Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Hello Again from Charleston

Well hello there!  I just realized that I haven't posted anything since way back on October 18.  Time flies, as they say.

So, what's been up?  Working and learning.  Right now I'm in a section of CGFS call Post Support Unit.  It's been fun and informative so far.  In a few months I'll rotate into another part of Global Financial Services - like Payroll - and get to learn new things and meet new people.

Charleston has been quite charming.  Sultry is a good word for it, I think.  People for the most part have been friendly.  The food that I've had so far has been very good, too.

I went back to Lynn for Thanksgiving.  It was great to see Mark and Cosmo and family and friends.  It felt familiar, but also different.  I think I'm coming to realize that while Massachusetts may want to consider me a resident, it's not really "home" anymore.  That's sad, but also exciting to think about where else may be home in the future.  But right now it's Charleston and Lynn.

Mark is coming down for for Christmas, New Years, and his birthday.  I'm very excited, and so is he.  I'll be off, so it will be nice to hang out in downtown, try out some restaurants, maybe a pub tour, a plantation, and perhaps even check out Savannah.

I'll keep this post short and leave you with some photos.

The Arthur J. Ravenel Bridge from Charleston to Mt. Pleasant (it has an actual bike lane and is the best hill to ride in the whole area).

A little holiday cheer on King Street.

I may have to register my car in South Carolina, but I'll always remember where I'm from (sorry, Oklahoma).

I'm still finding these tags on my belongings.  I've been told by other foreign service officers to get used to it.  (BTW, it's one of the tags the movers use for household effects moves.)

I found out that the pineapple as a symbol of hospitality has a bit of a bawdy history...ask me about it sometime.

I took a haunted tour of Charleston with a few friends.  It was fun.


Yes, I decorated my cubicle at work.  No, I don't have anything in my stocking...yet.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Onward to Charleston!

I've been in Charleston, SC for two weeks now, so I guess it's time for an update.  I finished up training on Friday, October 2.  BTW -- a big "Thank You" to Congress for not shutting down the government.  Our last day began and ended at Main State.  There is not one, but two gift shops in the basement of Main State and of course I visited both of them and bought myself yet another lanyard for my badge.  That brings my count up to seven, not including one that I bought at the gift shop of "The Agency".

Mark drove down to Arlington on Saturday so that I can have the car with me in Charleston.  Not much public transportation available in Charleston.  We packed up and headed out bright and early on Sunday, October 4.  Well, bright isn't the right word -- more like gray and ominous.  You may have heard about some rains in South Carolina that weekend.  Yep, that's the weekend we drove down.  It wasn't too bad until we got just past Florence, SC. That's where I-95 was shut down.  Long story short...we ended up staying is one of the less clean Day's Inn that I've been to.  Granted, I haven't stayed in a lot of Day's Inns; I certainly hope the others out there are nicer than what we stayed in.  However, it was dry and it kept us off the flooded roads at night.


Good bye wonderful wall of windows in Rosslyn

Sunday morning with Mark

Day's Inn at the interchange of I-95 (closed) and SC Rte 378 (closed)

Monday morning we were able to route ourselves toward Columbia, SC and then back down to Charleston.  Luckily, my new neighborhood and apartment were dry and not damaged by the flooding.

Mark flew back to Boston and I started work on Tuesday.  Standard new-job-first-week stuff.  My HHE arrived on Friday of that week so I spent four days (the following Monday was Columbus Day) cleaning, unpacking, assembling, and arranging.  Another short work week where I actually felt productive.  The people I'm working with are all very nice and quite excited to have new foreign service officers joining them.  The three of us are rotating through different areas of the Global Financial Services Center in Charleston, so it will be a great opportunity to meet people and see all the behind-the-scenes processes before heading overseas at the end of this two-year tour.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some work travel opportunities (called TDY in State lingo) while I'm in Charleston.

I'm getting my place all settled now, just need to finish up some little things like hanging shelves and art (I'm hoping to find some nice pieces while I'm here).  Here are some pics of my progress to-date:


Some of my flags on the side porch

The Living Room is coming along...

