A Whirlwind of Activity

Well, last week might have been one of the most interesting and activity-filled weeks of my entire life. Or, at the very least, it was a week that was full of change. This basically centered around 2 main topics:

1) New job – I started my new job at Eli Lilly last Monday, which began with a very impressive orientation day. We learned about the corporate vision and strategy, all of the benefits details, and got a terrific tour of the “Lilly Center”, which is a museum that’s attached to the Lilly campus that teaches about the history of the company. The company was started by Colonel Eli Lilly in 1876 in a tiny, two story building on Pearl Street in Indianapolis. Col. Lilly’s son (Josiah Kirby Lilly Sr.), as well as his two grandsons (J.K. Lilly Jr. and Eli Lilly), all worked for the company at some point, and have handed down a pretty impressive corporate legacy. They have actually built a full-scale replica of the original Lilly facility on the grounds of the corporate center, which was just fascinating to tour. They really did a good job of introducing the new employees to the company and its culture. The rest of the week was spent in my new cubicle, reading SOPs and doing computer-based training. I’m meeting lots of very nice people, and I’ve even had a chance to go to lunch with a few people. It’s definitely a much larger operation than at Covance, so I suspect that making friends might be somewhat of a challenge. But, I know that I’ll eventually find a place to fit in, and I think the work is going to be pretty interesting.

2) New church – Yesterday was the inaugural service for Freedom Church, the new church plant in Lebanon, Indiana that we have been helping to launch. After nearly 2 years of brainstorming, planning, and praying, the first service was just fantastic. We had a great turnout, and are looking forward to seeing who will come back next week! And, for being in a movie theater, I thought we did a good job of transforming the place into a church. My job is to lead the technical team in the “living room” (our hip, 2008 term for “sanctuary”). That means that I’m responsible for setting up running the soundboard and making sure that all the technical details of the service are taken care of. We’re using a program called Easy Worship, which is designed to integrate many kinds of media (song lyrics, PowerPoint slides, video clips), and synthesize them into a linear schedule that is run during a church service. The result is a relatively seamless media presentation, which really adds to the quality of our service. Rachel has done a fantastic job of learning and working with that software – the schedule she designed for this past week just looked great, especially with Cliff manning the controls. Anyway, everything else seemed to go great. Of course, we have quite a few things that need to be tweaked and improved, but overall we were very happy with how it turned out. Also, we were really thrilled that Jonathan and Diane came out to support us (with adorable little Ian, of course), and that we had the chance to have lunch with them, too. I’m really looking forward to next week!!

Not much else to report. Rachel and I are looking forward to an upcoming weekend trip to Las Vegas next month to help my Texas friends Dave and Amy celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. This should be a fun trip, and Rachel and I are really excited about having a weekend together as a couple, sans kiddos. Many thanks to Mr. G. David Chase for his generous airfare pass contribution!!

Happy New Year - 2008 is going to be quite a ride!

Happy New Year to anyone who happens to come across this blog (all 3 of you)! This has been a pretty exhausting holiday for me, but probably one of the best in recent memory. We helped some new friends move into their new apartment, which involved lots of lifting, lots of organizing, and lots of driving the U-Haul truck! It was cool and rainy on New Year's Eve, which turned into bitter cold and snowy on New Year's Day. But, we got almost everything moved, and hopefully were able to help to reduce the stress of a quick holiday move. Plus, I got to give my arms a nice workout!

My week of intentional unemployment continues. I'm very excited about my first day at Eli Lilly next Monday, and I kind of wish it would just hurry up and get here!! It's been more than 3 months now since my first interview at Lilly, so I'm ready for the dream to become the reality! In the meantime, I'm trying to get some work done for Freedom Church. as well as getting some rest. Tomorrow, after helping Shane buy some sound equipment for the church in the morning, I'll be getting together with Mike in the afternoon for gaming, and Cody in the evening for (even more) gaming. Wow, sounds like it'll be a good day! :-)

Here's to a great 2008!!