Thursday, March 26, 2009

Workspace!

I haven't had a desk since I lived on Lawrence street in Ann Arbor -- that was about three years ago. My last apartment in Ann Arbor didn't come furnished with an area devoted to work, so I used the kitchen table. This was a perfect solution, since it meant I was near food, and had two lovely windows to look out of. All I could see was a parking lot and some tree trunks, but it was better than nothing.

Since moving to Virginia I've been a nomad. Sometimes, I work from an easy chair, sometimes from our small dining table, and sometimes from the toilet. Each of these locations has it's pros and cons, but the real problem was that I had no space devoted to work. I often had to pack up all my materials on whatever I was doing, and clear out long before I was finished.

That's all changed now.

The local consignment store had this very nice antique solid wood desk at a very affordable price.

From Virginia Apartment: Awesome


From Virginia Apartment: Awesome


From Virginia Apartment: Awesome


From Virginia Apartment: Awesome


I was told by the woman who sold it to me that the former owners had the table in their family for years, and that it was once used as an altar in an outdoor wedding.

I am eminently pleased with my new acquisition, and I have now removed one more excuse to not get any work done.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Last 25 Things Meme

I am the last person on the face of the earth to do this, but who cares. Primary posting will be on FaceBook, but reprinted here for your general amusement.

1. I did not own any real nice clothes until I got this job with SAIC. The weekend before my first day I got tricked out, and probably taken for a ride, by the people at The Men’s Warehouse.

2. I still get kind of freaked out by the idea of ghosts and creepy monsters like the Mothman. I was a total sucker for the paranormal stuff when I was a kid, but now I have a childhood’s worth of creepy memories that make me jumpy at night.

3. I went for nearly a year without tying my shoes. I have gone for more than year without washing my sheets. I have never washed my car since I purchased it in 2002.

4. I think the serial comma is completely essential, and that the semi-colon has a bad rap.

5. I often worry that I don’t have enough personality problems to be a great artist, and will therefore be a mediocre writer for my entire life.

6. I did not listen or watch any news for most of the Bush administration. On the few occasions when I did, I would get incredibly angry and frustrated. As a result, I did not own a TV for two years of college.

7. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to everyone who has or will serve on the Gargoyle. This debt will be repayed in the form of one (1) beer that I will buy anyone current or former member of Garg staff.

8. I am writing this on a pirated copy of Microsoft Office that I lifted from the Gargoyle five years ago. Someday, someone will notice that when I work from home, what I turn in has track-changes that are attributed to "Gargoyle Humor Magazine."

9. Here is a brief list of words I cannot spell: thurough, resuarant, garuntee, admitadly

10. I am very self-conscious about my writing, and over work projects to the point where I forget about them. For instance, I drafted this at least two times before starting over with this list.

11. My metric for success is NPR: if I get interviewed for All Things Considered, I am doing pretty well; but if I get interviewed on Fresh Air, I know I will have made it.

12. I don't believe anything is above ridicule.

13. I really have no interest in meeting famous people. I don't really have anything of substance to say to them, and I am sure they'd just be annoyed.

14. I feel so lucky to have my family. I know people who's families are hornets nests of infighting, or are just too much for them to bear. I love my family, and I a grateful for them (and especially for all the Lyons', who have been wonderful to me).

15. I own and listen to seasonal music.

16. I am continually frustrated by how humanity’s imagination greatly outpaces our abilities. We can dream starships, and theorize about how to build and propel them, but we can’t find the cash or the will.

17. I lack the drive required to be a visual artist, or musician, though I so desperately want to be both.

18. Though I enjoy video games, I am often disappointed by them. I think they come up short on their promises.

19. I love breakfast foods, especially the stuff that’s really bad for you. Strata, biscuits and gravy, and sweet loraine are among my favorites.

20. During my freshman year of college I read Ralph Waldo Emerson's “Self Reliance.” It was the first time I read something that spoke to me and made me feel like I'd discovered a piece of my soul in someone's book. It seemed like those 15 odd pages contained more about myself than I knew. It was as if those words had taken all the conflicting ideas and ideals that I had struggled to communicate and understand and laid them out plainly and beautifully.

