Nick’s Award

Nick’s love of bridges was made a bit more public recently when he won a paper competition run by the Institute of Structural Engineering. The essay prompt was to write in 4 pages why structural engineers should want to design bridges. Since Nick’s career path has been like an after-school special about the kid who dreamed about making bridges ever since he was a little boy, he figured he had to enter. As the competition winner, Nick got to miss a day of work and go down to an IstructE meeting in London to give a presentation on his paper (in a ringing Yankee accent!) and accept his prize. His paper will be published in a future issue of the Institute magazine as well. To whet your whistle, here is the paper’s introduction below.

Bridges: they are a symbol, a metaphor, an icon, a sculpture, a monument, and a way to get from A to B. They are photographed, painted, eulogized, crossed, and climbed. But with bridges meaning many things to many people, what drives their creators? What draws structural engineers of all ages and backgrounds to these ancient and iconic structures? No doubt the drive of each bridge designer is unique, but rarely are structural engineers given more opportunity to overcome complex challenges and meet the needs of a growing society through such daring, elegant, and creative solutions. Because a bridge is not called to offer shelter or habitation like a building, its structural skeleton is not hidden by architectural additions that can distort space and proportion. Bridges are defined not by what is added to the essential load-bearing structure but by the simple purity of that structure itself. Bridge design provides a unique opportunity for structural engineers to prominently exhibit their creative skill in overcoming nature to provide human transport.

If that intro leaves you with an insatiable desire to read more, let Nick know--but remember, he is only human and may not be able to cope with the overwhelming demand =).

Travelogue Catch Up

I've been waiting to post on our late-May trips to Wales and Prague for awhile due to delusions of picture-labelling over-achievement but time is marching on and so is the blog. Better something than nothing. So…our most recent long term trips happened in late May when our friend John came to visit for the week of Memorial Day (coinciding with an uncreatively-named "May Bank Holiday" here).

After a day of the usual visitor acclimation, we hit the road in our borrowed Honda Jazz once again, this time setting out west to the rolling hills and winding roads of Wales. All of the signs in Wales are in both Welsh and English, and so the words "SLOW" and "ARAF" are painted in big letters on the road as you go through towns. We enjoyed telling each other to araf down, and "araf your roll", so, basically you could say we speak Welsh. Our first stop was Devil's bridge, named this because people thought only the Devil himself could have built the original bridge in the 12th century. I was kind of disappointed, and I think the three of us could have done it in 3-4 days with hour lunch breaks. It is pretty interesting thought because now there are 3 bridges stacked on top of each other, plus there is a 90 foot waterfall nearby. After a hike down to the waterfall in the rain, we drove to the coast for lunch (Welsh Rarebit, which has no rabbit in it) and down to Hay-on-Wye, a town with the largest collection of used book stores in England.

Hay-on-Wye was packed with visitor since it was their annual book festival the weekend we were there—called “a Woodstock of the Mind”. After a rainy few hours browsing the musty shelves of many a bookstore and a few purchases, we left the crowds of Hay and headed to Abergavenny where we were staying at the Blacksheep Backpackers Hostel. We had a great dinner at the Bear Hotel on the way (some really good local ale and a Welsh black beef steak) and finally got into Abergavenny long after dark. Driving the streets was straight out of a horror film, with driving rain, no one around, and no sign of our hostel. I managed to understand enough of the thick Welsh accent of a gas station employee to make it in the direction of the hostel. John and I got out of the car in the driving rain to inquire at some pub that might be a hostel, and were met with three grizzled old men smoking cigars and drinking their closing pints on the small porch of the bar. "Yur a bit late for drinks! Closin time!" They managed as we approached. We had to push past them to get in anyway, so I asked if this was the black sheep hostel. They stared at each other long enough in silence that we just started in anyway, and as we were going through the door a light came in the mind of one of them who yelled: "BLACKSHEEP!!" in this hilarious scream of drunken recognition. On our way out to get our stuff they thought we might be their taxi. Thankfully it was the hostel and we locked the door to our room and slept in the safety of being separated from drunken Welshmen. The Welsh people are a merry bunch!

