So, I'm working on a project at work that requires me to look at lots and lots of Twitter accounts. Most are boring, some are less so.

I came across this one and I thought it was really great. It apparently comes from the song "Going Back to Georgia."

After being in my now old position for a whopping 4½ months, the big boss called me into his office and offered me a job on the other side of the office. Now, I was very excited to get my now old position; however, I feel very strongly that when the big boss offers you an opportunity, it's bad form to turn it down.

So, as of today, I am now a public affairs officer. That's pretty darn cool, but I'm pretty scared that I have them all fooled and they're going to realize that I don't know shit about what I'm doing. Oh, well. At least it will be an adventure.

Today is my last day in this office. After 5 long, grueling years, I am moving on. I planned to come in late, leave early, and wear jeans today.

Unfortunately, my current boss had other plans. On Tuesday, he told us that we all needed to support the LCROSS event at the Newseum this morning. This morning. At 6:30 this morning.

I am not much of a fan of The Office, but I did want to see Jim and Pam's wedding. Oh, well. It was lights out at 9:30 (so I did see Jim slip during his toast). Of course with the snorer in the apartment below us, I was up about 3 am and didn't really fall back to sleep. So, I was in the shower by 4:30 this morning.

I left the house about 10 after 5 to head out to the Metro. It was absolutely beautiful. It was crisp, yet pleasant (I didn't wear a jacket). It was so still and peaceful. The only sound was a bus that passed me as I stood motionless just outside my apartment and soaked in the beauty of the predawn.

As I looked up, I saw a perfect 1/2 moon as the clouds parted, and all I could think was, "Boy, you have no idea what you're in for later this morning, do you?"

So, after 5 grueling years in my current office at America's finest space agency, I can now officially say that I am moving on!

Last week, HR called me and offered me a position I had applied for and interviewed for in Public Affairs. True, I am only moving down 4 floors from where I am now, but I feel that I will be moving a world away from where I am now!

I recognize that there will be drama and all kinds of bullshit in the new office, but it will all be new drama and bullshit for me to learn, and that will be fun (until it's not anymore). I have been trying to get into this office in Public Affairs pretty much the entire 5 years that I have been in my current office. Sadly, it took a very lovely woman's death to open a slot for me, so that's sort of bittersweet. I'm not typically into the whole "better place" thing, but this woman was in a lot of pain, and she truly is in a better place now.

I'm not 100% sure what I will be doing in this position, but I know that I will be working with guest operations, exhibits, events, and astronauts (pretty much a lot of what I'm doing now, but in a different office, and in Public Affairs).

I officially begin on October 11.

I'm so excited!

I was, again, stuck in Florida with a shuttle that wouldn’t launch. So, again, after several days, the Sabra decided to come down and join me. And, again, she proved to be the good-luck charm we needed, and that little Shuttle launched.

Since she was in FL anyway, we decided to take a vacation, and we stayed in Orlando for a week. It was nice; we went to Disney World, which was pretty fun. We only had one day there, so we just went to Magic Kingdom. Then we spent the next morning listing to the benefits of buying a timeshare. We were strong and didn’t buy, but we DID get a free breakfast and 2 one-day passes to both Universal Orlando parks, so I guess we did OK.

I started back at work this morning, and I noticed that even though schools are all officially back in session, the Metro was surprisingly empty. Then I got off the train at Gallery Place/Chinatown to transfer. As I walked down the platform, there was a mass onrush of people walking the opposite direction. Someone had opened the floodgates and people were pouring out and over the walkway. It occurred to me that this is exactly how salmon feel as they fight their way up against the currents of the raging rivers of the Pacific Northwest. Where once I felt like drone in the subway, today, I better appreciated the plight of the salmon. Unfortunately for me, I did not spawn at the end of this river of people; however, fortunately, I did not die as do the fierce salmon who make the difficult trek to perpetuate their species.

I merely went to work.

Yea, so, it's been yonks since I've written anything, so I decided to start writing and see where it takes me. I'm not really sure what I'm planning to write in this post, but we'll see what comes out.

I've been worrying lately that I've completely lost what little shred of talent I have for writing and being creative. I've been saying it for years now that NASA has been making me dumber, and now I'm completely convinced. I've not written anything since last year, and I've had nothing to write about. I've tried; oh, believe me, I've tried. I sit on the Metro and look at the goings-on around me and think, "What is going on here that I can write about?" I thought about blogging about the wedding and preparation and all that, but nothing (not to mention that the Sabra didn't want me to write anything personal on the blog). I just didn't have the ambition.

Now that we're separated, you'd think I've got loads of time to write...but again, what do I write about? I could blog about me trying to find a job in Beantown, but who wants to read that crap?

I finally got around to buying Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so I decided to start back at the beginning and read straight through. I thought that that would be cool to write about...my feelings after reading each of the books--not my opinions of what's going on or anything like that, but the beauty of reading entertaining books, of the feelings, emotions, and memories that J.K. Rowling is able to evoke from me. But, nope, nada, nothing doing. Oh, that's not to say that I'm not experiencing emotions and feelings and memories from reading the books again, but I'm not writing about them...can't be bothered.