21. My childhood room was yellow. The doors were old wood, and had big rusty knobs with comicly large keyholes that you could look through, like in the movies.

22. I want to tell stories.

23. I don’t understand why necessities like pants and housing are so damn expensive. If everyone needs it, it should be cheap and freely available. There’s something very wrong with a world where cheese doodles and cell phones are more readily available than affordable housing and pants.

24. In preschool, I was jealous of my friend Drew because all the girls wanted to kiss him.

25. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I have things sorted out, but I hope I can at least look like I do, and do so stylishly.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Phil + Susie

Sittin' in a tree
gonna get m-a-r-r-i-e-d

To commemorate this momentous occasion, here are some pictures of the two of them together in a variety of settings.

From MarsEdit Images


From MarsEdit Images


From MarsEdit Images


From MarsEdit Images


From MarsEdit Images


From MarsEdit Images

Sunday, March 22, 2009

10 Seemed Like A Good Place to Stop

I struggle with this blog sometimes, especially when I have fallen weeks behind in updating it. 'Oh, no,' I think to myself. 'Yet another recap post that will cover weeks. Is this all I ever put on here?'

Fortunately for me, Stephen Fry seems to have the same problems with his blog. However, his blog is infinitely better than mine and he has much more interesting things to say (although I do wish he'd say a little less about how great Oscar Wilde is).
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So, here's the inevitable wrap up:

1. On the 7th, Claire and I took advantage of the nice weather and checked out the National Arboretum. It's a beautiful, sprawling park that, unlike most gardens, is car accessible. In fact, driving is something of a necessity given it's size. I know several of you are planning on visiting the area soon, so be sure to set aside time to visit this place. Don't let the fact that it's surrounded by a terrible neighborhood stop you!

Here's some pictures; please enjoy them!

National Arboretum


2. New assignment at Ft. Belvoir continues to take me places I never imagined I'd be. On the 11th I was attending a hearing on Soldier weight where the Army's Vice Chief of Staff and the Assistant Commandant of the US Marine Corps testified before the sub committee on defense spending. My journalist friends can roll their eyes at me, but it was still fun.

3. I have spent more time with a General than you have.

4. On the 12th I was at the Pentagon, which is kind of a frightening experience. It has very tight security, is frantic on the inside, and is the kind of place where the security detail has assault rifles. In a word: stressful. Add to that being late for the first of two meetings, and it made for an interesting day.

5. In a lot of ways I am still finding my feet at the fort. My first two weeks were especially difficult since I had two deadlines on top of getting used to the place, and figuring out how everything worked. Thankfully, everyone is patient and supportive.

6. Did you notice that 2009 has had two Friday the 13ths? I did. I think it's unusual.

On the most recent Friday the 13th, Keith, Claire, and I went to see Watchmen. When Auntie Barb sent me the trade paperback of the series for Christmas some years ago, my mind was blown. I had no idea that something so sprawling and wildly creative could be done with comics. As Crime and Punishment and Catch-22 changed my conception of literature, Watchmen changed how I viewed comics. Obviously, the movie could never live up to that, and in the end it's not that great. It's pretty, and has some fun moments, but I think Snyder was trying way to hard to get Alan Moore to like him by making a 100% faithful reproduction of the book, and the movie suffered for it.

I did, however, get to hang out with a cardboard cutout of Nicholas Cage that I found in the garbage behind the theatre.

From MarsEdit Images


7. My brother recently had a birthday. He's 14 by my count. My sister has a birthday coming up in May -- she'll be 12. They continue to amaze me.

8. My NCAA picks for this year are at 70%, and given that I usually have the worst picks in my family, I am more than pleased. I would have done much better if Arizona hadn't decided to win and shove Utah off the map.

Despite screwing up the whole Utah thing, I am proud of calling the exact measure of UM's basketball prowess: one game. Hail to this victor.

9. I've been having some trouble sleeping lately, which is unlike me. I am usually asleep within five minutes of getting into bed, and I will stay completely asleep until morning. On the rare occasions I do wake up in the night, I am back to sleep within moments. Lately, I've been waking up at odd times, been unable to get back to sleep after waking, and had some trouble getting to sleep at all. This is a new development I do not approve of.

