Ryan Sucks

Our son has minored the art of using a straw!

As opposed to "mastering" it.

still opens his mouth too soon sometimes and out comes the waterfall.

but still! exciting! Yay Red Robin plastic non-sippy cups and our forced necessity!


Flew here to Issaquah yesterday, after being stuck on the tarmac at Dulles for an hour and twenty minutes thanks to a timely thunderstorm shutting down the entire airport. Don't think it's rained in D.C. for three weeks, but the one launch window I need it to be clear, boom goes the dynamite. So by the time I landed, got picked up by my brother-in-law, was fed a lovely late dinner, and got everyone to bed, it was nearly 2:30 in the morning my time. My nephew is a supernova of energy, the typical "watch me Uncle Dan" every four seconds, and my nieces are growing like little girl weeds. Short whirlwind vacation, then the three of us in a plane Sunday back home.

My baby and baby are gone

*sniff*

Il drivewayo, she smells atari

After two rainout delays, we finally got a new sealant hand-squeegified onto our driveway, which makes it look black and smell funny, but doesn't really look as good as I'd hoped. I was thinking it would look like a smooth new road, but instead we just have darker cracks.

Ryan and Ainsley became intimately familiar with the DTRA cafeteria today, joining me for a lovely lunch outside by the lake and fountain. Unfortunately, Ryan is still sick, so nothing really pleased him, not a chicken sandwich for lunch, not my cool uniform with the shiny DTRA badge, not my "7x7" (as my bride called it) cubicle with all the pictures of the animals.

I met my boss's's boss yesterday, an Air Force colonel who's as big as a horse and just as nice. He's only been here since early August, so he said I was the guinea pig for meet & greets. I think I passed. I asked him if he knew why no one in DTRA offered a basic Russian language course for all these rotating military folks who come in and go to Russia, and he said he didn't know but asked me to find out what could be done and said he admired my initiative and gave me a lollipop.

In the meantime, I have a book that is at least showing me some of the cyrillic alphabet so I can start to get used to how words look and sound. And write my name in Russian. So now I can pee in the snow in Votkinsk.

Auto-auto disensnarlification

I believe I have found my way to the Dr. Livingstone that is the best route home, after only four precarious expeditions through the jungle that art the highways and byways of Fairfax and Prince William Counties. I presume.

After being stuck in morning traffic so slow I became mesmerized by the walnut-sized spider casting a web across my sideview mirror, I decided to split my time on Route 1 and I-95 on the way home, and wipe butter on my butt and call me a biscuit if it didn't work out swimmingly. Eased onto my driveway 26 minutes from turning on the car in the DTRA parking lot. And, even on a bad traffic day, I'm still getting home at about the same time as I used to leave the Pentagon office...

Still doing a lot of on-line/annual training and some other paperwork in the office, but it appears our only duties are to either talk about the last rotation to Russia or plan for the next one. Several guys are shipping out this weekend, so I'm going to sit in on their pre-deployment briefings so I can get a feel for what to expect for mine, (too) soon to come...

Meanwhile, I will try to remain as the only healthy human in the house, as Ryan and Mommyofsame have come down with colds, which is probably harder on the boy, as his nose is the size of a jolly rancher, causing him to make gutteral, dragon-like, rocks-on-a-washboard sounds at night (when we can get him to sleep) .

Smoke alarm is beeping, gotta go.

Deep Thought III

It really tickles when a cat licks your armpit hair.

Guitarzakovs, Pupskis, and Cheetos

The good news is that I learned today that Votkinsk has a guitar on site. Also a puppy. (They call it a Russian guard dog.) And all the snacks we could ever want (people are said to gain 15 pounds if they're not careful). And, at last count, over 2200 movies on DVD and Video.
The bad news is that we cannot bring digital cameras, laptops, or BaileyRoos, that we have no internet access on site, that the temperature gets down to forty below zero, and that it's over 5000 miles from home.
Not to mention the fact that the Super Bowl will start at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Inflate it and they will come

My son and I had that first and traditionalistest of father-son bonding moments yesterday -- a game of 'catch'.

Granted, it involved me slapping a balloon down to his level and him catching the string, but it still counts.

Then he would let go, and I would slap it back down to him and he would catch the string again and bounce the balloon against his fist and giggle, and let go, and...

well, there you have it. Field of Dreams moment.

He's also signing "more" and pointing at everything and identifying some stuff correctly with said pointer finger and maintains status as Cutest Baby in the History of the World.

Working like reggalar people

Yesterday, the alarm by the bed woke me up, I shaved and showered, put my uniform on, kissed the baby and wife as she handed me my tea, and commuted to work in bumper-to-bumper traffic along Route 1.
It's all just so frickin' weird.
I reported to the new Defense Threat Reduction Center, the new HQ for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a worldwide organization that administratively falls under the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics. I'm in the OSS division, which deals with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) -- my particular branch, OSSM, is the "Monitoring" branch, which has a permanent presence (rotating personnel) at a complex next to a rocket production site in Votkinsk, Russia, to ensure whatever they produce is allowed per the START. This is as much as I know in the first 48 hours. But I do know that our whole branch is also part of an "enterprise" called 'Operations', so our official office symbol, OP-OSSM, has left us with a rather curious mascot.

I've only met a few of my office mates, mostly Majors and Lt Colonels/Commanders, with a lot of folks TDY. I've been mostly finishing up paperwork and in-processing to get my computer accounts activated, clothing issued, pens sharpened, etc. I have a bunch of stuff to read, and then start a four-day "Phase I" training in Reston, up the road a spell, next week. For now, I'm just trying to get the lay of the six-story Taj Mahal-like land, figure out how the motion-activated water fountains work, steer clear of the robot mail carts that freak me the heck out, and just revel in the fact that I get to go home every night.

476 Days

It is done.
After fifteen and a half months as an Internally Displaced Person, I finally have no where to be, no where to go, but Home with a capital Effing Haytch. For the first Sunday since June 18th, I will be sleeping here. For the first time since May 17th, 2005, I have but one address. It's a beautiful thing.
Though it's taken some convincing for the dogs. "No, no...I'm unpacking the car. Unpacking. Get that sad look off your face."
I would have been here a day sooner if the folks at JFSC had any sense -- despite some suggestions during the week that sticking around for a graduation exercise was a bit silly with a hurricane bearing down on the Commonwealth, we were still forced to wade through shin-length water in our "Class A" digs into the building only to learn that the Commandant decided to go ahead and cancel the ceremony at 0825. So we waded back into our cars, drove through lakes that had formed in the housing area just to get off base, and headed for our respective chezes. I was worried that I-64 was going to be flooded in spots, but aside from some debris and backed-up traffic, the going was clear. The windshield wipers never came down from "high", the speedometer never got above 50, and a 2hr-40 minute drive took a little over 4 hours, but I finally got home.
And to a loverly welcome -- a smiling boy, wagging dogs, whatever cats do to show they're happy -- with notes left all over the house (my medicine cabinet, the computer screen, my sock drawer, my favorite toilet) and some big balloons, which are now Ryan's favorite toy...