The next day we toured an amazing castle, then spent the afternoon in the Welsh capital of Cardiff before heading home for work the next day. It was a great trip (click here for pictures) and though it rained quite a bit we loved Wales and were impressed with the friendliness and warmth of the Welsh. It's crazy to have this "other country" just an hour west of Birmingham!
After a day back in the office we left Wednesday morning for the capital of the Czech Republic and the "Paris of the east": Prague! Coming into the city on the bus from the airport was really neat, the language is so different and harsh sounding, and it was a very industrial area near the airport, so it felt kind of 'Soviet'—just over 15 years ago this would have been behind the Iron Curtin.

The city was amazing and we couldn't believe how well preserved everything was even after Nazi occupation and 4 decades of communism. Because Prague was sort of between two fronts and not German home soil (thus not bombed by Allies) it was fairly unharmed. Apparently one of the (only) comical events of destruction during Nazi occupation involved statues of composers on top of the main music hall. Nazi soldiers were sent up to destroy the statue of Mendelssohn because of his Jewish background, but the statues were not labelled. Finally they picked the one they thought was him and destroyed it. The statue was actually one of Wagner, Hitler's favorite composer!

We enjoyed some fantastic Czech beer and sausage, took a river boat tour of the city on the Vlatava river, and made a train journey out to the county to see a castle there one day. Prague has some amazing architecture and a very medieval feel, maybe more than anywhere we've been yet. It is a great city for just walking around in, and we could have done that the whole time. Though it is getting more expensive, it's also a very cheap destination (for food and beer especially) and we were amazed how far our British Pounds went there. In no particular order, our pictures are posted here.

After 3 nights there, we drank out last Budvar and flew back to Birmingham, for a final night out with John. It was great to have him here and we had such a good time…and set quite a pace! We were ready for the relaxation of the work week after a holiday at that speed.

Pub Quiz

As a lot of you already know, Aidan (Lauren's brother) is visiting us for six weeks during his summer vacation. He will be a senior in high school next year, so he has a nice, long summer break. We’re already having a great time: we celebrated his 18^th birthday, introduced him to our British ‘mates’, went to see Spamalot in London, going to Paris this weekend ….but we spend most of our time at home playing games in true Horstmania style! Our favorites have been Wii, Apples to Apples, and a book of ‘Pub Quizzes’ that we bought over here. Pub quizzes are quite the phenomenon, and most pubs have at least one Quiz Night a week. Questions cross a range of categories, and lots of the questions in this book are way too English-centric for us to even take an educated guess, like ‘who was the first Cricketer to score 1,000 wickets in international play?’ (I made that one up, but you can imagine!). Every once in a while, though, they ask a question on American-ese that we find hilarious. These include:

• What do American men put in their billfolds?
• Where do Americans put luggage in their cars?
• What do American babies wear on their bottoms?

And our favourite:

• On what day do Americans eat turkey?

Rooftop Transformation

Moving from Pittsburgh where there was no end to the number of landscaping and home improvement projects that friends needed help with to England has been hard for me, with few chances to “get my hands dirty” and build/fix something. For this reason I have been really excited about the coming of nicer weather and the chance to go to work on “Nick’s Project Space” as Lauren calls it: the rooftop right outside a door in our living room. As you can see below, the roof was not much to look at, with 2 power lines running across it and a junk yard (why!?) in what looks like it should be a residential plot next to us.

After some green outdoor carpeting from Ebay, plastic furniture, and a trip to the garden center, we ended up with this:

I am really happy with how it turned out, and am most proud of the tensile structure holding up the bamboo screening. I anchored some steel-core clothesline to the bricks, then using two “masts” made of wood and picnic umbrella stands, I rigged up a system of tight lines that I tightened with a turn buckle till you could play them like a guitar. The bamboo just hangs on these and I left a door that can roll shut or open for access to the uncivilized badlands outside our green paradise.