So is the bedroom...

New mattress (it's wonderful) and assembled the bed myself (I still need to finish the six drawers that go in it, though).

Got some art hung up...


And some art up in here...

Some coat hooks -- just in case.

And most important:  patio furniture!

Yesterday was gorgeous!  One of my FMO colleagues and his wife came over and we walked up to the Fall Greek Festival at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church.  It was fun and I finally tried Retsina (which, surprisingly, wasn't half bad).  Good food, too!

A little entertainment...
 

The Church...outside

The Church...inside

Pew for 1, no waiting...

I bought an "anti-evil-eye" disc.  We saw them all over Istanbul, but the Greeks use them too.  I'll hang it over my front door...just in case.

To top off my week, my friends Jamie and Clinton who moved to Los Angeles this year sent me this...

From their own tree (the lemons, not the dryer sheets).  

I'd like to send them something from Charleston -- but I don't think they would appreciate a box of Palmetto bugs.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Training Update and Other Stuff

I just realized it's been three weeks since my last posting.  Time flies!  

My cohort of new financial management officers (FMOs) and I started our management trade craft training (MTT) at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) on August 3, 2015.  I have a great group of new FMO compatriots (six of us, total) and look forward to calling them all friends and colleagues.  

Six FMOs were hired in July and all six of us will be posted domestically for our first assignments.  Three of us (myself, included) are going to Charleston, SC to work in the Office of the Comptroller and Global Financial Services (CGFS).  The other three are staying in Washington, DC and will work in the Office of Budget and Planning (BP).  Don't worry, we've been assured that we'll go overseas for our second assignments.

We've had instruction in fun topics such as:
  • Appropriation Law
  • Accounting*
  • Budgeting
  • Working with ICASS (International Cooperative Administrative Shared Services)
  • Vouchering and Certifying
  • The Federal Reserve System
  • General Management
  • Management Controls
  • Embassy Week**
  • Cashiering Operations
  • And tons of other stuff still to come
It's been a lot of information, but generally fun.  Although, if I never see another PowerPoint presentation I'll be a happy man***!

I went back home for Labor Day weekend and got to hang out with Mark and Cosmo.  That was great!  I also got to pull together all of the things that I want shipped down to Charleston.  That part was sad.  I realized that the house I've spent nearly 15 years in, the home that Mark and I have made together (along with Jojo, Sydney, and Sonya as well as Cosmo), won't really be my home anymore.  Sure, I'll be back from time to time -- I'm planning Thanksgiving travel back home now -- but I won't really "live" in that house anymore.  When we do go overseas, I don't know if we'll keep the house and rent it or if we'll sell it and move on.  Either way, it's sad to say goodbye to it.


Mark with most of my stuff

OK, before I get too lacrimose...Last weekend I traveled to Charleston.  It was my first time there and I was pleasantly surprised.  It's a charming city.  I spent all day Saturday apartment hunting -- looking at 10 places.  I had decided on the downtown area and I'm glad I did.  It's busy and lively with locals, tourists, and students all day and through much of the night.  It's also fairly compact which makes walking and biking really easy.

Here's a sampling of places I looked at:
Blah!

Nice kitchen upgrade!

Great balcony...

...overlooking the pool (full of college kids in the summer)

Charming old building

With a tiny kitchen and attached bathroom

Gorgeous studio...but that's all the space you get.

Nice place on a quiet dead-end street.

Not afraid of color!

I so wanted to like this place...

There was a "Wow" factor upon entering (sorry for the blurry pic)

But a purple, bead board kitchen with dirty linoleum?

And this??  Uh-uh!


Great neighborhood of nice (pricey) houses

Good space, but with no w/d and no parking and the most expensive...I think not.

Pretty much the range from older to newer, clean to dirty (yes, that is a dead roach in one picture), large to small, good neighborhoods to "not so good" neighborhoods.

