A buddy of mine sent me the following link: http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/.  I recommend you check the Antonin Scalia interview, which starts on March 16th and carries on for 5 parts, and contemplate some of what he’s saying.  Whether you agree with him or not, I think it is certainly worth listening to and appreciating as a strong opinion on the Constitution and the role of the judiciary.

I’ve been reading the book Outliers recently, and I’ve really enjoyed it.  I think Gladwell can be a bit verbose with his books, but I appreciate his thought process and ability to break things down.  I haven’t finished yet, but I’m working through the final couple of chapters and would certainly have to recommend the book so far.  I hope I can take some things from it and apply them to my specific circumstances, but again we’ll have to see what my overall opinion is once I’m done.  I’ve already had a couple of spiritual insights that I’ve pulled from the book that I may share as well.

In other news, I’ll be moving out of my office at the Baytown refinery and heading down to the ExxonMobil building at 800 Bell St. in Houston.  I’m excited for a change, and I’m already pretty confident that I will be working with a really solid team.  And I’ll be honest, a shorter commute is certainly an exciting proposition!

I’ll add more in the coming days - I always have a lot to ponder.

Oh, and I’m having dinner with Dad tonight, which is exciting!  Not everyday I have family in town…

From the looks of things, I’ll be heading to Houston, TX sometime this summer to start work for ExxonMobil! I don’t know if I could be happier at this point with this opportunity… Back in the Fall I was a little hesitant to head down there since I felt I could head home with a lady friend and be closer to family and the culture I love in Chicago, but now that I’m single (for now) Houston’s singles wards are appealing. Oh, and the biggest factor is that Jason and Erin are going to be down there, so I have psuedo-family in the area. I have plenty of other friends working for Exxon, but with Jason and Erin there I feel 100% comfortable transplanting myself and making the big move.

Some of the things I love about ExxonMobil:

• I can change jobs w/i the company – I don’t have to go on a major job search when I get tired of what I’m doing and I want to try something new
• They spend a LOT of money on IT, so I know I will have plenty to work with and I won’t be struggling to find resources like if I worked at a smaller organization
• The pay and benefits are SICK! My starting salary is right up there with some of the highest I’ve heard friends from across the country getting, and the 401k and pension plans aren’t anything to scoff at either.
• They have a vested interest in making sure I’m happy and that I have everything I need. They despise turnover, so they’ll make sure I am trained, content with my job, and moving in directions I want to go.

Added benefits:

• It’s very possible I could be moving into my first home w/i a year’s time. This will most likely depend on whether or not I get married anytime soon, because I’d rather rent and save if I’m single – but the option is definitely a possibility since the cost of living is significantly lower.
• The weather in Houston will let me play year round! I certainly love the snow, but at about this point in January I really wish I had the warm weather back so that I could be sitting on the front porch, playing outdoors, and walking to school w/o feeling like my arms are going to fall off!
• I mentioned this before, but having a strong support base in the area will be GREAT! I have several friends down there who I am excited to be working with and living around.

There are other things to definitely be excited about, but those are some of the bigs ones.

In other news, we’ve had a lot of fun around here recently. Last Saturday we held our first annual (and possibly last) Prohibition Remembrance Day party! We had the house filled with root beer, apple beer, nacho dip, and fun lovin’ Mormon kids! Honestly, it was a ton of fun. We read about the Prohibition Amendment, it’s sad demise, and how Utah blew it for the rest of the country (tsk tsk…).

My buddy Kevin hosted the party with me. Talk about a good kid! You’d be hard pressed not to think he’s great, I’ll leave it at that… I met a bunch of his friends, including a young lady who may or may not have caught my fancy… HA!

Oh, and here’s a picture just to give you idea of how much non-alcohol was consumed…

After a whole slew of internship interviews and quite a bit of prayer, it became pretty clear that this was the job I should take for the summer. It’s my internship and I’ll be working here for approximately a calendar year before I graduate. I could have accepted an internship with USAA or FedEx, but considering the type of experience I will have here at the BYU office, it seemed like the best opportunity was for me to remain in town and to work with the Ernie and the others.

My first week and a half has been great! I am currently a Project Coordinator, apprenticing to become a Project Manager. I have not had a ton of work so far, but it’s getting better. My first week included a lot of reading and meeting with different people to develop a solid understanding of the different projects I am assigned to, but now I have several more meetings scheduled and I have more to do in regards to updating project details. In all honesty, this has been the easiest job transition that I’ve ever had! Ernie’s class prepared me beautifully for the role that I have; it has been surprising how quickly I am able to translate the things I understood from class to the real world of project management.

The biggest surprise to me has been that each project manager has to have a very solid understanding of different technologies and their implementation in order to manage a lot of these projects. It doesn’t seem like it’s terribly necessary to know the very specific details of software code, but there is a lot that you do need to understand in order to effectively take status updates and help in requirements definitions. The more meetings I attend, the more interesting it becomes to see how the project manager works with the project team on different phases of development and planning. Honestly, it’s a totally different experience than most people probably imagine it being.

JMR