Today we decided to go visit the National Aquarium in Baltimore, so we drove from DC to check it out. I was extremely embarrassed when I realized both the Ravens' and the Redskins' playoff games were home games today, and the route I picked went right past both stadiums. We were lucky that we didn't get stuck in traffic, but I can't believe I lost track of the playoff games - bad Mark, very bad.
The aquarium was cool. My wife and I were trying to pick our favorite parts. She liked the dolphins the best: not exactly a shocker. In fact, she said she'd like to be a dolphin trainer some day, BUT she doesn't have a degree in a biology-related field, and apparently employers can be sortof picky about that background check stuff. I think my favorite part was when we were watching an animal handler describe a blue-tongued skink (lizard) and the handler asked the children an arm's length away what the skink eats. I mumbled, "Children?" but I'm pretty sure none of the kids heard me. The odd and impressive variety of poisonous frogs they had were cool too.
Work's good.
(This post written while listening to R.E.M. South Central Rain.)
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Friday, December 21, 2012
New construction project
My project workload has continued to increase and has been very interesting. I worked on my first cable (formal memo), which also happened to be on a rather sensitive subject, so that was a bit of trial by fire. Very interesting though. Today I went to the top floor to get one of the final signoffs - it was my first trip up there! While I'm thinking about the top floor...
Recently the Project Director (site manager) for a project I'm supporting was granted tenure. This is a significant (and mandatory) step in the Foreign Service, so I congratulated him. I asked him to let me know what the executive bathroom on our building's top floor was like. He didn't seem to think my joke was funny. Who knows - maybe I wasn't joking because there actually IS a special bathroom up there. I didn't see one today but I didn't stay long. I think I'll keep asking people about it until someone confesses that there actually IS an Italian tailor who can let out your pants (that are clearly shrinking) while you wait. I fear Mario's job may be in jeopardy due to budget cuts though.
We had our holiday party yesterday. Our floor seemed to schedule it later than any other floor or department, I guess it's just how it worked out. We all ponied up and a volunteer group bought stuff and brought it in. There was some solid hanging out for an hour or so, good times. For reasons I can't explain, the rumors of an incoming karaoke machine failed to materialize. Too bad. I sortof suspect it had something to do with someone walking around the party with a video camera.
If you're interested in becoming a Foreign Service Specialist, there's a new Oral Assessment Study Guide available here. Of course, they don't list a sample hypothetical exercise for construction engineers. I'm sure it's because ours is the most challenging specialty and they couldn't think of a single construction engineering question that could possibly be answered in two pages. Or it was totally random. Anyway, it's still helpful.
By the way, those of you who slam the DC area should note that I got a happy holidays card from my bus driver. That's right: my bus driver. There are lots of good people here.
I volunteered for the technical evaluation panel for this new government construction project petition but I haven't heard back yet. I'm concerned they might think I have a conflict of interest. Popular Science even had a short article about it. Talk about a sweet post! It might be considered a stretch post for me but I'd finally get to use my astronaut pen as it was intended. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
(This post written while listening to Van Halen Top Jimmy.)
Recently the Project Director (site manager) for a project I'm supporting was granted tenure. This is a significant (and mandatory) step in the Foreign Service, so I congratulated him. I asked him to let me know what the executive bathroom on our building's top floor was like. He didn't seem to think my joke was funny. Who knows - maybe I wasn't joking because there actually IS a special bathroom up there. I didn't see one today but I didn't stay long. I think I'll keep asking people about it until someone confesses that there actually IS an Italian tailor who can let out your pants (that are clearly shrinking) while you wait. I fear Mario's job may be in jeopardy due to budget cuts though.
We had our holiday party yesterday. Our floor seemed to schedule it later than any other floor or department, I guess it's just how it worked out. We all ponied up and a volunteer group bought stuff and brought it in. There was some solid hanging out for an hour or so, good times. For reasons I can't explain, the rumors of an incoming karaoke machine failed to materialize. Too bad. I sortof suspect it had something to do with someone walking around the party with a video camera.
If you're interested in becoming a Foreign Service Specialist, there's a new Oral Assessment Study Guide available here. Of course, they don't list a sample hypothetical exercise for construction engineers. I'm sure it's because ours is the most challenging specialty and they couldn't think of a single construction engineering question that could possibly be answered in two pages. Or it was totally random. Anyway, it's still helpful.
By the way, those of you who slam the DC area should note that I got a happy holidays card from my bus driver. That's right: my bus driver. There are lots of good people here.
