Jesika tells me that everyone is interested in how my work is going, and that I should make a submission on the blog… so if you find this interesting read on. ;) The commute to work is a little longer than I would have liked, but it's not bad. It takes 30~40 minutes to get to work. I have to walk 3 blocks and get on the metro for 15 minutes, and then change trains and go another 15 minutes. Definitely good people watching, but I brought my travel bible and started reading it while on the train which helps a lot with passing the time.

The people in the office are extremely nice and I really like the team established. They’re all very eager for the project to be a success and are working hard. A large part of my job is training them on our procedures which they’re very receptive to. It has not been nearly as political as I thought it would be. I guess working face to face resolves a lot of issues that might otherwise arise.

For fun we’ve scheduled an American versus France basketball game next week. I hope I can represent well but it doesn’t look good for the US team.

The workdays are extremely busy. The project I’m managing in Paris is comprised of 8 developers, 3 analysts, and requires a lot of coordination with our Dallas office and our user communities in Germany and Italy. I can’t believe in July I have to go to Munich to manage a second project, because the one in Paris is easily a full-time job as is. Basically my day is like this: arrive in the office at 8:30, meetings from 9:30 to 12:30, lunch, meetings from 1:30 to 5:00, 5 to 6:30 try to get some work done and answer emails from Dallas. Try and leave by 6:30 so I can be home at 7ish. Because Dallas is 7 hours behind, my afternoons get really hectic with emails. They start rolling in at 4pm (9 am Dallas time) and are still coming to my blackberry when I go to bed that night.

Overall the project is on time and budget and my direct report here seems pleased. I think the difficult part is still coming which is when we go to Munich, and the second project gets going. I will need lots of prayers; I definitely know I’m dependent on Gods help for these projects to be a success. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers. I miss you guys! ~Ronnie

BTW - I just put up a new blog, but it was for week 3, so go to the archive to read 6/21/07!