Checking it twice

The AY09 LT shopping list is on the streets.

(To translate: the list of available jobs for lieutenants up for transfer this coming summer has now been published.)

It's a bit sparse. Last year's list was replete with OPS jobs, particularly 378' OPS jobs (the job I want most; the job I so surprisingly received orders for but had to give up once diagnosed). It really does reasonably follow, then, since they're all two-year billets, that this year's list would be rather truncated.

This coming year, there are are only two 378' OPS jobs open- one ship in Hawaii and one right across the pier here in the Bay Area. Those will of course go #1 and #2 on my list; the question is what comes next.

There are several choices. There are a few 270' OPS jobs, a number of 225' XO jobs, and Weapons Officer for one of the new 418's. There's even XO on a Great Lakes icebreaking tug. Many of these jobs are in locations I'd like, or at least places I'd be interested in checking off my "lived there, done that" list. Each holds its particular appeal, both personally and professionally.

So I know what's on my list - this time I'm not going to list any land jobs, not even as "backups" - but not yet in what order I'll request them. What's best for my career long-term (wide variety of afloat experiences - variety of location, mission, platform/ship type, responsibilities, etc.) and short-term (setting me up for command afloat)?

There's also the detailer (=assignment officer) game to play. Not listing enough jobs gives detailers carte blanche to assign you at will to any available job where they need your skills and experience. Listing a great many jobs definitely increases the chances that you'll be assigned to a "chosen job" over another open position - but on the flip side, listing too many jobs can convey waffly career intentions. As the detailers say, "Put it in your comments!" - but how decisive can I sound without being pushy or demanding? And you never quite know how detailers will react - does already possessing a ship's qualification mean you're more likely to get assigned to that type of ship (to put your expertise to use), or conversely, that you'd be better served on a different platform (to broaden your experience)?

I definitely have some thinking and listening to do. What this list does emphasize is that earning a 378' qualification this fall, after the "e-resumes" (=list of desired jobs) are submitted but before assignments are made, is key. Hence my TAD (temporary duty) afloat plans for the next 8 months...which are, at present, percolating promisingly in the "command discussion" phase.

One more morning

There was a piece of unwelcome news this morning. Well, relatively unwelcome - no cause for panic.

I had confirmed with the techs several times that today would be my last day of radiation. In fact, they started to jump the gun a couple times this week, thinking that Thursday was my last day.

Well, this morning I found out that I have to come back Monday to finish my course of treatment. It really will be cutting it close - I fly out Tuesday night to Alabama.

I was visibly disappointed when the tech told me, and after asking why, she simply couldn't understand why I was frustrated I couldn't put in a full day of work Monday like I'd planned. While it's nice to avoid endless meetings, boring conferences, and piles of deskwork, I still bristle at putting in half-days, particularly when there's plenty of work to be done. Much happens before 0900 and I feel like I'm coming in at lunch time, though I've really only missed a couple of hours.

"We can write you a note," said the tech. "You don't have to be going to work."

Sigh.

A breath of fresh air

This one goes out to the guy a few days back who was flirting with me, ever so gently.

Thanks that the first words out of your mouth didn't reference (or try to skirt around) my illness.

Thanks for the honest surprise when I, bare-headed with downy Chia-pet-hair, told you I'd had cancer. (Thinking the haircut was concomitant with my "sporty look" and G.I. Jane lifestyle gains you bonus points - in fact, truly believing I was some sort of athlete, after a summer of hardly working out due to treatments and side effects, gains you super-bonus-points.)

Thanks for being interested but not prurient; respectful but not embarrassed. You shook my hand without wringing it, looked me in the eye without staring, and never found yourself saying, "I'm so glad you're...still with us..." and lapsing off into uncomfortable silences.

Thanks for using the word "strong" to talk about my body, not my constitution, attitude, or person. Thanks that the "cancer reference story" you used to qualify your concern and interest didn't end in "it was a hard battle for him, but eventually he died".

Thanks for assuming I'd be going to work throughout, and not putting my personal and career goals on hold, or replacing them with a simple wish for survival.

Thanks for neither ignoring nor indulging news of my illness: you simply acknowledged it and moved on. Thanks for conducting several different interesting conversations, none of which centered around cancer - or even mentioned it much.

I don't know your last name, we live in different cities, and I'm sure I'll never see you again, but thanks. You made me feel like a real, ordinary person - attractive besides - and it was refreshing.

Cyclone

It feels unbelievably odd to watch with such detachment (physical and psychological) as Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast. I'm not even at work - I'm visiting my dad in Southern California, going for long hikes, catching up with friends, playing piano & violin (fiddling while Rome burns?), taking naps in the middle of the afternoon just because...

I can't say I'm not following the storm's progress without some interest: with friends from Pensacola to Houston, and a house sitting snugly (on high ground and safely inland) in Mobile, I can scarce ignore it entirely. But this year I have no responsibilities: I'm not policing up loose gear and boarding up windows at home, not being recalled to the ship, not getting underway for storm moorings or hurricane avoidance...or as in my first assignment, not positioning logistical response teams like pieces on a gigantic chess board, safely out of the storm's predicted (and ever-changing) path, folks for damage assessment, repair and rebuilding, evacuation, food, water, fuel, claims, legal assistance, counseling, financial support, spare boat and aircraft parts, transportation, temporary lodging, command posts, generators and other disaster supplies, staging areas...even folks to handle the endless flow of personnel into and out of the affected areas, people carefully siphoned from units across the country. Not attending meetings. Not giving briefings or typing situation reports. Not butting heads with those well senior to me. Not waking from nightmares of the drowned and drowning, worrying for the hundredth time if I'd done enough to prepare or respond. Not surviving on a few hours of broken sleep, nourished only on a large daily Nalgene bottle of orange juice.

(Yeah, someday - when my career's no longer in the balance - I'll probably write a book about all I saw and heard and meddled in...)

My successor at that first assignment called me a couple days ago, sweating bullets over the storm. She's been lucky so far - the past two years were mercifully free of Ivans and Katrinas and Charleys. She wanted to pull me out to Virginia to help her, which normally I would have jumped at, but I'm not exactly free to cut my moorings right now. "You think they have a radiation table there?" I asked her. I tried to reassure her. She'll be fine. She's got a top-notch civilian working for her who was my right-hand man in Katrina. We put a lot of good policies in place after the storm. And this year, thank goodness, the residents and governments are taking the threat seriously and evacuating ahead of time.

So here I sit with this strange detachment, checking the NHC page now and then with mild curiosity, wondering idly if I'll need to alter my road trip to avoid washed-out causeways or if I'll have trouble picking up my car or if a tree might fall on my house. But this year, for once, there's nothing I can do about any of it.

Great simplifications

This summer I have savored a delicious taste, my first since I've been in the Coast Guard, of autonomy. It's been nice. While on paper I reported to three bosses, in practice, I ran my own little sideshow.

Power...when a man believes he knows what orders should be given, is a blessing....It is always a misfortune when number two or three has to initiate a dominant plan or policy. He has to consider not only the merits of the policy, but the mind of his chief; not only what to advise, but what it is proper in his station to advise; not only what to do, but how to get it agreed, and how to get it done.

Mercifully, I have eluded this burdensome yoke for the past few months.

Together with my rag-tag band of hardworking folks who didn't exist (people on medical hold, like me; people awaiting discharge; people sent back from the ships because they couldn't get underway; people awaiting assignment), we quadrupled the size of our "official" division, rescued our million-dollar security guard contract from the jaws of high-level defeat, negotiated an expensive and extensive equipment upgrade package gratis from HQ, re-wrote two landmark manuals for our unit, laid plans to remodel our offices, implemented solid disaster-preparedness steps, handled port services for two out-of-the-ordinary ships mooring in downtown SF, implemented a solid tracking procedure for over 200 people's security clearances, and - in addition to our "ordinary" workload of evaluations, awards, instructions, training, weapons qualification, key control, bomb threat response, traffic court, port services, and daily security - handled the outsized and highly visible security needs of a week's worth of high-level ceremonies, during which we hosted 2/3 of the Coast Guard's flag corps, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and around 2000 guests to celebrate the commissioning of the Coast Guard's newest class of cutter.

Whew.

So now, on the back end of this frantic slew of events and demands, while our haggard division is relievedly taking as much leave as duty allows, after we've written up the "lessons learned" and "hotwashed" and battened down to knock out our remaining responsibilities...ah yes, now arrives my new boss. Or replacement, call it what you will.