I volunteered for the technical evaluation panel for this new government construction project petition but I haven't heard back yet. I'm concerned they might think I have a conflict of interest. Popular Science even had a short article about it. Talk about a sweet post! It might be considered a stretch post for me but I'd finally get to use my astronaut pen as it was intended. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
(This post written while listening to Van Halen Top Jimmy.)
Friday, December 7, 2012
Get a job.
The Construction Engineer position is open again until January 2, 2013: get on it! There's definitely more than enough work to keep everyone busy. Most of us new hires feel like we're getting close to a full workload already, although we also feel like it's taking us twice as long to do things as it should. We'll fix that with experience, though, right? RIGHT? Yeah.
The nomadic nature of the job seems to apply even to people working in DC. People who are visiting from a post often migrate between offices to use the computers of people who are out on training, on temporary duty, or just in the bathroom. There are occasional reorganizations of the DC-posted as well that have resulted in permanent people moving around a bit too. Some rumors suggest our floor will soon be "right-sized" to make the cubicles the correct (read: smaller) sizes. I didn't take this job for the cubicle, so it's not a big deal to me. Although I have to admit that the potential for getting booted has made me plan ahead, including affecting even how I organize files on "my" computer. These are things I never thought of - and not exactly of major consequence - it's just all part of the adventure.
On a completely unrelated but potentially helpful note, if you're really having trouble finding that special gift for that special aluminum-foil-hat-wearing someone, you might find one of these 6 gifts useful.
(This post written while listening to The BoDeans Good Work.)
The nomadic nature of the job seems to apply even to people working in DC. People who are visiting from a post often migrate between offices to use the computers of people who are out on training, on temporary duty, or just in the bathroom. There are occasional reorganizations of the DC-posted as well that have resulted in permanent people moving around a bit too. Some rumors suggest our floor will soon be "right-sized" to make the cubicles the correct (read: smaller) sizes. I didn't take this job for the cubicle, so it's not a big deal to me. Although I have to admit that the potential for getting booted has made me plan ahead, including affecting even how I organize files on "my" computer. These are things I never thought of - and not exactly of major consequence - it's just all part of the adventure.
On a completely unrelated but potentially helpful note, if you're really having trouble finding that special gift for that special aluminum-foil-hat-wearing someone, you might find one of these 6 gifts useful.
 |
| Hemlow Island - Nova Scotia, Canada - $30k CAD and it's yours! (Well, maybe just one of its eight lots) |
Sunday, November 25, 2012
And then there were 6
One of our group of seven new construction engineers had been seriously considering leaving for quite a while, and two weeks ago he made the final decision to that it wasn't for him and left. His primary reason was because he found he didn't like working for a large bureaucracy, but I think the real reason was because there's no free coffee on our floor. We may never know for sure. (Just kidding - I know it's the coffee.) We talked a lot about it with him. He's going to have to repay a very substantial amount to the government, but it's probably better to make the decision sooner than later since he knew it wasn't a good fit. It's unusual for someone to leave so early so it raised many eyebrows, but the "No coffee? NO WORK!" protest just isn't going to work, grammatically or otherwise. He admitted it was an expensive way to make friends in far away places that he'll be able to visit. He used to refer to our group as The Magnificent Seven, and now we're just the So-So Six. We certainly all wish him the best - he's a great guy with a bright future, and hopefully our paths will cross again.
I had my first project-related secret meeting recently, which was very interesting. We have a project in [redacted], and we're [redacted] granny smith [redacted] mango [redacted]. Then he said "Hurry up" so we left. We'll see how it works out.
Speaking of secret stuff, I need to tell you all about our super awesome shredder for secret stuff. It produces what I would almost call a paper mist, it's unreal - far different from the 70s shredders shown in Argo. The first thing I thought when I saw it was "They'll never get that out of the carpet." To ordinary mortals, this might not seem interesting. But to the particularly mischievous, that fine paper purée has some amazingly messy potential. In my first year I'm probably unlikely to take too many risks, but I definitely need to keep that product in mind. Maybe I could put presents I give in a box of it to "protect" the present? Something to keep in mind for this holiday season...
(This post written while listening to Bruce Springsteen Working On The Highway.)
I had my first project-related secret meeting recently, which was very interesting. We have a project in [redacted], and we're [redacted] granny smith [redacted] mango [redacted]. Then he said "Hurry up" so we left. We'll see how it works out.