Our rooftop vegetable garden and scenic junkyard

During the brief periods without rain here we have enjoyed grilling and eating outside, and it’s even possible to forget you’re in the city on a letting agents roof for awhile. A little green (even the plastic kind) goes a long way.

Barbecuin’ in the Beer Garden

Nick has done an ‘absolutely fantastic’ (as we’re learning to call all things awesome here!) job converting the roof of the office beneath us into an outdoor wonderland. He can do a much better job explaining the vision and subsequent engineering feats to achieve said vision, but I can tell you the following things:

• We call it a ‘beer garden’
• There is a grill, table and seating for four, outdoor carpeting and bamboo screening
• Flours and potted herbs line the walls and there is a separate ‘vegetable garden’ outside the screening

It has completely opened up our flat, it’s like having an extra room! Plus, with it not getting dark until about 10 pm(!), we are able to spend the evening outside eating, reading and hanging out with friends.

We put that last one to the test last night with an International BBQ with friends – it was a little cozy, but it turned out well! Nick is friends with a guy from Poland and a guy from Malaysia, who offered to do an international potluck. Lucasz brought sausages back from Poland with him and grilled them, and Chris made us prawn friend noodles. Lucasz even brought us Polish vodka (not for the faint of heart – there is a picture of bison on the cover!), so all we had to provide was space, salad and dessert. Things got a bit tight in our hallway-like kitchen, but the two cooks didn’t mind. We should invite people over to cook with us more often!

Burdette Brother Attack

Nick’s brothers were the next set of visitors, and we had a great time doing the two extremes of England with them: the back-to-nature experience of camping in the Lake District Park, and the sheik urban style of London. When Eddie and Greg flew in, we gave them an hour or two to nap, then drove the 3 hours north to the Lakes, where we stayed in a simple cabin surrounded by sheep in a shepherd’s field our first night. We had a great time away from it all (including showers) and had a couple of great hikes when it wasn’t raining, and plenty of tea.

After a few days of work, we all went down to London for a long weekend and enjoyed doing the tourist thing for the time. We stayed at a great hostel near Hyde Park (I don’t know how the neighbours let a hostel operate there) spent the weekend popping out of tube stations like gophers. We saw the British Museum, the Odeon Cinema, the wax museum, walked the Thames at night, and had a proper full English breakfast before Eddie and Greg went to Scotland to 'ride out' the last leg of their journey.














It was awesome to have brothers here visiting, and we definitely miss their dry humor. Really all we can say is that you have as much love for us as you are showing in the picture below!

3 Cheers for the Blog!

Gulp – Nick has really stepped up the blogging game on me. Conveniently for him, he is leaving tonight on a business trip, and then is going away with work friends for two weekends over the next two months – so I have a bad feeling these ‘post promises’ are going to be filled by the girl whose brother is flying out TOMORROW!

Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Haha, I’m really not at all, and I have no doubt Nick will be pulling his weight with posts on visits from the Burdette Brothers and John, delighting you with tales of our adventures in the Lake District, London, Wales, and beautiful, beautiful Prague. I hope to provide you with a bit more color commentary on the nitty-gritty of homelife.

If there’s anyone who still cares. We don’t blame you if you’re gone for good!

The Blog is dead. Long live the Blog.

I know what you are all thinking (the 1-2 family members who are still reading this thing). Three posts in May? Are they kidding? Do they hope to keep my interest drip feeding a post every 10 days!?

Before you go and find another blog about a funny American couple living in England, hear us out.

April/May has been the season of visitors around here, and we have been high-tailing it all over this island and beyond. We’re both working full time now too, and it’s been a bit of an adjustment trying to keep up with things around the house and balancing our social lives here with work and visitors.

I know what you’re thinking: lame excuses…and you’re right. We’re going to try to pull this thing together, and I’m setting the bold goal of doubling our posts in June. Look for a full 6 posts this month (most of which are needed just to get us back to the present), with potential for July to shoot right through the roof. For now we’ll take it a post at a time.

