What a week

I'm now officially on 4 weeks' paternity leave. I'm sure looking forward to it. The run-up to it was brutal though - I was trying to squeeze in a large-ish work task before I left, and ran into a couple unexpected wrinkles. With some stellar help from others, I got them sorted out in record time though, especially for a defence firm. Hardware bugs just usually don't get sorted out in 4 hours there.

On top of all that, I had a job interview for another position within the company on Monday. On Thursday that became an offer. That is also record time for a defence firm, but I think the knowledge that I was away for 4 weeks probably accelerated things (plus the interviewers are ex-telecom...). Ostensibly it was an offer good for 3-business days, but as I was leaving it was effectively 24 hours. There weren't a lot of specifics cited which added to the stress. I talked to Rebecca, I talked to my brother, I talked to one of my interviewers again, and I decided to go for it. It's a leap - both a leap of faith given the unknowns, and a technological leap as it's an architecture position. I'll be over my head for awhile, but it seems like good people and a great opportunity to learn something new. I need a challenge. The timing's not great given the aggressive schedule of my current project but if one waits for the perfect opportunity at the perfect time it'll never happen.

Anyway, the upshot was two really long and stressful work days to finish the week. I saw Quinn briefly in the morning and I saw a very tired Quinn last thing before his bedtime. He mustered the faintest of grins through his overwhelming overtiredness. I missed him, and I think he missed me too. I missed two whole days of his life and he's only had about 120 of them so far. I don't want to do that again. It was a valuable lesson in the face of looming work pressures involved in my new position - that I need to enforce that my work is not going to take over my life. Historically I have immersed myself in my work when required but now I have to find the proper mix. It will be a challenge, both at work and at home, but there are ways to do it.

We're off to Nova Scotia tomorrow for two weeks. I am approaching the 12 hours of car travel with a 4-month old with a significant amount of trepidation. He's been an able adventurer so far but this is a lot to ask of a kid that young. We're aiming for 2 days' travel time, but if it takes three that's OK too. We figure we have about 9 usable hours in his day and if we can travel 6 of those 9 we can make it in two days. We'll see how it goes.

Life is just one great big challenging adventure isn't it? Let's see what tomorrow brings...