I chose this one, which, of course, turned out to be the first place I looked at on Saturday morning:


Upper floor, two bedroom apartment on a quiet, narrow street in the Elliotborough neighborhood of downtown Charleston. If you know Charleston, it's the area roughly bounded by Ashley Ave to the West, King Street to the East, Cannon Street to the South, and the "Crosstown" to the North.  It's a cute little area of older homes, many of which have been renovated fairly recently.  It's a nice mix of old-timers, young professionals, and some students from the Medical University of South Carolina and the College of Charleston.  There are a lot of small restaurants, bars, and cafes close by.  It will be easy to drive to work and easy to walk around and bike to further points in downtown or Mt. Pleasant, West Ashley, or even Folly Beach (maybe).

More pics:

Front entrance.

Living Room

Kitchen

Bathroom

Guest bedroom or office

My bedroom

Exclusive-use side porch!

And, at the end of the street is the Elliotborough Community Garden...


I've only got two more weeks of training, then I'll move down and start working.  The good news is that the State Department is shipping all of my furniture and things (called HHE or house hold effects).  Mark is driving the car down to me in Arlington and then we'll continue on to Charleston.  I'll only need to worry about what I'll need with me for a week or two before my HHE arrives.  I'm also getting excited about decorating and have started a WayFair board here if anyone's interested.

_______________

*Not really anything like the accounting courses I just took in my MSA program.  Really should be called "Accounting".

**A four-day week of case studies where us FMOs formed embassy teams with human resource officers (HROs) and general service officers (GSOs) and management officers (MOs) who are also in their training classes at the same time as us.

***This will not happen!


Wednesday, August 26, 2015

A little enlightenment on the bike path...

An interlude from the Foreign Service...

One of the highlights of being in the DC area for orientation and training is taking advantage of how bicycle-friendly the area is:  trails, paths, dedicated lanes, etc.  It's great!  I've been riding most weekends and I'm even contemplating riding from my apartment to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) some days.  Not there, yet, but I've done a trial run to get a feel for it.

I was out last Sunday for a ride out to Great Falls.  I rode the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal path from Georgetown.  It was on this path that I had an "ah-hah" moment.

Some of you may know that I've been flirting with Buddhism for years.  While I wouldn't actually call myself a Buddhist (I have no idea how the various forms of the religious rituals are practiced), the philosophy of Buddhism resonates with me.

So, I'm riding along the bike path, seeing other bikers, runners, walkers, joggers...and it hits me:  this bike path is a great metaphor for our lives.

  • What looks like one path is really a individual path for everyone on it.  My experiences and perceptions are in no way the same as anyone else's on that path.
  • Everyone had to "navigate" that path themselves -- sometimes they had help from others or signs -- but each person had to fundamentally do it themselves; no one else could ride my bike for me, just as no one else could walk, or run, or stand still for anyone else.
  • Some parts of the path were smooth and easy; others were rough or hilly.  Some were sunny, some shady, and some a bit murky -- even scary.  Sometimes the path was very wide but other times it was quite narrow.  Very much like life itself.
  • Sometimes the path was very crowded, especially around areas with parking lots nearby.  Other times it felt like I was nearly alone.
  • People were constantly coming and going, moving along in both directions, crossing over and back.  
  • Sometimes the path intersected with other paths and sometimes it crossed right over them.
  • I always had to be aware of the path and others on it.  I was part of a larger thing.
So, what does all this mean?  Maybe not much in the grand scheme of things. But it was quite interesting to me while it was happening.  It made me realize that this path -- my life -- is my experience;  others will come in and out of my life -- some for nearly the whole path and others for only a brief part.  While I have to navigate this life myself, ultimately everything is one.  Plus, it was cool to have that "zen/zoned out" athletic experience that I've never quite seemed to have before -- or maybe I was just dehydrated.  Who knows?

Anyway, the ride to Great Falls is quite lovely.  And, coming back it's all downhill!  Another metaphor?










I'll leave you with this: