Once again it’s been months since I last posted. Let’s get caught up.

Work

In July I went through a work transition again. I accepted an offer to move from supervising a sub-team working on Utah’s internal Unemployment Insurance processing system. The team I supervise now is commonly called “the Web Team”, but a better title is Enterprise Services Team. We are responsible for the overall look and feel of both the external internet and internal intranet sites for the Utah Department of Workforce Services. We also build and maintain about 50 web applications or web services that form a number of the core services provided by DWS.

On top of that work, we also have a contract to revise a “schools-to-careers” site called UtahFutures for a consortia of state and education agencies. This puts me in a position where I am essentially supervising two teams at once.

If that wasn’t a large enough challenge, the move also represents a big change in development technology for me. All of my past development has been done in the Microsoft stack of technologies. All but a few of the projects I now oversee are in the Java stack. It’s not a huge transition, but there is a bit of a learning curve before I will be fully productive.

Basketball Coaching

With all of the changes at work, and after 8 years of heavy involvement, I am stepping back from an active role as a HS Basketball Coach. Some of my favorite memories over the past years have been watching the growth and development both on and off the court of the over 100 players I had the privilege to coach. I hope that this is not the end of my coaching, but I felt like there was no way that I could devote the kind of time required to be successful at my primary career and also devote the kind of time and attention needed to be valuable to the coaching staff.

Cycling

I’ve been cycling to work again this year. At least I had been. That was before I crashed on a recreational ride on 9/17, breaking both my wrists. They have since healed, and I am cast free, but they remain weak and sore. Hopefully I can get back to consistent riding soon.