Saints Francis, Jude, and Watson

Praise to God for his many blessings! I have so much to be thankful for. Firstly, I was able to survive my 15 credit hour semester at IIT with a pretty respectable GPA and a published paper. My research on the cyber security loopholes in UAVs actually turned out to be a good product. Carnegie Mellon decided to publish the paper. It’s called “Ultimate Killer Apps,” and you can read it here:

Second, I completed the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, which now officially makes me a full-fledged member of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. Here is a photo from the Holy Name Cathedral (cathedra = seat = where Bishop sits = center of the region’s Catholic community). I thought this was a gorgeous building:

I am very thankful to Saint Francis for helping to guide me through this process. I took Francis as my confirmation name in his honor. I am convinced that I never would have undertaken this spiritual journey had it not been for G.K. Chesterton’s book on Francis.

Similarly, I am thankful to Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, because my 12 month search for employment has finally come to an end. I accepted a position with IBM as a Client Technical Specialist for Tivoli Software on big Mainframe computers. It’s definitely great to finally have the feeling of vocation (although marriage is my true vocation) in all aspects of my life. I can actually enjoy my free time now, and I can effective write off video gaming on my PlayStation or Wii as professional development (as IBM designed the processors in both of these and the x-box).

It’s been an exciting time to join IBM, which just celebrated it’s centennial. For an idea of IBM history, check this out:

I’m happy to have a chance to meet such amazing peers on both the technical and business side of the house. I’m hoping to make some close friends over my next 12 months of IBM Summit Training. Here is a collage of pictures I put together from the IBM Corporate HQ in Armonk, NY. In the center you can see Summit Stream II. I have no idea why I’m the only one kneeling down. Perhaps, I’m genuflecting to the many saints that have been helping me over the past few months.

Finally, my wife Erica and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on June 19th. We traveled down to Door County, Wisconsin and stayed in a really nice renovated barn turned B&B. The trip was simply amazing.

And we took Frogger, my new green Ford Fiesta: