Washington DC - September 1993
I spent a couple of days at the Hoffman's in Annapolis before checking into the BOQ at Anacostia in south east DC. Then I began the serious car shopping and apartment hunting. After looking at new Barons, VW Cabriolets, Honda's, Toyotas, I decided to get a GEO. Pretty sad, but it's practically paid for, I've filled it up three times since I've bought it and its great at fitting into "almost" parking spots which are at a premium in DC, and if it gets dented, so what. The apartment housing was not good. I was spoiled with my new apartment in Hawaii. There are very few buildings in the district that are less than 30 years old. I must have looked at 30 places, and still had a huge list of people to call, set up appointments, go see and I had to start work soon.
One place I looked at was at the corner of M St. and Wisconsin. At the very heart of Georgetown. I would open the front door and see The Gap, Banana Republic, and Britches stores less than a block away. It had a fireplace and skylights, but no parking. Georgetown is the pits for parking and lot parking was $150 a month, underground was $200. Not quite in my price range. I finally found a place that is almost equidistant from work and school, about a mile and a half each way. It has a large step down living room and a step down bedroom. Washer/dryer, dishwasher, and a balcony. And parking is affordable. I plan to get a bike real soon so I can bike to work and school. Well as I was apartment hunting I went by campus to take a look. I went to my department and found out that I could take a summer school class. So I did. Big mistake, huge, huge mistake. International Arms Trade, taught by a visiting prof from the University of Tel Aviv. A mid-term, a final, an oral presentation, and a 15 page research paper, plus appendices. In five weeks, with classes from 6 to 740 p.m. on Mon, Tue and Thurs. Now I have got a real job, more on that later, and it’s kind of hard for me to cruise around DC getting a lot of info from the many sources available to me. The National Library is only open at night on Tue and Thurs during the summer. Then the prof announces that he has to leave early to go back to Israel so he moves everything up a week. Panic attack. Now I have not been in an academic environment in several years, that coupled with no book, only articles from magazines as course readings, and I was a wreck. I paid a grand for this class. I have to get a B for it to count, and I get a 79 on the mid-term. Now you shorten the rest of the class. So here I am in DC, supposedly living a real life, and I'm like some monk in my apartment trying to write this paper and study for my final. Sounds vaguely like the Naval Academy doesn't it? But I pulled through like the cramming champ I am after the Naval Academy. 84 on the paper. 93 on the final. But it was ugly. I mean when was the last time I was told to write four essays in two hours, go! The Navy specializes in abbreviated, bullet format, non-grammatical writing. I mean I couldn't spell essay to save my life a couple of weeks ago. The apartment was a wreck cause I would come home from work/school and do homework. But overall it was a good class, and very interesting. I'm looking forward to classes this fall. I'll take two and two weekend seminars. So I get a break for a couple of weeks, maybe figure out what my job is? Nah.
Work. What a pain. I showed up and got told well, they are overmanned in the personnel and manpower directorate, so I'm going to Plans and Programs. So I am the action officer for implementing two new major systems as part of the Defense Message System. I'm the guy on the ship that avoided writing messages like the plague, know almost nothing of shore based communication, and know just enough about computers to be dangerous, and am in charge of implementing two major systems. What a joke. The whole DMS thing is to reduce manpower and costs ($$$$$$) by using PC based systems to replace those huge OLD mainframe machines. At the end of this transition, sometime in 2010, someone will be able to write a message on his PC, afloat or ashore, and send it to someone else anywhere in the world. Pretty cool but getting there is difficult as we "right size". If I hear that one more time I'm going to gag. But the kicker for this is that these two major systems are so far behind schedule that I may leave NCTC before they are ready to be fielded. So I've been tossed odd jobs to keep me busy and it is very haphazard. This morning I was bored to tears and playing with the computer, and this afternoon I was so busy I didn't leave till 1615. I know that sounds rough but I generally get to work around 0700-0715. Its 15 minutes from my door to my desk. But recently I've been getting up and going to the gym before work. But that's still a long day. Most people work 7-330pm, and the civilians get this RDO, regular day off, every two weeks, hello how do I sign up? The thing about work is that there are two female officers in my office and they both have jobs that are real and I sit and stare at space some days. I know I shouldn't complain after shipboard life, but I can do more.
The social scene is okay here. I've been to a couple of clubs, haven't found my hang out yet. I met two guys across the hall who just moved into the building. Both are fresh out of college, a small school in Connecticut, and one of them is in my grad school program. We have also met up with a nurse from Georgetown who is really cool. We go out a lot, it’s sort of like Seinfeld meets the Twilight Zone. We've been doing the tourist thing a lot. We went to the Smithsonian last weekend. We are planning a road trip to Bush Gardens in September. We have discovered the university bar and plan to be regulars once the school year starts.
Well you've got my new address, and I'm not going anywhere for a while, so please write!