Thumbs Up, Daddy!

Went to Chevy Chase this week to get a look at the new wee bitty one....


That's my girl!


In other news, Vietnamese training is, well, ongoing. Where all the time has gone I cannot tell, but if there is anything akin to purgatory on earth it must be the intensive language training at FSI. You are not in the hell of your former job/life/whatever, but you are also not in the heaven of your first post. In a way, it feels like I have plunged into the darkest jungle of the Congo, cut off from man and civilization and I am just waiting for a "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" moment when I come out the other side.

In actuality, it really isn't that bad, but you do seem to sort of go into a kind of suspended animation where your social and family life all grind down to a snail's pace. I also recently experienced the phenomenon known as "the wall." It was as if I just stopped absorbing any Vietnamese for a week or two, and I also felt like I had forgotten some of the simplest things I had learned in the first weeks of training. I have heard tell of tears of frustration at this point in training. Fortunately I have not melted down, but there have been moments when I wanted to go kick something, for sure.

I found that my remedy for the frustration was to review all the things I have already learned. The sheer amount of this language that I do know is very encouraging, I just had to remind myself that I do in fact know a lot of Vietnamese, and can actually have a coherent conversation using the language.

Somebody thinks we're beautiful.

Nation names in Vietnamese fall into two distinct groups:

1. Cognates

2. Names that actually mean something.

For instance, cognates are recognizable, like Thái Lan or Canada. Non-cognates have absolutely no rhyme or reason. Germany is nước Đức, Australia is nước Úc, and Belgium is nước Bỉ. (By the way, "nước" simply means "country.")

America is nước Mỹ. It never occurred to me to ask my instructor what that word actually means. During class, we translated "United States of America." It is Hợp chủng quốc Hoa Kỳ. The first three words literally mean "united states." The interesting part is the last two words. Hoa means "flower," and kỳ means "flag." In Vietnamese, our nation's name literally means "United States of the Floral Flag." Apparently the Vietnamese think we have a busy flag. I never thought of it that way, but as flags go, ours IS a little busy.

The word for America is nước Mỹ. It means "beautiful country." Americans are người Mỹ, or, "people of the beautiful country".

I'll take it.

Tôi nói tiếng Việt một ít.

It is hard to believe that I have been learning to speak Vietnamese for four weeks now. It is a strange feeling knowing that I know so little and can barely communicate in this new language, yet when I review the vocabulary that I currently have it comes out to about 200-300 words. The sheer amount of vocabulary that is required to speak a language at a highly fluent level is staggering when you think about it. I can thumb through a Vietnamese dictionary, wondering how I can ever stuff so much information in my head and retain it. Yet, I can thumb through an English dictionary and very rarely come across a word I am not familiar with.

Vietnamese is a tonal language. There are six tones if you include the non-inflected neutral tone (called thanh ngang). As tonal languages go, that’s a lot of tones. Fortunately, Vietnamese comes in two major dialects; Northern and Southern. The Southern variant is the one I am learning, and two of the tones are combined which means that I technically only have to master five. That’s plenty. The ironic thing here is that the tones don’t bother me. Getting my voice used to the up-down song of the language has taken a little time, but I can hear the tones easily. I suppose that my many years as a musician are paying off in a way that I did not foresee.

The Vietnamese language has a Romanized alphabet, which was given to the Vietnamese people by a French missionary some time in the 1500s, I believe. Sort of a Vietnamese St. Cyril. I initially thought that this would make things easier, but alas, I was wrong. In some ways it makes things worse because the Roman letters given to the language need to be heard through a French ear to make sense. It seems as if it would have almost been easier to try to learn to read this language in its original Asian script. At least then I would not continually forget to pronounce the letter “d” like an English speaker instead of the “y” sound that it actually represents. (By the way, the actual “d” sound in Vietnamese is denoted by the letter “đ”. To make things worse, there are something like 13 vowels in Vietnamese. In addition to our old friends a, e, i, o, u, and y, we also have ă, â, ê, ô, ư, and ơ. I won’t even get into how those bad boys are pronounced. Most of them involve accidental discharges of saliva.

When I began language training it occurred to me that I knew absolutely no Vietnamese words outside of the few slang terms I learned from reading James Webb’s “Fields of Fire.” I was literally at zero. It dawned on me that even knowing as little Spanish as I do, I know a LOT more Spanish than I do Vietnamese, even after a month of classes in the latter. It is daunting to jump into something like this without even knowing how to say “yes” or “no.” In fact, I still don’t really know exactly how to say “yes” or “no.” Since Vietnamese is a face-saving culture, there are words that don’t really mean yes or no, but some ambiguous middle ground that allows you to say yes or no without directly saying yes or no. Sort of a “not yes.” Wonderful.

There are very few Western cognates in Vietnamese. The few that I can detect are French, of course. However, the Vietnamese incorporated at least one English word from the period when U.S. forces were in their country. The Vietnamese word for “cafeteria” is “căng tin” (canteen).

Also I am not sure this is a cognate, but it sure as heck ought to be:

Vietnamese for “powerful” is....

“hùng mạnh.”

Indeed.

