9/1/2009
The Church purchased Intel’s facility in Riverton (Intel has been trying to sell it for a while) several months ago and I have been anxiously awaiting the finishing of the remodel so that we could move out here. That finally happened yesterday. I jumped in my car Monday morning and made the 5 minute drive over to work. It was wonderful. The building is fantastic. The Church did a great job engineering the building to create a great working environment. I have included pictures of the building below to show what it looks like. I am excited to finally be located in the same facility as many of the people I correspond with. Previously we were spread out in 4 buildings downtown and one building in Orem. The move will ease a lot of communication issues that we have had as well as allow our teams to work together more cohesively. When I used to work for Intel it was a dream of mine to actually sit with the team that I work with – now here at the Church I’ll have that chance.
Front of building – it has four floors and each floor is 80,000 square feet – each floor of the Church Office Building (COB) is around 20,000 square feet so this building roughly represents 16 floors of the COB (the COB has 27 floors total I believe). We have a data center in there (not the data center though), lab space, plenty of storage, and a cafeteria.
the building is called the Riverton Office Building or the ROB for short – while ROB might seem a little odd – it was better than the alternative. There is a building near Temple Square called the North Office Building or NOB and since this is South some speculated it would be the South Office Building, but that acronym is worse than ROB so we’ll be happy with the name as it is.
Lighting is a little rough, but here you can see we have a cube bay which holds 6 people and then in the middle is an enclosed war room or team room with a projector and plenty of white boards for collaboration. On the other side of the team room is another 6 person cube bay and both sides share the team room.
My cube is on the left and on the right is my team’s bay (called Stack Town because all either work on our .NET Stack or our Java Stack).
this is what we call a Creative Work Area – it is a place to get away – relax, think, read, etc… – they are positioned strategically throughout each floor and our a great addition.
All in all – I love the new building and am excited to work in it!
8/31/2009
This email went around at work the other day and I got permission to reprint it here. A key initiative for the Church’s IT department is to engage with the broader community of software developers who would be interested in working on sanctioned projects that the Church needs to complete. Over the years I have seen and used many applications produced by individuals in their spare time that helps with the work of the Church. This effort by Church IT (called ICS) is trying to expand the amount of work we can do by engaging with those who are interested and providing them an environment with access to Church infrastructure (authentication, data, apis, etc…) so that we can collaboratively develop software that meets the needs of the Church.
| Volunteer Development Opportunities at the Church Do you know individuals outside of Church employment who would like to help build great software? Just refer them to the LDSTech Web site. The goal of the LDSTech Web site has always been to enlist people—both from within and outside of Church employment—to work on Church projects. This goal is now a reality with the LDSTech Web site, and getting involved is easy. Follow these steps: 1. Pick a project you are interested in. See all of the projects currently in development. 2. Follow the steps found on the Requirements for Participation wiki page. 3. Find tasks associated with the project of your choice and get to work. Everyone is invited to participate. There are a variety of community projects currently underway, including projects to create mobile applications, replace the current Local Unit Web Site Calendar, and to translate wiki documents into other languages. Projects require many individual contributors who can work as project managers, designers, database engineers, software developers, testers, technical writers, translators, and more. For more information, visit the Getting Involved with Projects or Current Needs wiki pages. Be sure to share this e-mail message with your friends and relatives who would want to help! | |
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7/20/2009
Family Gems - 20 July 2009
“A familiar example of losing ourselves in the service of others—this one not unique to Latter-day Saints—is the sacrifice parents make for their children. Mothers suffer pain and loss of personal priorities and comforts to bear and rear each child. Fathers adjust their lives and priorities to support a family. The gap between those who are and those who are not willing to do this is widening in today’s world. . . .
“We rejoice that so many Latter-day Saint couples are among that unselfish group who are willing to surrender their personal priorities and serve the Lord by bearing and rearing the children our Heavenly Father sends to their care. We also rejoice in those who care for disabled family members and aged parents. None of this service asks, what’s in it for me? All of it requires setting aside personal convenience for unselfish service. All of it stands in contrast to the fame, fortune, and other immediate gratification that are the worldly ways of so many in our day.”
Dallin H. Oaks, “Unselfish Service,” Ensign, May 2009, 93
Topics: Service
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?category=all&locale=0&month=7&vgnextoid=1bba16ece73e9110VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD&year=2009
6/17/2009
After getting the big news on Monday on what baby we were having I guess it was too much for me because later that night – or more appropriately early Tuesday morning Noel took me to the hospital for severe abdominal pain. I had the same symptoms about 6 weeks ago and a trip to the urgent care turned up nothing and so I came home and felt better the next day.
The doctors theory is that my appendix likely ruptured then (you can see a nice picture of how my body covered it up in the bottom right picture – your appendix is not supposed to have a bulbous mass on the end of it – it is supposed to look like a worm). The fluid in the two top pictures was sloshing around in there as well. They took it out yesterday and today I got to come home thankfully. I am glad to have things taken care of and hope that this is the my last visit to the hospital and to surgery for a good long while. This did throw a wrench in the plans to go canoe the Snake River with Dad, Brett, and Kevin next week which is a major bummer.
Note: I use this blog to post both Personal and Technical articles. For a technical only feed use the following URL (http://bryanandnoel.spaces.live.com/category/technology/feed.rss). For a family only feed use the following URL (http://bryanandnoel.spaces.live.com/category/family/feed.rss)
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