Merry Christmas 2006. I hope you, your family and friends are all well and in good spirits. For me, 2006 was a fascinating year. I started out with the usual - too much work and too little time for life. I am ending this year much more rested and ready for 2007. I moved up the corporate ranks and was a Director, again, for a while. Then I traded the 20-hour workdays for a part-time opportunity.     I have gone back to being a consultant and I am enjoying it very much. When I have work, I enjoy the opportunity. When I do not have contract work, I spend my time writing a book.     Back in 2002 I began the effort to circumnavigate the entirety of data processing. I had already been a programmer, operator, supervisor, manager, systems programmer, network analyst, database administrator, director, product manager, project manager, teacher, architect and consultant. While that seems like a lot there were still parts of data processing I had not experienced. Since 2002 I have finished the work experience and tests required to now be certified as a Project Management Professional, ITIL Service Manager, Certified Information Systems Auditor and a Master Black Belt in Six Sigma. I thought it would take another year to finish this journey. Then I changed jobs and landed someplace I found very painful. So I worked harder, finished the journey and quit that job.     In my book I am trying to explain how the pieces fit together to change a data processing organization. I doubt that my book will be a best seller, but it is really interesting to try to put all the pieces together in writing. I am doing a lot of research to fill in gaps in my knowledge and I am absorbing feedback from several friends. In some ways this is taking me back full circle to my masters thesis on change dynamics in a church. This book pulls from a lot of that same research. And when I can explain how change works in data processing, then I should be able to apply that same model just about anywhere. I hope to continue to work part time and do volunteer work to put this model to use elsewhere. Every organization needs help with change. And each different organization that I see helps me learn.     The biggest problem with my new approach to life is the lack of a consistent pay check. It was a gamble when I quit that full time job but I am completely at peace with the decision. I know the peace I feel comes from God. And while I occasionally worry, I know this will work out. So I work hard at the research required to write, I work hard at the writing and I work hard when I have a contract to complete. Otherwise I trust in God and plan to catch up on my bills next year. This is the right direction, it just seems a bit rough sometimes.     It is fascinating looking at life from such a different perspective. I am a pilgrim on a journey. I do not know what tomorrow will bring. And yet, as I look back over the stability of my full time jobs I realize how temporary everything is. My challenge in 2007 is to blend enough dependency on corporate America to pay my bills while realizing this is all very transient. Life is about choices. Corporations treat us like we are expendable. God treats us like we are priceless. So who would you rather work for? For me, the answer is to live with a state of mind like I trust in God and then accept each contracting assignment as just another stop on my journey. Not that I have it all figured out. Each day I fret. But if I can set those worries aside and focus on the task at hand, then 2007 should be a great year.     I hope it is a great year for you as well.   Robert Perrine   Christmas 2007