Dance class was relatively easy tonight. We finished up the swing dance sessions and are onto the waltz. I doubt that I'll ever be very good at swing, but the waltz is relatively easy. You just need to remember to alternate the lead foot. It's similar to the foxtrot too, which helps. I think it's ease is one of the main reasons it's usually performed as the first dance at weddings.

It was a very busy - yet productive - weekend. We booked a reception place, a church, got a block of hotel rooms, and took care of the caterer. We thought we had a minister, but they're going to be on vacation, so we need another of those. I have an appointment to get tuxes this weekend too. We're on target so far, and even further along than our calendar says we need to be. We need to get a photographer, order the save the dates, finish the registry, and finish the guest list this week. All very doable.

It's a go for 07-07-07.

Lindsay and I are headed off to Maryland tonight. We'll be visiting the Stronghold Mansion at Sugarloaf Mountain. It looks like that's going to be where our reception is held. We're also going to try to finalize the church and get a pastor for the ceremony too.

Looks like I'm going to get the Change Control Analyst job. That's what I expected anyway, but I wanted to let them know that I'm interested in the IT Manager job anyway.

This new position will put me in charge of software development for the company. I'll be prioritizing work and directing the programmers. I'll also be responsible for the quality of all the code coming out of the department.

I should start in that position by the middle of March.

I had another hour long interview today. It basically sealed up the CCA position for me. They've outlined their hopes and expectations for the position, and basically given me free roam to do what it is that I wanted to do, so that's good.

The offer still hasn't officially been made though, so I'll be interested to see what kind of raise it includes. I've been told to expect from 6-8%, which, while not great, isn't too bad. I should hopefully find out fairly soon.

I had a two hour interview today for the positions I applied for (Change Control Analyst and IT Manager.)

I knew going in that I'd most likely get the CCA job, and that's what they're going to recommend. It wouldn't surprise me if they made me that offer very quickly, though I do have another interview tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.

So here's how it went down...

I took Lindsay to a bed and breakfast this weekend. We were the only people there (other than the owners of course.) We had a loft area, game room, bedroom, and bathroom complete with two person jacuzzi all to ourselves. Downstairs there was an attached 7500 SQ feet greenhouse with in ground heated swimming pool, hot tub, and bathroom with a shower.

We had dinner in the loft Friday night and then lounged around in the hot tub basically all day Saturday. Saturday night I took her to a restaurant named The Oaks. It was very nice, but I wasn't about to propose then, because I thought she expected it.

So Sunday rolls around and we get all packed and ready to go, and I sit her down in front of my laptop and tell her to go to www.lindsay-and-tim.com. There she sees a quiz on how I went about getting her parents blessing. When she found out that I had flown out to Maryland and back on the same day when I had told her that I was at work, she started crying. She then clicked on the "Our Engagement" link. That page was the story of the weekend to that point, and what was to come. It started (and it's still up there by the way) on Friday night, went through Saturday, and ended up in "real time" as she was reading it. The final line of our story read "
The only thing left for her to do was to turn around..." When she turned around I was actually on two knees because I was so shaky. I corrected that, but I was already crying like a baby, and so was she. I actually had to go into the bathroom to blow my nose twice and get myself composed, because no matter how much I had prepared for that moment, I could not get words to come out of my mouth. At all. Once I was composed again, I asked her to marry me and she said yes!

This just in: The biggest news of my life to date.

Lindsay agreed to marry me today!

More details to follow.

I just turned in my salary advancement forms for the two jobs, so it's out of my hands now.

Also, my car turns 3 tomorrow. I just went over 36,000 miles this week, so I'm doing a pretty good job of managing the mileage. Not that it matters, because I bought it and didn't lease it, but still...

Lastly, Lindsay and I are going away this weekend to an unknown location. Well, unknown to her anyway. I hope that I know where we're going. All I can tell you is that there will be jacuzzi's there.

I've been working on getting my resumé up to date today. I'm bidding on two different jobs within my company.

The first is a Change Control Analyst. That's basically someone who reviews all of the code written by the programmers and tests it to make sure no bugs are introduced into production. That will be a management position. In that position I would be in charge of all of the programmers.

The second is the IT Manager. That's the position I wanted eventually, I just didn't expect it to become available so soon. In that position I'd be responsible for the whole department. Both the networking and programming side of things.

I should finish my resumé tonight and submit it tomorrow morning. I'll be sure to post more as I hear it.