Off to Chicago for a few days… Assuming the weather doesn’t totally screw with air traffic tomorrow afternoon. As always, I’ll keep you in the loop with any late breaking developments.
Author Archives: jdtharp
Set your clock by it…
It’s said that there are no guarantees in life, but one tradition I can nearly set my watch by is that sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas I’m going to wake up sick. I don’t mean full-blown deathly ill, just with my typical warning signs – a tickle in the throat, nose a little stuffy – just a general feeling. This morning was that day for 2007. I’m popping vitamin c and Coldeez like candy in an effort to at least keep things to the minimum possible duration.
You know, it’s not so much that I mind feeling sick, but it throws me off my normal routine, and you know what I think about that. Fortunately, today is a day off (gotta love use-or-lose leave) so I’m going to self-medicate most of the day and catch up on a few movies I’ve had good intentions of watching.
Is there anything better in the world…
Somewhere out there the wind is blowing. Somewhere the world is coming apart at the seams. The phone doesn’t stop ringing and email flies across the country. … Sometime between teleconferences you look up… and smile… A warning order rattles off the printer. A nod, a word, and you can throw a team into the fight. Your crew is busy… and you’re in charge. Some days you hold it together by sheer force of personality, but know what? You’re a goddamn emergency manager… Is there anything better in the world?
A kind of morality play…
THE SITUATION: You are in Miami, Florida. There is chaos all around you caused by a hurricane with severe flooding. This is a flood of biblical proportions. You are photo-journalist working for a major newspaper, caught in the middle of this epic disaster. The situation is nearly hopeless. You’re trying to shoot career-making photos. There are houses and people swirling around you, some disappearing under the water.
THE TEST: Suddenly you see a woman in the water. She is fighting for her life, trying not to be taken down with the debris. You move closer and she looks familiar.
You suddenly realize it’s Hillary Clinton! At the same time you notice that the raging waters are about to take her under forever.
You have two options:
1) You can save the life of Hillary Clinton, or…
2) You can shoot a dramatic Pulitzer Prize winning photo, documenting the death of one of the world’s most powerful women.
THE QUESTION: “Would you select high contrast color film, or would you go with the classic simplicity of black and white?”
Teddy Bears and Civilization…
It’s taken me a while to decided if I actually wanted to wade into this discussion or not. In Sudan, a British subject is under indictment for allowing her elementary school-aged students to name a stuffed bear “Mohammed.” I’m not going to argue that it was in good taste, but I don’t know that it rises to the level where a lashing and expulsion from the country is necessarily a proportional response, either. Is it offensive? Yep, sure is. If they had named the bear in question Jesus or Jehova, would it be offensive to other religious groups? Yes. But the difference here is that you’re not likely to see the United Methodist Church or the Southern Baptists call for publicly beating the individual.
You know, I’m sorry that you’re offended by what this lady said or did, but when were any of us promised that we were going to be able to make it through the day without being offended? The world’s a mean place, so I recommend you suck it up, cupcake. Act like you’ve got a pair and stop bitching like the kid who just dropped his ice cream cone. The rest of the world may hate us, but I’m comforted by the fact that there’s a big hunk of them that are at least as ate up as we are.
Update in 30 words or less…
It’s been a busy week. Not bad, just busy. Mundane work stuff, really, so I will spare you all the details. On another note, The Soprano’s + HD = Love.
Not what I was expecting…
I’ve been holding off on writing this one for a few weeks now. The Army works in mysterious ways and human resource types adhere to a time-table that they alone know. Last Friday, I was asked formally to accept an offer to be the #2 for Plans and Ops. My portfolio is said to include all emergencies in the US, its territories, and dependencies. The plans for how we respond to earthquakes, wildfires, and terrorist attacks will have my fingerprints all over them. In planning sessions with other agencies, I can speak for and commit the organization to courses of action without racing up the chain for approval. The technical description is Lead Civil Planner, but it’s de facto Deputy Chief, Plans and Ops. HR has the paperwork in the queue and I’m expecting the final word to come down before the end of the year.
It’s the job I moved here to chase. The title bump and pay raise are the goal that kept me focused through the post-Christmas move last year and the only slightly organized chaos of creating an organization out of a half dozen empty rooms. It’s why my desk at home is covered almost every weekend with briefing books and white papers.
This should be a moment of supreme satisfaction. The capstone event of a five year race. Hell, most federal employees cap out at a GS-10 or -11 after a 25 or 30 year career. Even if I were to kick back and rest on my notional laurels, the sheer weight of attrition will keep me on an upward glidepath… Not necessarily because I’m the best, but because I happen to be holding the right grade. The whole thing feels a little hollow, really. I spend my life being prepared for the eventualities, but I wasn’t prepared for that. How’s that for irony.
P.S. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t be bitching about this, so tomorrow morning, I’m gonna suck it up and drive on until I figure out what’s next.
My Christmas Wish…
Just once. Just one time in my life, I would like to not begin Christmas on the 24th of frigging November. I’m serious here people. There is no good reason for Christmas music coming out of every speaker in a building at this point. I mean, I don’t start playing Sousa marches on the 3rd of June do I?
Arrrgghhh… Pardon me, while I go beat myself about the head and neck with a blunt instrument.
Stuffed…
Just for the record, I can actually cook a Thanksgiving dinner. I know, right? It’s a surprise to me too. Now I am thoroughly stuffed and would collapse if bed weren’t three rooms away…
Stupid poetic justice…
So, next time I am bitching about not having anything to blog, someone please remind me to shut the hell up, please. This afternoon, I was expecting to take delivery of 42-inches of plasma goodness. The delivery guys were on target (yes, the Best Buy truck knows how to get to my house even though there are no maps with my neighborhood in them yet). The minute they started pulling it out of the box, I knew something wasn’t right… of course they were behind it, looking at the connections and hadn’t noticed what I was looking at yet… A simply “uhhhh… guys…” was enough to get their attention and draw it to a screen that wasn’t just cracked. It was shattered. Like a baseball through a window kind of shattered…
No problem they say, we’ll call the warehouse and swing by and pick up a new one and be back in an hour or so. They were even nice enough to call ahead and make sure a new set was waiting for them. An hour and a half later, they call back… There’s a problem. The set is out of stock. Now I know a little something about supply operations and being out of an advertised special the day before Thanksgiving is not a good thing to be, but I digress. To make what could become a long and painful rant slightly shorter, I ended up at the store with the “TV manager” trying to reach an agreement. After some extensive haggling and instance on recompense for my inconvenience, we agree that they will just give me the next higher model at no additional cost. Problem solved.
Yeah… not so much. Turns out this model was out of stock too. By this point I asked the guy to just go back to the warehouse and bring me a list of what they actually do have in stock and we’ll work from that. More haggling ensues, with corresponding increases in blood pressure and vocal volume. Finally, after two hours of dickering, finding out what they don’t have on hand, and my generally being obstinate until I got what I wanted, they agreed to a considerable upgrade. Mainly, I think, to get me out of the television section. Of course by now it’s after 7PM and they won’t be able to deliver it after the Thanksgiving weekend. Sigh. Let’s just say the Jeep has more cargo space than you think it does.
So, yes, my TV is here and working beautifully. Of course the stand I ordered with it still has to be delivered. In the grand scheme of life, it’s a minor detail, but you know how I hate it when things don’t go like clockwork.
JEFFREYTHARP.COM 