I'm not angry or bitter - after all, his job exists and mine doesn't. And it provides perfect exit music as I head out for underway time on our local ships or other TAD opportunities this year. I'm confident I've squared away the division for a presentable handover, unlike the scattershot I inherited. And my new boss is a great guy (ironically, a watchstander I supervised in my first Coast Guard assignment). Still...the added imposition of bureaucracy, well, complicates matters. I've gotten used to handling thorny situations myself, dealing directly with key people, whether our own command cadre, at other units, or at HQ. Having to play politics and then sit impotent feels like a regression. It leaves me doing little more than - shudder - writing manuals all day. And it makes me utterly redundant (see above: a good thing) - my chiefs report to me, and I turn around and play Telephone with my boss. The ultimate in middle management.

At the top there are great simplifications. An accepted leader has only to be sure of what it is best to do, or at least to have made up his mind about it.

From whose bourn no traveler returns

Terminals. The word is so misleading. "Exchange" is so much more appropriate. Like a stock exchange or a mercantile exchange; except instead of securities or hogs, it's people coming and going, trading one city for another, constant motion, endless options.

I love to travel. And I love airports. Not, of course, for the endless sits in plastic molded chairs, or the hurried strip-search at the security checkpoint, or the overpriced pseudo-regional fast food smelling up the waiting areas, overcrowded with screaming toddlers and rumpled businessmen, folded over their laptops, too cheap to fly first class but angling endlessly for upgrades. I love to walk along and glance over at all the other destinations, all the places I'm not going, as I wander to my gate, envisioning myself in Paris, Ft. Lauderdale, or Butte, blaming the inscrutability of descriptionless numbers for assigning me to flight 1202 to Portland instead of 1203 to New York; gate A37 to Oregon instead of C37 to Toronto. Airports hum with possibilities.

It's not so easy to board the wrong aircraft (though I've done it), to "accidentally" arrive in unintended places, but cars are another matter entirely. The "next big city" destinations on freeway signs always tempt me terribly. Why exit here, at mile marker 28? Why not keep going into the Gorge, to the Dalles, to Idaho? It's not that far, right? If I just keep driving...Sunsets are especially alluring. Why not stay behind the wheel until sunrise, wherever the road takes me, wherever I end up? What if I'm not there on Monday morning? What if I just don't come home? What undiscovered country awaits me?

Perhaps the threat of truancy is so tempting because I'm so damn reliable. I certainly wasn't itching to come back to radiation today, though. Halfway done with the zappings, I escaped to Portland this weekend for a friend's wedding and to spend time with my mom. Beautiful weather, tasty (mostly vegan) food, refreshing walks outdoors, a massage, church, roller skating, and a very entertaining wedding...not to mention, somehow, a lot of relaxation...and despite its various protests, my body was very happy to avoid the zapper for a couple days. But radiation beckoned, this afternoon, inexorably.

What if I just stay here?...if I take a different flight?...if I stay at work too late?...if I miss my bus, or my train, or my shuttle?...if I just don't show up?

I've never been all that good at breaking the rules.

An Epic Journey

The Epic Journey approacheth.

Shortly after I finish radiation, I fly to Alabama to see some friends, pick up my car, and begin the long trek back West.

In my race to get out here for treatment in April, I (intentionally) left my car and just about everything else behind in Alabama. Driving a couple thousand miles across country in a mad rush wasn't so attractive. My stuff - that which I didn't rent out with my house or box up in long-term storage - rejoined me, for the most part, in early June, once I had an apartment here. But my car remains down South. I won't use her much, here, but the mobility will be nice. And besides, I miss her.

So in early September, I'm taking some time off work and setting out on a road trip for the ages, stopping to visit friends, places I like, and (mostly) places I've always wanted to see, viz.:

Mobile, AL
New Orleans, LA
Baton Rouge, LA
Shreveport, LA
Port Arthur, TX
Houston, TX
Austin, TX
San Antonio, TX
Roswell, NM
Albuquerque, NM
Canyon de Chelly, AZ
Mesa Verde/Durango, CO
Salt Lake City, UT
Lake Tahoe, NV
Yosemite, CA
San Francisco, CA

Altogether, about 3500 miles and 11 or 12 days. Most days, around 7 hours of driving, with plenty of time for sight-seeing both in and out of the car. I'm aiming to stop at the kitschiest motels along the way, pick up some unique and unusual souvenirs, and in general, indulge my Bad Girl of the Open Road.

If you live along the route, I'd love to stop by and say hi; just let me know. If you have recommendations to enhance this Classic and Epic Road Trip, I'm open to those too.

The fun kicks off shortly.