Another Job Prayer Request

Didn't want to make a post without sharing another picture of Zac, so that's why he's here even though I've titled this about a prayer request. :) Today I have a second phone interview with Ticketmaster for a position I think is a great fit and is exactly the direction I'd like my career to go. I'm hopeful God agrees with that. :)

The interview is at 3 p.m. CST and is with Ticketmaster's national director of customer service. I'm surprised I'm interviewing with him instead of the head of the call center down in Texas, but I am actually very appreciative the top guy is handling it. That tells me he has a real commitment to making sure everyone on his team fits the culture and mindset toward customer service they want to see.

Please continue to pray with Katy and me that God's will stays first and foremost in our thoughts and desires. We feel strongly like He has made it clear what direction we are to go, but sometimes when you get that spark of understanding, you can run with it a bit too much off on your own and lose sight of things a little bit. We want to make sure our focus is on what He has designed above all else.

NOTE ADDED: The interview went pretty well. I'd like to feel extremely confident about it, but as with any interview, there are always things you think you could've responded to a little better. The good thing was that I felt we developed a good rapport and he's definitely someone I would enjoy working for. Next step is to hear back by the end of next week. Continued prayers are appreciated!

Big Boy Food

Zac is now eating cereal for us. He began taking a spoon or two on Thursday, by Friday was up to eating a tablespoon of the cereal once, and by Sunday we had him up to two tablespoons, twice a day. This supplement to his bottles, which we've upped to 6 oz. per feeding, should make up for the new amount of sleep he's decided to give us at night. Last night, he ate at 9:30, fell asleep sometime after 11 or 11:30, but didn't wake up until 6:15 this morning. This makes for very happy parents!

NOTE ADDED: After just changing Zac, I have come to the realization that the benefits of adding cereal to his diet are not all "benefits". In fact, one particular aspect of the change seems to be manifesting itself in a very special way. In short, my son now sometimes carries an odor I can only describe as "Rural Nebraska Feedlot". Ummm, joy?

A New Pic

Katy took this pic of Zac last night and we wanted to post it to get something new up here for all to see. OK, that's not entirely true. Maybe it was just to post a photo of him picking his nose so we can show him when he's older. Regardless, Zac is lying on his play mat here, the same one in the videos on the right. He loves the hanging toys and watching them, but he hasn't quite gotten to the point of excitement when having tummy time, where he can view the patterns and enjoy the mirror set for him.

He's doing very well, and recently has decided to begin sleeping for 7 or 8 hour stretches at night, which makes our lives a lot easier. After he eats, if he wakes up 4 hours later (his normal feeding pattern during days), we can even coax him into going back to sleep for a few extra hours. As such, we're introducing him to the joys of cereal, which in itself is a very separate "joy" for us. So far, so good, though, as he's taken it pretty well the past two days. We bought a booster chair with tray that adjusts to height and reclines a bit that fits on our kitchen chairs, and he'll begin eating in that today sometime.

Quick job update...I had a call Friday morning about a position with Pamida. For those of you in the South, Pamida has stores that are similar to a Shopko or Target or something along those lines. Essentially, a smaller retail outlet with lots of variety. They need someone to manage their help desk at the headquarters here in Omaha. The interview went very well and the people were very nice. They want to move quickly, but I believe are going to speak to one more person. In one sense, Katy and I have kind of set our sights on moving, but if God wants us to stay here in Omaha, we know it'll be for great reasons He has planned!

Some Specific Job Prayer Requests

As many or all of you know, I've been out of work since the end of August, 2007. It's been a long road, and many times we thought I was about to be hired. Though the process itself has been fairly smooth, I felt I was missing something God was trying to tell me. Two Sunday ago He made that very clear to me. While I'd been praying all along that God would open the door for the right job that He had waiting for me, I was neglecting to pray more specifically within His will. In other words, what I needed to pray was that God would lead Katy and me to the place He had set aside for us to serve Him best...and then just let Him use the job as a vehicle to get us there, whether that's here in Omaha or elsewhere. Once I recognized that, I prayed about it immediately in church when it happened, then told Katy when we returned home that day. Her look of "I can't believe we missed this" said it all. So that was two Sundays ago.

