January 2010 -- We're In the Army Now

You better sit down -- what I have to say will be quite a shock.

Ready?

I now live in Alexandria, Virginia.

<pause for the shock to set in>

Funny the places you'll go and things you'll do upon necessity. After I left Citigroup (only the TINIEST of regrets there), I did a whole lot of . . . well, hardly anything for pretty much the rest of 2008. There were a few glorious side trips:

bullet In July of 2008, I jetted over to London for a 30-hour whirlwind of musical theater and partying in the West End with the stars of the English National Opera 

bullet A marvelous five-day canoe trip through the Adirondack Wilderness, August 2008

Otherwise, the latter part of the year was spent in job hunt mode. Scary to be out of work for that long when you have a HUGE mortgage to pay.

But oh, the jobs I did land. First and BEST was an all-too-short project at the United Nations, doing training and user documentation for a new intranet portal. Such people, such an environment, such a thrill. I even got to spend a week at in Geneva for the pilot training.

I then moved on to Parsons Brinckerhoff, the engineering firm. Basically the same kind of work, but I never got to leave the dingy offices on 7th Avenue at 34th (ugh). That lasted five months, and then ended when they ran out of money to pay me with. No big loss, that.

In and amongst all that, I sat for and passed the U. S. State Department's Foreign Service Officer exam. I came to DC for two days in March 2009 for the orals, which I sadly did not pass -- although I do know exactly why I didn't.

As fickle fate would have it, I did end up in DC anyway. I'm now working for a web consulting firm in Virginia, and our current client is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I'm Mr. SharePoint to thousands of men and women in uniform.

I'm not missing New York too much. I never really did consider myself a true New Yorker, and never really envisioned myself staying there for an extended period. I still own my co-op on 70th Street (my niece Ashley is living there now), and I'm renting an apartment in Alexandria with a panoramic view that includes the Washington Monument, the Capitol, National Airport, and the Potomac River. Photos here!

Looks like I got my wish from my last posting -- not one, but SEVERAL very cool jobs.

Michael