I struggled a bit with what to call this entry and decided to go with transitions. I didn;t want to call it absent friends or something equally maudlin because it is about an absence in our lives but not for bad or dire reasons. Today we held a retirement party for the previous director of the webteam, John Webster. Retirement is an absence and a transition. As John exits from his position at UNB, he transitions to a new and welcome phase of his life (I've heard mutterings of "lucky guy" more than once). But it's a difficult event for the rest of the team because the "webteam" is pretty much no more. Now we transition from our past to our new life being integrated within the I.T. department. As we make this transition, the I.T group also transitions as the organizational structure is reshuffled and reformulated to produce what will be a more rationalized, dynamic department at the end of the day. Life is change, change is hard but change can also be good. We certainly will miss John terribly because he was, quite simply, a great boss - in fact one of those bosses who are superlative. He was more than fair in his role as director of the webteam; he inspired us to strive for excellence. We will miss our group conversations about what's going on in the tech world, the latest movies and about life in general. We will miss working with him but we wish him the best of enjoyment and happy times in his retirement.

And now, it's time to look ahead to new beginnings.