Last week, then, I had multiple contacts from people regarding job opportunities. Until then, and I'm not kidding, not a single contact in over two months. Two opportunities have, to date, risen to the top and we could use your prayers regarding them. One of them is right here in Omaha, working for The Nebraska Medical Center. I interview for this one today, actually, at 3:30. For those unfamiliar, this is the hospital side of things here. What happened was that about 7 years ago, Clarkson Hospital and The University of Nebraska Medical Center merged. The hospital side is still largely referred to as Clarkson, but their technical name is "The Nebraska Medical Center". The other side is still the University side, or UNMC. I worked for UNMC when I first moved back to Omaha in 2002 and hated it because of the awful atmosphere. The hospital side, however, was known as being totally different. OK, enough history.

The position with them would be managing the leads and other desktop support techs in their IT department and would act as the right-hand-man to the head guy for that area. What is appealing about this job? Well, it's in management, which is important to me and I'm told the boss has created a great atmosphere, which is also important...and that's about it. I've been trying for years to get out of the computer (IT) industry and finally had done it, but now may be sucked back in.

The other job is with Ticketmaster and is based in Pharr, TX. If you're wondering where that is, you can see it on this map. Yes, that is Mexico at the bottom and the Gulf of Mexico on the right. I've had an initial interview with HR for this one and expect to receive a second phone interview with the hiring managers within the next week or so. This job is so appealing to me because for one, it's as the manager of the customer service area, mostly focusing on managing the supervisors who manage the 150 or so agents in that department. I love those duties and it's not in the IT area, which is also appealing. Cost of living is affordable down there in south Texas, and I'm told it's a great place to raise a family. Also, did I mention it's NOT in the IT area? :)

So my prayer is this, that God would close doors I am not supposed to walk through. He knows my propensity to jump on a job because it's offered, especially when I wouldn't have the liberty of waiting (the hospital job is a right now kind of thing) or feel like I could due to our present financial situation. My fear is I'd be very unhappy at the hospital job, but maybe I wouldn't be. So if I would be happy there, it'd be great if God would make it clear to me. Right now, I don't have any peace about the job at all, and my instincts are generally right. For example, I'd love to relocate to the Tulsa area, and I loved living there, but I don't feel God pulling us in that direction even in the slightest. I do feel a pull to Texas, however, and that makes it more difficult to entertain this position here in Omaha.

What do you do when you need work and have an opportunity? You look into it, give it your best, and let God handle the rest. Please pray with us that God will indeed handle the rest and remove any possible confusion over the path I should take. Thanks all!

New Videos Posted

Sorry, gang, for being so slow to add new entries lately. I took two short videos this morning with my phone and just posted them on YouTube, which means they should show up here on the right fairly soon. Both are essentially the same. Zac was "talking" to his toys but when I began shooting the video, he was too absorbed in watching himself on the external monitor of my phone to do anything else. But at least y'all can get a chance to see him today.

Mom and Dad left this morning by bus to head back to Custer. We were up at 3:30am (ugh) and the bus was supposed to pick them up at this gas station/supermarket downtown at 4:55. He got there at 6:05. By the time I returned home and took the trash out, it was almost 6:30, meaning I'd been up 3 hours, which made it impossible to get back to sleep. I'm hopeful the two of them catch a few winks on the trip. As I write this, they should be on a short layover in Sioux Falls, SD, then leaving again around noon and arriving this evening shortly after 5, if everything is on time.

