Edited
Each week, our office exchanges a fax with the folks on site at the Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility; we send a letter that discusses upcoming rotations, anything going on at Ft Belvoir, local weather, and then a personal comment from the Branch Chief. The next day, Votkinsk responds with a report on operations tempo, Moscow travel updates, weather on site, and a note from the Site Commander. These letters have become less necessary with the advent of the internet on site, but it's still nice to get the latest.
For the three weeks prior to a rotation, the Rotation Manager is responsible for drafting the "Letter from Home." In the past, the branch chief liked "his" paragraph to be written already, with ideas ranging from office goings-on, good-natured digs at someone who'd messed up, D.C. sports, what have you. The current branch chief likes to write his own comments from scratch, however. Fine. Easier for us.
But the current branch chief went on leave this week, so the acting guy who'd be signing the letter said he "looked forward to my draft comments."
I discussed how quiet it was in the office, with half of the branch in Russia, a third on leave, three-eighths in training, and one-seventeenth on a random TDY. I mentioned how the Redskins had scored 14 points in the last 1:46 of regulation in their first pre-season game against the Tennessee Titan's fourth-string defense (which included people they just grabbed out of the stands), how the Orioles had taken two out of three from the New York Millionaires, and how the Nationals continue to defy all logic by occasionally winning. I also brought up David Beckham's first goal as a member of the L.A. Galaxy -- his wife celebrated by eating half of an M&M.
Finally, I remarked on the thirtieth anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, a bittersweet moment for members in our branch since, coincidentally, the King had died monitoring his own portal.
For whatever reason, that last comment didn't make it to the final draft.
Everyone's a critic.
For the three weeks prior to a rotation, the Rotation Manager is responsible for drafting the "Letter from Home." In the past, the branch chief liked "his" paragraph to be written already, with ideas ranging from office goings-on, good-natured digs at someone who'd messed up, D.C. sports, what have you. The current branch chief likes to write his own comments from scratch, however. Fine. Easier for us.
But the current branch chief went on leave this week, so the acting guy who'd be signing the letter said he "looked forward to my draft comments."
I discussed how quiet it was in the office, with half of the branch in Russia, a third on leave, three-eighths in training, and one-seventeenth on a random TDY. I mentioned how the Redskins had scored 14 points in the last 1:46 of regulation in their first pre-season game against the Tennessee Titan's fourth-string defense (which included people they just grabbed out of the stands), how the Orioles had taken two out of three from the New York Millionaires, and how the Nationals continue to defy all logic by occasionally winning. I also brought up David Beckham's first goal as a member of the L.A. Galaxy -- his wife celebrated by eating half of an M&M.
Finally, I remarked on the thirtieth anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, a bittersweet moment for members in our branch since, coincidentally, the King had died monitoring his own portal.
For whatever reason, that last comment didn't make it to the final draft.
Everyone's a critic.
posted by Dan at 10:09 PM
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