To start us off, we have a few pictures from trips with our last few visitors to get out there to the masses. After our great trip to Scotland with Lauren’s mom, we headed into northern Wales to check out a strange and wonderful place on the coast created as an experiment by a welsh architect: the Italianate village of Portmerrion. It was a beautiful day, and we had a great time walking and enjoying the beach there. Looking at the pictures now, I realize that was the last nice weekend for a month…Lou Ann sure knows how to bring the right weather.

Things are getting worse…

Addendum to CCTV post…yesterday on my way to work I spotted an article that just made me shake my head at the police state we’re living in. As you can see from the photo, the police are turning to the military now for ideas. It isn’t enough to just mount cameras on poles everywhere, now they can watch us from the SKY!! At least the “cyber cop” in the photo looks really funny.

Heroes

There are people in my life whom I deeply admire, and who serve as heroes for me as I strive to follow their footsteps. Generally, my heroes are people who believe, intelligently and passionately, in something greater than themselves and dedicate themselves to living out those beliefs. Last week, I heard some good news about two of my heroes: my cousin Perry and Sister Dorothy.

Perry is the oldest child of my mom’s sister, and a lawyer in Oklahoma, who strongly believes that the death penalty is wrong. Regardless of your personal beliefs about the death penalty, there is no question that it is often unfairly and wrongly applied, and that there are a number of innocent people on death row. Although Perry could be a financially successful lawyer of another type, he has dedicated himself to defending people on death row, and working to get them off (surely not a popular job in Oklahoma), first as a lawyer for the Oklahoma Indigent Defense Service, the last line of appeals, and now as a partner in a law firm. Last week, he successfully got a client who had been in jail for 22 years released! Congratulations, Perry!

The same day I heard news about Sister Dorothy Stang, a dear friend of my family’s, a nun from Dayton, OH who loved the people of Brazil and lived as a missionary there for decades. She particularly worked to defend the rights of native farmers against ranchers who were determined to steal their land. After receiving a number of death threats, she was murdered in February 2005 by gunmen who were hired by the ranchers. The gunmen were easily convicted, but it was questionable if a guilty verdict could be found against the ranchers, who have a large amount of money and influence. Amazingly, in a landmark decision, one of the ranchers was found guilty last week! It is so unfortunate to me to be writing mainly about her death, because she had a joyful spirit, love for life, and a profound influence on everyone she met. However, I am sure she is rejoicing at the way justice is working, in both of these cases.

All of this makes me feel inspired and challenged to again look at the way I’m living my life, and how I could be more selflessly giving myself to what I believe in.

It also makes me curious: who are your heroes?

- Lauren

LaserFutureTechnoGeorge

Here’s a story: April 23^rd was a fine, sunny day here in England, and we decided to venture out into the bustling streets of Birmingham to join in the nation pastime: shopping. However, we soon learned it was St. George’s Day, the national holiday of England, and we should be celebrating, not shopping! We headed to Victoria Square in the center of town to see what the English do to celebrate their national holiday. In America we have our wonderfully standard traditions of hanging flags, having parades, and shooting fireworks. We expected to learn something of the English traditions now too!

Well…if you could create the ultimate metaphor for the cultural identity confusion and generational schism in England today, St. Georges day might be it. We saw some sweet old ladies all dressed up in their England hats:

…but then turned the corner to hear loud, pulsing techno music and this going on!!

It was the most bizarre fashion show ever (and they’re pretty weird events to begin with). Some people were laughing and taking pictures, some people just stopped to watch curious for a minute, and the old people sat and muttered. What sort of holiday is this?

We thought the show was a riot, and just kept saying “this has GOT to go on the blog” as wave after wave of bizarrely-clad ladies of the future came out on stage. Not the sort of think to make your average bloke go home proud to be an Englishman, but highly entertaining. England may be culturally confused, but it sure is entertaining.

On the Road: The Untamed North

Well, I’m just going to ignore the fact that we’ve let each and every one of you down with like 1 post in the last month and pretend nothing happened. I’m here to tell you about our recent(ish?) adventure taking The Great American Road Trip concept to the dual carriageways of Scotland. Wanting to check out the north of England and Scotland and ready to celebrate Lou Ann’s ankle healing (Lauren’s mom), the three of us set off on what can only be called a highly ambitious tour of the North. As you can see by the Indiana-Jones-style map below, there’s really not much more for us to see here.

We borrowed a sporty little car called a Honda “Jazz” from our very kind friends Ollie and Claire for this 1400 mile adventure. We set off on a sunny Thursday morning and headed north on one of the two main motorways in the country (the M6) which was a joy, let me say. After 3 hours stopped in traffic due to some horrendous accident up ahead, we were ready to go back to our train-hopping lifestyle. Traffic finally cleared though, and by 2 we were on the streets of Windermere, the capital of the Lake District. We drove through several towns that inspired the inventing of the words “picturesque”, “bucolic”, and “idyllic”, and went on a walk to a 4000-year-old circle of stones.

The next day we wound through treacherous mountain passes, (shifting with my left hand) managed to avoid dying and got back to the motorway to head up to Scotland. After Glasgow, Loch Lomond, and Glen Co, we finally arrived late at our B&B in Fort William on the west coast. The next day we rose with the rooster (they raised chickens at the B&B) and headed down the coast to the port-town of Oban, to catch a ferry to Mull. We visited the large island of Mull, and the smaller islands of Staffa and Iona. We finished the day with Fish & Chips back in Oban, then back to sleep.

Sunday was our chance to make it as far north as we could, and we did pretty well, heading along Loch Ness to Inverness, then all the way out to Ullapool for an amazing seafood dinner. Happy that probably only 5% of Brits had been this far north in Scotland, we returned swaggering with Yankee confidence to our last night at the B&B. After an amazing vegetarian “full Scottish breakfast” we hit the road early the next day, all the way across Scotland to the town of Kirkcaldy on the east coast, where Nick’s great, great grandfather emigrated. After spending 2 hours there to get a feel for Nick’s heritage and buy a MacFarlane tartan tie, we headed across the mighty Firth of Forth Bridge into Edinburgh.

In town we saw the castle, walked the Royal Mile, and checked out the strange and exorbitantly expensive (10x the original price) new Scottish parliament building. We had dinner in the Elephant Café, where JK Rowling penned her first Harry Potter novel, and then it was on the road again. We drove back into England and down to Newcastle for the night, to a “dodgy” inn that did not serve the famous Newcastle Brown Ale. Tuesday morning was spent admiring the famous bridges of Newcastle, including the new Millennium “eye” bridge which opens like an eyelid to let ships under. As our last site, we drove due west from the city to a couple of sites along Hadrian’s wall, built by the Romans to keep Scottish barbarians out and define the north-western limit of their empire. We drove most of the 70 mile wall, and hiked some of the most striking sections. At 2pm we turned the Jazz south and made it back to good old Brum that evening, ready to get back to work on Wednesday.

All in all, a pretty relaxing holiday.

Lake District Pics

Scotland Pics

The Graveyard Shift

We’re way behind on posts, which seems to be par for the course these days. At the moment, we are still enjoying Mom (Lou Ann)’s wonderful visit. We have loads of pictures and stories from our Great Britain Roadtrip and Weekend in Wales coming up.

Before that, though, I had to share one quick story. The weekend was unseasonably warm and sunny, so we went for a walk last night. The closest pretty place to walk is this large cemetery up the road from our flat. When we got there, it was about 5 til 5, and the cemetery closes at 5. I advocated walking around the outside of it, but Nick said, “Oh, live a little and walk through the graveyard!” We had a lovely stroll to the back gate…which was locked. We then had a lovely but nervous stroll to the side gate….which was locked. We then had a much quicker walk to the front gate – also locked! Our only choice was to climb over the wall. The experience of breaking out of the cemetery with my mom will stay with me always!

Birthday Football

We decided we couldn’t live in England and not see a premiership football match, so for Nick’s birthday we got tickets to see our local Birmingham team Aston Villa play London’s Arsenal at home. We got the tickets to go with BJ and Katrina when they were here but, disappointingly, the game was postponed and we couldn't go then. We decided to keep the tickets and use them with our next guests...the advantage of having so many visitors!

At the game we found it hard (though extremely necessary to avoid physical assault) to support Villa too much since we knew they weren’t going to win, and Arsenal plays ‘the most technically accurate and graceful football of any team in England’ (this right out of the home program). In the end, we found the loud chanting and singing from the Villa fans very entertaining, and though we didn’t know what we were singing (which is probably good…) we clapped and mumbled along. It was a really exciting game, and I don’t think you can call live football boring…it was incredible to see the players pretty much run all-out for the whole game and nearly kill each other for the ball. I think much like in American football, the career of these guys can’t be too long.

It was an awesome birthday present and a unique cultural night out, and as you can see from the photos, we had great seats and a great time. We even avoided any threats of physical violence, other then when we came in a bit late. After Arsenal fans, Philadelphia actually does look like a city of brotherly love.

Monumental Mockery

During our travels and sight-seeing with Kevin and Martha we encountered quite a bit of dubious public art. It raised the question for us, what is public art? Why was it put here? Is it serious? Comical? We decided public art is what you make of it, and being comical people, we decided comical was much more interesting than serious. So, throughout our adventures in various cities, we made a point to show that, no matter how serious this art may seem, it’s really pretty darn funny. For proof, I submit exhibit A.

Other than some shameless American tom-foolery, the rest of the Cammarata’s visit was just solid Olde Worlde sightseeing. We posted a couple of photos of walks around Birmingham, as well as a trip to Warwick Castle here. Lauren got a gingerbread man (not a REAL one) from a first-grader in Lancaster, PA, as part of a school project to see where he ended up. As you can see, this lucky gingerbread man got some pretty great photos of being carried around the castle. He has since continued on his journey for St. Patty’s day in Dublin then on to Chicago. Gingerbread people get to do the coolest things.

The fab 4 do Liverpool

A few weeks ago we decided to continue our exploration of this little island and head up to Liverpool with our most recent guests, Kevin and Martha. We took the train there Saturday morning, stayed in a hostel which was the former Venezuelan embassy (!?), then caught the train back Sunday night. Apparently Liverpool has quite the reputation around England, and most people here were pretty surprised we were going, but said it was good we were taking the train so people couldn’t steal our hubcaps. Our friend at the train station ticket counter asked us why planes won’t fly low over Liverpool, and told us it was because they didn’t want their wheels stolen…ha! That great British whit.

Anyway, we risked life and limb to check out this ‘European City of Culture 2008’ and found some fairly nice and pretty ‘dodgy’ parts of the city. Because the city won this European award, there is a ton of development and revitalization work happening there, and it really will be a totally different place in a year or so. We saw a sea of construction cranes and were constantly going around and through various construction sites.

The main tourist area of the city is around Albert Dock, which is a world heritage site that has been totally renovated into an area of shops, restaurants, and museums. One of the odder things we saw was the H&S Customs Museum, where we learned how to smuggle drugs, ivory, or stuffed mongoose-fighting-cobra statues into the country. They had example of some of the things that people tried to sneak into the country, and it is pretty amazing how much contraband they find every year. The Liverpool Tate Museum and the Maritime Museum were two cool ones too.

The city’s obsession with the Beatles is probably justified, since they kind of put it on the map, but the Beatlemania did seem a bit over the top. It’s got to be the #1 industry in modern Liverpool, with tons of tours, pubs, and shops fueling it all. Everyone tries to relate to the Beatles somehow and I guess it ended up seeming a bit sad, and like the city needs to define itself as something other than ‘the place the Beatles came from.’

