The Kieffers - Career

The first week of

chad — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 23:51:23 +0000

Family:

Ryan finished up his first week in the fourth grade and I completed my first week at the new job. I'm happy to report that Ryan and I have only good things to report so far.

Ryan spent his first week back catching up with friends he hadn't seen all summer. His teacher didn't waste any time handing out homework and much of the week was spent reviewing math operations. Ryan has enjoyed the silent reading sessions in class more than anything else.

I started my week filling out paperwork for my new job which I started on Wednesday. Most of my first day was spent in a marathon project meeting which was actually a comfortable way to learn about the people I'll be working with and the projects they're working on. Folks in the office gave me a warm welcome and I really feel good about my decision to leave the Lab.

I absolutely love my commute which is no more than 30 minutes round trip, down from the one hour and 35 minutes I've driven to Los Alamos for the past ten years. I'm able to drop Ryan off at school and be in the office by 8:00.

Owen starts back to school on Tuesday and I'll have a report on his first week back soon.

Chad gets a new job

chad — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 04:38:58 +0000

Family:

For those of you who know me, you're probably thinking that this is one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse. I've been at the Laboratory since July 1994, I started work a month after I graduated from college, and now I'm leaving the Lab for a job in Santa Fe.

I've been really fortunate to work with so many talented people who've been willing to share their experience and expertise with me. My first mentor, Pete, taught me a lot about having fun, never taking anything too seriously, and patience. Leslie, Chris, Doug, Bob, and many others helped me get started with the Unix world, web programming, and databases by fielding my countless questions and sharing examples of their work with me.

I've been a supervisor and web development instructor for the past few years and have really missed not being able to do web development on a daily basis. I told my current boss about this and am incredibly thankful for her supportiveness during what has been a difficult time for her and many others at the Laboratory.

So here I am, heading into the last week at the only job I've known in my adult life. I'm a little nervous, very excited, and a little sadâ€”all at once. Here are the things I do know

I'll miss working with my friends at the Lab
I won't miss the commute (was 50 minutes but will now be 10-15 minutes)
I'm looking forward to working for a company that I've heard so many good things about
I'll relish the extra sleep in the morning!

Separation of family and work

chad — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 21:44:53 +0000

Family:

Favorites:

I've been blogging occasionally for a few years now. During this time I've mixed my thoughts about work with posts about my family, but no longer. My new blog will

separate work/technology related posts from family-related posts. If you're interested in the techy stuff, visit the 2 tablespoons web site.
provide existing and potential employers, customers, collaborators, and peers with information about about my professional thoughts, abilities, and interests.
compliment my knowledge of open source web applications by using WordPress.
present samples of my work and work processes.I plan on rambling on a variety of topics including visual design, web development, open source software, collaboration, and, of course, Apple Computer.

I have moved most of the tech-related posts from this site to http://2tbsp.com. Here's a change.

Water cooler fodder for the week

chad — Sun, 01 May 2005 08:01:21 +0000

Family:

I imagine that this morning's NY Time's article "At Los Alamos, Blogging Their Discontent" will be one of the main topics of discussion around work this week. Doug Robert's blog has been a regular topic of conversation at the Lab for months now and after seeing the other recent NY Times article "When the Blogger Blogs, Can the Employer Intervene? " a few weeks ago, I wondered when Doug's blog would be covered exclusively.

Officially, I guess I have to say "no comment" right now.

Here are additional articles relating to Doug Roberts and "LANL: The Real Story".

Los Alamos lab's staff vent on blog

Coping with change in Los Alamos (Los Alamos Monitor)
Anonymity versus courage, honor and trust (Los Alamos Monitor)
Coalition for LANL Excellence (Yahoo Group)

Amy and Chad start new jobs!

chad — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 02:42:59 +0000

Family:

Amy just started a new job as the executive assistant to the president and former CEO of Translux. The job has a great part-time schedule and is located two blocks off the Santa Fe Plaza. The best part is that we get free passes to go see movies at the local Translux movie theatre!

Chad just accepted a team leader position within his division. He'll lead the Advanced Technical Computer Training team which teaches a curriculum for web designers and programmers. The team also brings in outside vendors to teach courses to support the Lab's scientific computing efforts. His first day on the job will be July 12th.

We're both really excited about our new jobs!

InterLab 2003 fun

chad — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 00:34:02 +0000

Family:

Favorites:

I just returned from the InterLab 2003 Conference held at the Stanford Linear Accelerator in California. A gaggle of my coworkers also attended and we had a great time. It was a great bonding experience without the distraction of work.

It was great drinking beers and catching up with my friend, former office mate, and now Californian, Chris. Chris, Warren, and I enjoyed some great micro-brew and good conversation at Half Moon Bay Brewery.

I actually gave my first presenentation of the Lab and I was told that it was relatively well received. It's amazing how stressed I get over public speaking. I just don't do this often enough to get over the fear. Oh well. Thanks to Bob J. and Ann R. for helping me shape my presentation into something more than a bunch of bullets.

The best part of the trip was travelling with Bob T. Bob is one of the coolest, laid back guys I know and I thoroughly enjoyed my conversations with him. Althought it was a fun trip, I'm glad to be back home with Amy and the boys.

Portland Open Source Software Conference

chad — Sat, 12 Jul 2003 15:20:06 +0000

Family:

Favorites:

The first thing I need to say is that it's so nice to see so much green. Portland's downtown is beautiful with big maple and oak trees lining the downtown streets. The riverfront park that separates downtown from the Willamette River stretches quite a ways and provides the path from the hotel I'm staying at to the conference location. It's hard to believe that Portland and Oregon have the highest unemployment rates for US cities and states. It's such a great town, who wouldn't want to locate a business here?

The conference has been been a good experience. I'm a geek, or at least an aspiring geek, and had worries that the conference would be over my head. I had pictures of alpha geeks hacking my laptop over the wireless connection. I was afraid to ask any questions for fear of the kind of derision SNL's Jimmy Fallon's character, Nick Burns your company's computer guy, dishes out. Luckily, my experience has been far from my original expectations. I've had a great time, and have been able to talk to a few of the authors and developers that have written articles that helped me to learn the PHP programming language and the MySQL database server.

Here are pictures and coverage from the O'Reilly site.