Speaking of secret stuff, I need to tell you all about our super awesome shredder for secret stuff. It produces what I would almost call a paper mist, it's unreal - far different from the 70s shredders shown in Argo. The first thing I thought when I saw it was "They'll never get that out of the carpet." To ordinary mortals, this might not seem interesting. But to the particularly mischievous, that fine paper purée has some amazingly messy potential. In my first year I'm probably unlikely to take too many risks, but I definitely need to keep that product in mind. Maybe I could put presents I give in a box of it to "protect" the present? Something to keep in mind for this holiday season...
(This post written while listening to Bruce Springsteen Working On The Highway.)
Monday, November 12, 2012
Yvan Eht Nioj
Sandy turned out to be a non-issue for most of Northern Virginia, so we were fortunate. I'm still trying to use the rest of the water I'd hoarded in camping containers, but it's almost gone now. I don't think I'd prepared adequately for losing power to the refrigerator, though - something to think about next time.
Work quickly returned to normal, and I'm continuing my transition from mostly training to mostly work. I did end up training for 3 days last week on Earned Value Management, which is similar in principle to what is already common in the construction industry.
I'm getting involved in projects at a variety of phases: design, pre-bidding, construction, warranty, and even post-warranty. It's very helpful to see how they/we handle the different phases, particularly for observing issues that are coming up and how I might avoid them in the future.
I'm also slowly becoming more familiar with the issues surrounding construction in Africa, including contractor-subcontractor arrangements, security, and travel issues. On travel, I'd never heard of Asky Airlines before, but our contractors fly them sometimes so I thought I'd look up a bit of info on them as a random air carrier example. Asky apparently has 4-6 planes (depending on whose data you trust) and flies to many of the West and Central African locations where we have projects. Africa is just such a different market to me that I'm not sure how it will differ exactly from US carriers, if much at all. It sounds like I'll generally fly US carriers due to the Fly America Act, but I might fly others depending on route specifics.
After seeing Argo and its obvious Foreign Service recruitment message, I was pleased with the State Department's less in-your-face recruitment effort in Skyfall last night. I believe the term is nanosubliminal. Good stuff.
(This post written while listening to Adele Skyfall.)
Work quickly returned to normal, and I'm continuing my transition from mostly training to mostly work. I did end up training for 3 days last week on Earned Value Management, which is similar in principle to what is already common in the construction industry.
I'm getting involved in projects at a variety of phases: design, pre-bidding, construction, warranty, and even post-warranty. It's very helpful to see how they/we handle the different phases, particularly for observing issues that are coming up and how I might avoid them in the future.
I'm also slowly becoming more familiar with the issues surrounding construction in Africa, including contractor-subcontractor arrangements, security, and travel issues. On travel, I'd never heard of Asky Airlines before, but our contractors fly them sometimes so I thought I'd look up a bit of info on them as a random air carrier example. Asky apparently has 4-6 planes (depending on whose data you trust) and flies to many of the West and Central African locations where we have projects. Africa is just such a different market to me that I'm not sure how it will differ exactly from US carriers, if much at all. It sounds like I'll generally fly US carriers due to the Fly America Act, but I might fly others depending on route specifics.
After seeing Argo and its obvious Foreign Service recruitment message, I was pleased with the State Department's less in-your-face recruitment effort in Skyfall last night. I believe the term is nanosubliminal. Good stuff.
(This post written while listening to Adele Skyfall.)
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Meet Sandy.
Ignorance is bliss, but even with the distrust of meteorologists I developed living in Colorado, I can't deny the emergency preparation press in the news ahead of Sandy's arrival tomorrow. I doubt the fact that I started watching The Walking Dead yesterday has anything to do with this, but I can't help but draw an analogy to last year's CDC Zombie Preparedness campaign. Store water, top off your car's gas tank, hoard non-perishable food, close/board up your windows, prepare for candle-lit séances, get out your flashlights, make sure you have batteries for your portable blender, etc. The part I'm mostly concerned about is the power outage potential. It's ridiculous enough to not have internet access these days, but to not have power is just uncivilized. I recognize that I'm very spoiled from Colorado: most of us would just hole up in our homes with our buried utilities and we'd be just fine - in fact, it was fun as long as there weren't any leaks, breaks, or freak-outs.