I'm going out tonight...maybe something exciting will occur to me to write about them.

Well, wish me luck!

I know that I haven't posted anything in forever, so I thought that I should at least get 1 post in before 2009.

What have I been doing instead of blogging? Well, I'm actively looking for a new job, so if you know of any in Boston, please let me know.

I've been working on some other websites that I have.

I've been planning the wedding...just a little over a month now!

And I've been doing some extra work in the evenings (and at work, but don't tell anyone that I've been double-dipping).

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannuka, Peaceful Kwanzaa, and here's wishing you my annual blessing....that 2009 will be better, brighter, and funner than 2008!

Peace.

I had the ring in the car when I picked up the Sabra last night, but the moment just wasn't right to do it.

Tonight was the night.

One of our first "dates" involved a rather long walk down Wisconsin Ave. At one point, we stopped at a church to sit on the step and rest for a bit. Before I knew it, we were talking about weddings and what we liked and didn't like in the weddings we'd been to, and what we would want and wouldn't want in our own weddings. Since then, we'd always joked that we should get engaged on those steps.

As fate would have it, the church lies just south of the Metro station we use to get to the gym. So, I'd been trying to see how I could manage it to walk past the church on our way back to the Metro, but we always seemed to switch sides before we'd get to the church.

Tonight, however, was different.

After our workouts, we took showers and changed clothes. Before I left the men's dressing room, I took the ring out of the box and put it in my pocket. These are relatively new pants, but I was convinced that I would suddenly and spontaneously get a hole in the pocket and lose the ring before we got to the church.

As we headed to the Metro, I kept us on the correct side of the street (the lights were also on our side and they were green most of the way so we didn't need to switch sides). When we got to the church, I asked the Sabra if she wanted to sit for a minute "for fun and old-time's sake." She said sure, and we sat.

I tried to steer the conversation toward the topic of marriage, but it just wasn't working too well. I was nervous, and I think she knew what was coming and was nervous too. I had already made a big deal that I wanted to go out to dinner, so after my stuttering to try to start the conversation, the Sabra said she was cold and hungry and wanted to get moving (she did have goose-bumps).

We went to Neisha, a Thai place in Tenley Town. I broached the subject again. This time I said, "what do you think? Can you see yourself with a ring?" and I took my ring off, and put it on her finger with the shank up so it looked like a wedding band. She said she didn't know. I pulled out the real ring and said, "well, what about with this one?" and put it on her finger.

She was a bit dumbfounded for a minute and then realized that this was it, I was really proposing. She was so happy, she almost cried. She didn't, but she did get up and hug and kiss me.

I think it was a very nice way to propose, but it wasn't the way I had it in my head. That's fine. We're both happy. Also, since it wasn't the official engagement ring, I still have a second opportunity to "officially" propose.

I played hookie from work today, and I went out to lunch with Shining Starr9. We talked about how the Sabra and I are seriously talking about getting married in January. I told her that I didn't have a ring yet, so I couldn't propose because I don't want to do it without a ring.

She suggested that I buy a "promise ring." I wasn't so sure, but I thought I'd give it a try. So, we dropped her car off and headed over to the mall. It was PG Plaza (or the Mall at Prince Georges as they prefer to be called now). We looked at some nice stuff, but it was more than I wanted to spend. Please don't misunderstand, I'm happy to spend as much as I need to, but since this isn't the engagement ring, I just wanted something nice to do what needs to be done.

So, after excluding anything out of my price range, I didn't find anything nice. We ended up at Macy's, and I did a panic purchase. I bought a ring that looked really nice at the moment, but as I looked at it and looked at it, I came to realize that I didn't like it at all.

I headed over to Montgomery Mall, which has a different class of clientele. I went into Helzberg and found a really nice ring that had the Sabra written all over it. I returned the ring to Macy's without even thinking about it, and bought the one at Helzberg.

Now I need to give it to her...

OK, so thanks to the great and wonderful GOP, our country is in the shitter, and money is scarce. As such, the great space program I work for has to find ways to save money. In one of its more brilliant moves, NASA decided to stop funding a particular education program. We were sent a memo titled “Standard Response to Potential Frequently Asked Questions.” In it was the following question. Normally, I would just sigh, shake my head, and hit the delete button. But since this was written and sent out by a particularly odious human being in my office (and I use the term human being extremely loosely), I thought I would publically ridicule her.

Q: If I have some concerns, to whom should I contact about those concerns?

A: The Project Manager is the direct person to whom persons should contact. As appropriate, the project manager will inform and involve additional senior leadership. Persons and order of persons for whom project manager will share concerns are listed.

I would like to add this sorry excuse of a person is (supposedly) a Harvard University alumna, and is currently in law school. There are clear reasons, in my humble opinion, why she was invited to attend such a prestigious school as Harvard, and, no doubt, why they helped her every step of the way, ensuring that she would receive her diploma.