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Catching Up

It's been forever since I've written anything here. When I first came back from Ecuador I lost interest because if felt that there wasn't anything interesting about life in the US that I really had to share with people. Later, as I began working for the IT department, I thought about writing things here, but it seemed like just one more thing to do. As we've come through the last couple months of relocation, much has been happening, and as far as our IT infrastructure group goes, we are a long way from being settled into the new office. That being said, I'm slowing getting into more of a routine, and can see that I may again have some time and motivation to put some entries in the blog. I'll try to focus them on MAF's new office, what I do in the IT department, and what is going on with MAF's work around the world.

Yesterday I flew down to San Diego with John Woodberry. John is with PACTEC, MAF's humanitarian subsiderary, and he's the Manager for Disaster Response, a new position that has just been created. We are here to attend Strong Angel III, and participate in the event with DRASTIC.
John and I are going to be looking for ways to partner with DRASTIC and hope to make other connections that will be helpful as he puts together a plan, team, and equipment for responding to future disasters. I'll explain more as the week unfolds, the first day of the event being Sunday. We've arrived a couple days early to spend time with Dave Pedersen and Rob Longhurst of DRASTIC. Dave is on lone from MAF, working with DRASTIC. He's been with MAF for many years and has an abundance of radio and VSAT experience. Rob is former MAF IT Director and has spent the past two years starting DRASTIC. I worked with Rob last year as we set up two VSAT communication centers in Sumatra after the devastating tsunami.

Posted by David at 11:24 PM