A lot has happened, and I am way behind in my blog, so I am looking for some way to catch up. What I have decide to do is just put some random notes in one post. This is stuff that happened somewhere in between December 2010 and July 2011.
January was a traveling month. I spent three weeks out on the road that month.
Fort Knox: This was my first trip to what I would call the mid-East, Kentucky. Not the coast, but still East of the Mississippi. I landed in Louisville and drove to Elizabethtown, which is the nearest town with a decent selection of hotels. The landscape there was beautiful, green with lots of vegetation, big square red brick houses with large porches on large lots of manicured grass. Even the lower income areas looked well kept compared to other places I have been. I was only there for two days, but really enjoyed the scenery.
The legendary "Fort Knox" is still there, but ironically is not protected by the military installation. Instead it is just a modest sized stone structure out front of the base entrance, surrounded by its own security--razor-wire, chain link, barriers and personnel. The interesting stuff, I was told, is not in the building but believed to be underground. I hadn't realized it, but this is property of the Treasury department which is a different branch of government than the DoD. Anyway, in the pass office to get on base there are signs to remind visitors that this is an active military base, not a tourist location. There are a fair number of historical locations on old bases like this, and apparently the public at large has tried to go see them.
Atlantic City: From Ft Knox I took a late night flight in to Philadelphia and drove down to Atlantic City, arriving at about 2AM. If I was driving on more familiar roads I think this would have been pretty difficult to stay alert, but in unfamiliar [hostile] territory, driving an unfamiliar car, I didn't have any problems. I had also been warned to watch out for wildlife crossing the turnpike at night, so I had multiple reasons to stay awake. I had a room in Absecon that looked out over the city across Absecon Bay.
I was working at the local Federal Aviation Administration facility, and while the driving there wasn't any worse than anywhere else on the east coast, but the security at the FAA was more involved than just about any military base I have visited yet. They did full airport security to anyone that visited, and I wasn't able to drive my rental car on their campus. It was very inconvenient, and like many government-sponsored security regimens, not particularly effective or efficient.
Washington, DC: The next week I found myself in DC, headed for Andrews AFB. A coworker and I touched down at around 3PM local time, so we decided to go do an hour in the museums downtown before finding the hotel. I had heard that parking was difficult in downtown DC, but at 4:30 there were spots everywhere. I parked on a nearby street and we hit the Natural History Museum and the Military Museum (I think...)
Anyway, it was just after 5:30 when we got back to where I had parked, and the car was gone. I had incorrectly interpreted the instructions on the meter and where I had parked became and additional driving lane after 5PM, so I had been towed. In my defense the scant directions were still not totally clear, even after I understood what had happened. Anyway, the system is that they tow your car to another nearby street. You call a number and they towing company tells you the approximate location of your car. An hour later we located the car three blocks away or so and survived the ugly traffic out of there. I ended paying a pretty penny in parking fines over the next few months as well.
Another take away from my time at Andrews was that our military is very inconsistent in their procedures, which has always been counter-intuitive to me. Every base, even in the same branch of the military has a different procedure for getting on base. These little inconsistencies add up to big time dollars being wasted. My example here is the procedure for getting on base. Thinking of Air Force installations only, I have had to fill out multiple forms ahead of time, or sometimes just show my driver's license at the gate. Sometimes I need an escort or a solid itinerary for my visit, while other times I am just let loose on the base to figure it out for myself. I don't blame the soldiers for any of this of course. It is just another source for my healthy distrust of large government. If you want something done quickly, cost-effectively or at a high quality level, then don't ask the government to do it.
Ft Hood, Texas: The last week of January was the beginning of four trips in a row to Ft Hood in Killeen, Texas. I like Texas in many ways. The people are faith-based, gun-toting cowboys. Most of the time I liked that atmosphere. I think that the stereotypical character that you think of when I describe it that way might struggle in the IT/Computer world, and there was a lot of that as well. I liked the restaurants, the weather and the overall feel in central Texas (I often flew into Austin and drove up). At the same time there was a lot of harsh language and an antagonistic atmosphere among my counterparts, most of which was politically motivated.
February was a little better. A couple more trips to Texas. More progress on Ft. Hood.
March was another traveling month. Another week at Ft Hood. Along with weeks at Newark, New Jersey and in Hunstville, Alabama.
I have shared my thoughts about Newark before, I believe, and they haven't improved much. If anything I am just more comfortable there, knowing more how to get around, where to get food, and where not to go.
Huntsville, Alabama was another story altogether. First of all, for the first time ever I volunteered to get bumped in return for free travel. It ended up being so restricted with rules and fees that I wouldn't recommend it unless you had a specific trip you knew you would have to pay for in the 12 months. The truth is that I was able to make last minute changes to my travel plans, and was comfortable doing so. I jumped on a different plane, one gate over for Birmingham, and then rented a car and drove to Huntsville.
Really, if you have the money, the air travel network is fairly flexible. You can get just about anywhere in the country, and sometimes out of the country in a day, if you are willing to pay the price. A big caveat, I know, but it is a new understanding to have. I have changed a lot of flights and as a frequent flyer been given a lot of leeway over the last few years. The cost is the cost of repeating business enough with one or two airlines to earn the luxury of flexibility. Anyway, a tangent, I know, but I thought it was interesting.
Huntsville itself was fantastic. It was rainy some days, but it was beautiful, and pretty warm for late winter/early spring. I was there visiting the Redstone Arsenal, which is where most of our missile research takes place. So this is a boom town full of government contractors, rocket scientists and government funding. The base had tons of amenities, and was a polar opposite to Ft Hood. No rough languaged shout-downs happening in the hallways here (yes, that happened multiple times at Ft Hood.) If I liked Texas, then I loved Huntsville. I told Heather that we should move there. Heather happens to have a friend in town, so it made for interesting discussions, but the lack of a job and the distance from family kept it from getting too serious.
April brought one more trip to Ft Hood, to finish that project up. It also brought my resignation from the company. Traveling has been hard on the family, but in many cases it has brought the experience that I was looking for. I had only traveled out of the Western US a couple of time up to that point in time, and I felt that that lack of experience was holding me back somewhat, so I embraced the opportunity to travel. Now it is over.
Did I resign because I thought I was "done" with that need to experience things? No, it is more just that we have done what we can do for now. A life of experience does not happen in one year, one job, or even with one purpose. I think I exhausted the professional experience available at that company. Yes, there was more traveling available, but that would just be more of the same. I had gained a lot of experience, I missed being home with my family, and I had another option that had the potential for growth. That is usually all it takes.
So I started a new job in May 2011 and a new adventure. I will write about that too, but this post is already overly long, so I will split it up. I have also been focusing on work events in this post, so I should write a few about other happenings from the beginning of 2011 as well.