All in all we had a great time, but it made us happy to live in Birmingham--and some would say that result alone makes the trip worthwhile. Check out some photos of our Liverpool shenanigans here!

The CD Says it All

Since Martha and Kevin visited close to Nick's birthday, they took the opportunity to remind him of the musical dominance of the land he left behind. They made this CD, which reminds us all in bold red, white, and blue glory of what the A really stands for =). From The Presidents of the United States 'peaches' song to 'the boss' screaming 'Born in the USA' it's American hit after hit. It's nice we now have a soundtrack for our July 4th 'Independence Day' BBQ!

mm, mm roadkill

The funniest moment of my week:

I was riding with the two Ollies (IE’s two directors are both named Oliver) to my first client meeting, and the second Ollie (not of Ollie and Claire) turned to me and said, “The greatest thing happened this morning!” I was expecting a big sale, or maybe something related to his family. But no: “I picked up a deer!”

“You WHAT?”

“I picked up a deer! It’s my first one: it was in the middle of the road, freshly killed, nice size. It’s in the boot (trunk) of my car.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Skin it and eat it. I can’t wait! I can’t take it home until tomorrow night, though.” (and yes, that means the deer sat in the car for two day. Gulp.)

Although initially repulsive, the image of Ollie in his Savile Row hand-tailored suit, loading a big deer into his small boot, is hilarious. Nick and I came up with these taglines for this moment:

“Savile Row suits: as individual as you are.”

“Brits are taking sustainability to whole new levels.”

I also have to note that before this moment I thought "eat roadkill" was only a punchline to "You might be a redneck if you..."

Endnote: Nick is a big proponent of finding pictures to go with our blog, but I thought this time I would spare you the search results of “photos: roadkill to dine for”!

Look, ma, a real job!

Big news at Casa Burdette: the consulting gig has turned out even better than I could have hoped and I’ve been offered a full-time position with IE Design Consultancy!

IE is an exciting, dynamic company of 16 that offers “brand strategy, design delivery and digital solutions,” or in laymen’s terms branding, graphic design work, website development. It’s a really creative environment, with a ping pong table right in the main work area! IE was started 12 years ago by Ollie, of our very good friends Claire and Ollie. The company has exploded in size in the last two years from four or five employees to 16.

We’re calling my role ‘Value Stream Manager’. The job will be split between project manager of larger projects and managing internal improvement efforts. There is a real need for my particular skill set. In the past, with a smaller company and smaller projects it didn’t matter that there was not a high level of project management or focus on standardizing processes. Now, though, they are winning larger projects and experiencing some growing pains. It feels like such a great match to me, and I am thrilled at the opportunity to make a real difference! They've already won a huge project, partly sold by emphasizing their professional approach and 'new full-time project manager.'

I start full-time April 16. In the meantime, I am wrapping up the consulting phase with them and with John, my other client. I’ll also be taking about a week and a half off to enjoy Mom’s visit, starting this Sunday! Life is really great at the moment, and light-years different from the long 'autumn of our discontent,' or something like that.

BJ and Katrina do England

As we continue to try to catch the blog up with our life (it’s currently about 2.5 weeks behind), here’s a post about our second visitors of the year: our pastor and his wife from Pittsburgh BJ and Katrina!

In an amazing display of smooth-talking skill, BJ managed to convince his Missiology professor at seminary that rather then taking a final in his class, he should be allowed 2 weeks to go to England and visit with churches there to see how they are doing church and mission in what is a much more secular culture than America. Freed from his need to take a final, BJ and Katrina high-tailed it over here and spent about 6 days with us in Birmingham meeting with people and doing some site-seeing, then went down to London for another week.

It was great to have them here and we had a blast showing them our friends and church here, English pub life, and some sweet castles and cathedrals, Olde Worlde style. We took a day and went out by train to Coventry, which is known for its cathedral that was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt in the 50’s. Kenilworth Castle is just a bus ride away, so we went there as well, on a very English (cold and rainy) morning. We have some pics of their visit here.

BJ posted a few other pics of their trip on his blog too.