10. I want to try and post every day next week, starting Monday.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

These Feelings Are Natural

Day01 at Ft. Belvoir summation: Oh crap crap crap! The woman I am replacing is far more experienced/talented/competant than me. Oh my god what am I doing here? I am going to screw up and everyone is going to hate me oh god. Maybe I should drive my car into a tree and use some disability time to get off the hook. No no no, if I start driving funny the Army guys will think I am a spy and shoot me a thousand times!

Day02 at Ft. Belvoir summation: Ok, I think I can handle this.


The big change between the two? Well, today I got a much more concrete feeling for what needs to be done in the coming weeks. Most of it just nerves; changes in my routine always throw me off like that. It's also kind of nerve wracking for someone like me to work at an army base. I get freaked out when a cop goes by me on a bicycle, so you can imagine what working at a place with Area-51 signs around does to me.
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I don't think I'll be as good a job as the woman I am (temporarily) replacing. But I will learn a hell of a lot about how to be a better writer. She's got years of newspaper and Army experience. She knows how to write for these people, and can make writing a task in a way that I am still learning how to do. She, and others I have worked with at SAIC, are able to build an article like they're building a table.

The closest analog I can think of is writing college essays. You take a stack of information, and you make something cohesive out of it. Now, it's true that I could (and probably still can) churn out college essays like a machine, but this is like a whole other level.

The other skill that I have not fully developed is a journalist's scheduling. These pro-writers track story ideas in terms of what will be available when and from whom, and various aspects of the approval process, in addition to deadlines. I am truly amazed at the information handoff going between the two of us. This is the kind of skill-reinforcing activity that really need.
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So, to my family and my employers: I am OK, and I think I am going to do well.

Monday, March 02, 2009

What I Want You To Take Away From This Is That I Have Not Been Fired

It's been a rough month, here on DeWitt, and I apologize for the lack of updating.
Claire's schooling has become increasingly time consuming. We both knew this would be a rough semester, but it only recently reached an apex of difficulty. To ease the situation, I've been picking up some of Claire's duties -- mainly, giving the dog a morning walk. The upside of all of this is that Claire will finish her MA in two years, as opposed to the two years +1 summer term recommended by the school.
The downside is that we've been extremely busy. The past few weeks have felt very "rat race:" I get up in the morning, I walk the dog, I go to work, I come home after dark, do dinner, and then have about an hour before I go to bed. I can't say I've been in the best of moods, so it's probably for the best that I was staying off the Blog Horse. That is, unless you want to read a bunch of "OH, WOE IS ME"-isms.
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As you may have gleaned from Twitter, I have moved out of the McLean offices of SAIC. From today until June, I'll be operating out of a cubicle at Ft. Belvoir. So:

I have not been sacked.
I have not been promoted.
I have not joined the Army.

Although that guy I met in the elevator while I was leaving McLean with my office in a box probably does think I got fired. Oh well!
Hopefully, Belvoir will be a shorter commute. But with all the security and driving through the base, I am not sure.
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This morning was meant to be Day 01 at Belvoir, but that's in question now. I scoffed at last night's Winter Storm warning -- they issue those things for a few flurries. However, the 4" of snow and more coming down gave me pause this morning. In Michigan this would be annoying, but mostly a non-issue; once I got the truck to the main roads, everything would be fine. But here in the good ol' NCR, the situation is more complicated.
There are no plows here, only salt trucks. So, main roads aren't so much "clear" as "incredibly slushy." There's a two-hour delay at the base, which I am utilizing to blog. I am going to take it nice and easy on the way in. I like my job, but I am not willing to die for it. Or crash my car for it.
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I took the dog down to check and see how bad Route 1 was, and also grabbed my camera. Please enjoy these pictures of a snowy Virginia, and a puppy.

From MarsEdit Images

From Tenzing

From Tenzing

From Tenzing

From Tenzing

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I met a man while walking the dog today. I mentioned that Tenzing was an Icelandic dog, and from Chicago, so he was used to snow. The man said, "that's why I figured the President didn't shut down the government today!"

Along with all the other activities, the Obama administration ushers in a new era of shutting up and dealing with the weather.