Burning down the house!

Posted In: Academic, Work life, Everyday life — May 15, 2007 @ 9:15 pm — Peter

Things got pretty exiting around the Motyka household last night as we (I) had an incident with a pan of flaming oil in the kitchen. Long story short, everything is fine, nothing caught fire (other than cooking oil), but we had a visit from the Denver fire department just to spot check and give piece of mind that the fumes in the house were not dangerous. Despite a request for a discrete arrival to the fire department dispatcher, trucks showed up with flashing lights and squealing sirens. I learned some valuable lessons, hopefully if something like this should happen again, I’ll be better prepared.

In other news, tomorrow (5/16) is my last day as a full time employee at Fiserv ISS. There are some people I will really miss, thankfully I’ll still be working downtown and will make an effort to do lunch with friends on occasion. There is a not-a-going-away-party happy hour tomorrow from 4pm-6pm at Wynkoop Brewery, do come if you’d like to share a few beers with me.

On 5/21 I start work with Ping Identity Corporation. This is an exiting opportunity for me as it will be my first time working in a pure software/technology environment. Being a smaller, agile company, I’ll certainly be spending more time focused on challenging technology assignments instead of wading through process and bureaucracy. More to come as I get acquainted with Ping.

I wrapped up another two classes at Regis on 4/29 which puts me at the 3/4 mark, 27 of 36 credits. One of the classes was graded with a pass/fail mark and I passed! The other class, I earned an A-. The A- was disappointing, but thankfully it didn’t jeopardize my chances of graduating with honors. I’m really exited to have started my thesis project. When I have some time, I’ll post a detailed entry about the topic. In the mean time, a brief summary: A methodology for assessing open source software solutions for use in non-profit environments. A major component of the project will be a case study performed at Maxfund Animal Shelter. The case study is getting off to a slow start as I’ve spent most of my time fulfilling other requirements of the thesis process. Instead of taking more classes over the summer, I’m going to focus on the case study to avoid managing this while preparing other aspects of the project. Here is a snapshot of my progress in the MSCIT program so far: