Good News and Bad News

Over the past year and 3 months, I've developed a database,
from scratch, using Microsoft Access, and learned VOLUMES
in the process.

I attended the NTEN Leadership series which I HIGHLY recommend.

Off and on, I've shared what I thought would prove worthwhile,
technologically speaking (on the Wiki page), and hope it has.

Lately, I've been involved in form development, web page
updates, laptop setups, and attempting to establish a
system for offsite backups. I've seen a LOT of discussion
on that last one. We're currently looking at LogMeIn Backup.
We've got about 60 GB to backup. And I'm not yet convinced
that ANY of the methods out there beats about $ 180 for two
250 GB external drives and alternating them like tapes for
redundancy. Seems like a cost effective, no nonsense solution.
No compatibility problems, or concerns about the viability (or
limitations) of the vendor, or terms (and costs) subject to change
(with an online backup) just make backups of the backup and use
the existing process for restoration.

All this comes to a transitional point at the end of this month.
I will be transitioning from Vista Tech - Americorps to regular
staff, working part time with pension and benefits.

It was an extremely difficult choice between that or the job I hadn't
found yet. So I thought about it long and hard (about 5 seconds)
and said, "Ok".

I must say, I've been happy here. Working hard and am looking
forward to continued employment here.

I've enjoyed working under Americorps as well, bringing what
I have to bear on the problems of my nonprofit. I've learned
a lot, made some friends and would, in a heartbeat, enthusiastically
recommend the experience.

I took the educational benefit and as such can enhance the
skills I bring to bear with skills tailored to my nonprofit and
their mission, and my responsibilities. The trick is in getting
the biggest bang for the buck with the benefit. At least one
bang I can think of is to learn spanish. Whether I stay long
or short term at El Centro de la Raza, I foresee that as a
valuable and portable skill.

At any rate, soon to be, not an ex Americorps or former
Americorps anymore than I have ceased to be a Marine
having long ago left the Marine Corps. Once a Marine,
always a Marine. Once an Americorps volunteer, always
an Americorps volunteer, for all I've learned and all the
good I can do - feel free to ask away, if I can be of help,
I will do what I can.

Take care. Best of luck.

Mike Moore
El Centro de la Raza
Americorps - TANP - 1/22/07 - 3/28/08