Katy threw me a nice surprise birthday party Saturday night, inviting several of my friends. I had an inkling something was up, but I really didn't know for sure of anything. We had a nice cookout with her parents and family and my parents and a few friends. It was good food and Katy made banana pudding, the kind Yankees don't get to eat unless they go South or know someone from the South. It's amazingly good and well worth skipping a cake for this year. She wanted to do something special for my 40th birthday and I feel very blessed to have such an amazing, beautiful woman as my wife. :)

Dedication Day

Today we had the honor of dedicating Zac to God. Both sets of grandparents were here to see the event and Aunt Mickie, Uncle Chad and the kids would've made it on time except for an unfortunate event with Mandy this morning that resulted in some cleaning up that delayed their arrival. :)

These two pics are not the greatest, but it's about all I've got to share that was salvageable. Our camera didn't handle the lighting so well this morning, for some reason. This first pic is of Zac before the dedication. You can see his cute little outfit we picked up just for the occasion and he's actually awake! We didn't know it, but apparently being awake was a rarity for him for over six hours this morning and into early afternoon. Now, if he could only do that at night!

This second pic is the best I could do with adjusting one of the pictures we had. Zac is, unfortunately, not terribly visible during this one and is sucking on a pacifier, hiding his face. The closest one I had of him during the dedication, I was blocked off by our pastor, Dave Holland. Now, Dave's a good-looking guy and all but this was supposed to focus on Zac and I didn't want him stealing the attention away. (Ssshhhhh, now that I've said this, Dave will be forever in my debt because I made him out to be so awesome.)

Baby Dedication on Mother's Day

Zac is being dedicated this Sunday at our church. I think it's neat that we're doing it on Mother's Day, too, though that is a bit unusual from a timing perspective, I'm sure. He's certainly enjoying his time this week with Grandma and Grandpa being here in Omaha with us. Grandma dotes on him constantly, which gives me extra time to take care of things around the house and job search without being constantly distracted.

Unfortunately, I think Zac is a little under the weather right now. He seems to be a bit edgy and his nose is a little stuffy. He also is getting some stuff in his eyes, so we'll just take it easy and he should be fine in a day or so. One thing we hope is that Zac isn't subject to allergies just yet like we are. Katy has to take Claritin every day and I have to take Allegra from Spring through Fall. He's gone for walks the past few days as the weather has been so nice here and that could be why he's having the sniffles a bit. :)

Travel Looking OK

Looks like travel through Nebraska should be OK after all. There is patchy snow and ice between Chadron and Alliance and just south, but mostly roads are apparently OK. This is a better option than going up through Rapid City. Apparently they saw 14 inches of snow in the storm and so the ice and snow issues on the highway near there and I-90 east of there are a bit much to handle.

My brother Dan tells me that Lead, a place northwest of Custer and further up in the hills, received 32 inches of snow and Harding, SD received 48 inches of snow. Wow! Glad we are not there! Heading for home in the next 2 hours, it looks like. Think we'll feed Zac before taking off and then be on our way.

Spring in Custer

As promised, here are a few pics of what Custer is like today, May 2nd. Sheesh. The Interstate east of Rapid City is closed for about 100 miles. Roads south of us are closed in Nebraska, so it's a good thing we aren't supposed to be heading home today. The storm hit much more of Nebraska than was forecast, so snow goes quite a bit east, meaning travel could be iffy even tomorrow, depending on how things play out. We'll be watching road conditions in the morning and making our decisions on how to hopefully get home. Here are some pics.

Snow! Oh No!!!

As I write this we are under a blizzard warning up here in Custer. That's right. It is May 1st and we are in a blizzard warning. There is something very wrong with that statement. So far, not so much snow, but apparently much, much more to come. I am personally hoping God chooses to keep the storm north in the hills and lets us get a smaller amount. Not only don't I want to deal with more winter after the extremely long winter we already had in Omaha, but I don't want to have to drive back through South Dakota on I-90 Saturday. Though that path looks to be seeing very little snow once you are east of Rapid City, it's a longer drive than going down through Nebraska and it's boring, too.

We'll see what we wake up to Friday morning and how it goes throughout the day. I hope to update this with a picture if snow indeed becomes what they say we should still get (forecast said anywhere from 6 to 20 inches). Woo...hoo.