We moved into our permanent housing last weekend, and we received our long term storage (household effects, or HHE) on Monday. The resulting HHE explosion was pretty hilarious until the sobering reality of the unpacking and ongoing downsizing efforts hit. We've made solid headway this week, but the still somewhat-disheveled look of the place has a somewhat apocalyptic appearance (again, not Walking Dead-influenced I'm sure). I won't be able to use my latest excuse for much longer: "We shouldn't bother unpacking everything if Sandy's just going to make a mess of it again." Actually that hasn't worked at all.
Our move-in had a classic example of "best-laid plans" when our internet installer wasn't able to complete the work we'd scheduled because our facility _didn't have keys_ to one of their own utility rooms. It was a simple example of needing to be flexible, and unfortunately it was a recurring example since the connection went out later in the week and they again didn't have the keys. It was odd, to put it mildly, but it was also an exclamation point on our new renting lifestyle.
Early in the week when we were without home internet, we climbed 3 to 4 couches (depending on your route selection and ankle strength) to decompress a bit and sit in front of our tv. And I do mean RIGHT in front - the couch was touching the table with the tv. I connected my iPhone to the tv so we could watch Netflix, and let me tell you, if your home internet access is out but you can get Netflix to stream to your tv through your phone, I assure you, it feels _exactly*_ like you've cheated death: totally awesome. (* - I'm assuming this is true; I'll confirm after Skyfall comes out on November 9th)
Speaking of all this and looking at the cloudy skies, I guess I'll post this now.
Work's good.
(This post written while listening to The Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter.)
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Africa!
My first two weeks in the office have been good; the most exciting was learning my branch assignment! Africa = very cool (of course I would've said that about any of the branches). Here's a map of the sub-Saharan countries covered by the Bureau of African affairs branch courtesy of this State Department website.
Specific project assignments are still getting figured out. In the meantime, there's a LOT of info to learn to get up to speed. Fortunately everyone I've met has been very patient and helpful. The patient part is especially good since I've been making plenty of rookie mistakes like:
- confusing Maputo and Malabo
- properly hiding my ID badge in public but forgetting that the visible badge lanyard has "Overseas Buildings Operations" boldly printed on it
- mixing up the concepts of T-SAC with tea bag
Last weekend was great as we got out of town to stay with some friends in PA. This weekend included a trip to the zoo as well as seeing Argo with a group of us FS-types. Argo was good even with its artistic license (i.e., some historic inaccuracies).
We're getting used to living in DC - well, technically northern Virginia. That said, we're about to move from our temporary housing to our permanent housing next weekend, so moving will shake things up again. Hopefully our new place will have heat, which unfortunately one of my fellow 127th Specialists did NOT have when he moved this weekend. Sometimes the little things make all the difference.
We'll be receiving our "household effects" from long-term storage a week from tomorrow, so we'll see how well we downsized before we left. We're expecting to continue the downsizing effort for a while longer, which will mean our new place will be packed with stuff until we do more weeding. It's all part of the change.
We're also getting used to commuting via the subway system and walking more than we did in Denver. Of course, it's easy to walk around now before winter hits for real. Until then, we'll enjoy the fall colors (the photos below are from PA):
(This post written while listening to Depeche Mode Never Let Me Down Again.)
Specific project assignments are still getting figured out. In the meantime, there's a LOT of info to learn to get up to speed. Fortunately everyone I've met has been very patient and helpful. The patient part is especially good since I've been making plenty of rookie mistakes like:
- confusing Maputo and Malabo
- properly hiding my ID badge in public but forgetting that the visible badge lanyard has "Overseas Buildings Operations" boldly printed on it
- mixing up the concepts of T-SAC with tea bag
Last weekend was great as we got out of town to stay with some friends in PA. This weekend included a trip to the zoo as well as seeing Argo with a group of us FS-types. Argo was good even with its artistic license (i.e., some historic inaccuracies).
We're getting used to living in DC - well, technically northern Virginia. That said, we're about to move from our temporary housing to our permanent housing next weekend, so moving will shake things up again. Hopefully our new place will have heat, which unfortunately one of my fellow 127th Specialists did NOT have when he moved this weekend. Sometimes the little things make all the difference.
We'll be receiving our "household effects" from long-term storage a week from tomorrow, so we'll see how well we downsized before we left. We're expecting to continue the downsizing effort for a while longer, which will mean our new place will be packed with stuff until we do more weeding. It's all part of the change.
We're also getting used to commuting via the subway system and walking more than we did in Denver. Of course, it's easy to walk around now before winter hits for real. Until then, we'll enjoy the fall colors (the photos below are from PA):
(This post written while listening to Depeche Mode Never Let Me Down Again.)
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