year's Christmas Letter.

-Adam


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