Slacker

Yes, Dear Reader, I have been somewhat sedentary at the computer for the last several weeks. I was busy shaping U.S. foreign policy.

Not really.

Actually, the truth is that I was temporarily assigned over to the Bureau of Arms Control and International Security, otherwise known as "T". I was a temporary staff assistant during what was a very interesting time in that bureau. I got to experience a Senate confirmation from the bureaucratic sidelines, as well as the transition to the State Department of a new Under Secretary and her staff. It was quite the experience for an entry level officer. After five weeks there, I feel like I learned just enough about the Harry S. Truman building to be dangerous. I'll bet that no other entry level officer with just five months in knows the process for obtaining a parking pass for a reserved spot underneath the building. I'll also wager that no entry level officer knows the process by which artwork can be obtained for a front office! Better yet, I know precisely who to contact if you happen to work on the seventh floor and need to get new carpet installed, have a phone line set up, get a classified email account, who can answer a question about just about any portion of the START treaty, and the shortest route from the number 2 corridor 7th floor to the jogger's entrance. If I am still around 20 years from now I'll be sure to put those little skills to good use, my friends. Or not... To be honest, I cannot see how FSOs do not bite, scratch and claw their way to foreign assignments. To each his own, I guess. I can see how someone could thrive on the atmosphere of the 7th floor, and my time there was certainly enjoyable and valuable, but I am pretty certain that places like Ho Chi Minh City will always be the favored option for me.

Some tidbits-

Questions for the Record for Senate confirmations can make you stay at work very late.

The Foggy Bottom Metro station is not a good place to catch an orange line train at 1700 hours.

After five weeks the selection in the HST cafeteria gets a little, well, yuck.

The occasional goofy question or comment from the floor adds spice to Secretary Clinton's Town Hall meetings. So do the raucous outbursts over Mozilla Firefox. That being said, the Secretary genuinely seems to be having fun. That's good for everyone, I think.

There needs to be a decent bar near the Foggy Bottom Metro station.

Leather soles wear out fast on concrete sidewalks.

Classified web browsing.

Hot dog vendors.

The collective expertise of the arms control advisors in T is mind-staggering.

Free newspapers.

Sifting through cable traffic is tedious.

State generates LOTS of cables.

Subway musicians.

Person at HST you don't want to piss off: the disintegrator guy. Do not mix plastic CDs with paper in burn bags. Put them in separate bags, or Mr. Disintegrator Room Guy will git on you.

Meeting a VIP at the C Street entrance is easier if you know what he looks like. Holding a sign with his name makes you look like a dork.

Five different safe combinations and three different alpha numeric computer passwords can be successfully memorized in short order.

A good sweat will mess up a good suit. Walking around the Rayburn building several times at noon in the summer will produce a good sweat.

Seersucker on Friday!

Friday was my last day at Main State. Like Icarus I fell back to earth on Monday and began what will be 31 weeks of Vietnamese classes. I was a little intimidated at the prospect at first; only speaking English and Vietnamese being a super hard language, but after just three days I have all five tones in my head and can pick them out when I hear them. I think this is the first time since college that I have enjoyed being in a classroom. Besides, how cool is it to get paid to learn an exotic language? Sometime around week 25 check back with me and see if I am still all peace-love-puppy dogs about it. For now I'll enjoy.

Charleston.

"Though I will always be a visitor to Charleston, I will always remain one with a passionate belief that it is the most beautiful city in America and to walk the old section of the city at night is to step into the bloodstream of a history extravagantly lived by a people born to a fierce and unshakable advocacy of their past. To walk in the spire-proud shade of Church Street is to experience the chronicle of a mythology that is particular to this city and this city alone, a trinitarian mythology with equal parts of the sublime, the mysterious, and the grotesque." 

-Pat Conroy, "The Lords of Discipline"

Though I will always be a son of the Old North State, I sometimes remind myself that I spent all of my adult life thus far in Charleston. I spent eighteen years growing up on a farm in Tobacco Road, and I spent twenty-two years in Charleston, if you don't count the year in Baghdad. Like Pat Conroy I will always be a visitor there, I never really became a Charlestonian in over two decades of living and working as an employee of the city. I was in good company though, I am not sure that I ever met more than fifty "true" Charlestonians while I was living in the city. I received my introduction to Charleston the same way Conroy did- with a screaming First Sergeant and a shaved head. I had never really experienced the steam of a Lowcountry August before those first weeks, and barracks at The Citadel were not air conditioned. It was not pleasant, even at night. How ironic it is that the dank smells of Charleston during a summer night with the tree frogs singing their million songs would bring me back to those days, without the fear and the homesickness, but with fondness and not a small desire for younger, simpler days. Maybe time has a way of smoothing out the rough edges of old memories, but time also gave me a chance to learn the Lowcountry. If you learn Charleston, you love it.

Just about every important life landmark that occurs to every young man happened to me in Charleston. My whole adult experience is there. The full spectrum of my memory, from the joy of birth and love, to the sadness and tragedy of violence and death are rooted there. When I think of happy times they are draped in Spanish moss. When I recall sadness there are live oaks and sweetgrass in the background. 

Shortly after I knew that I would be leaving Charleston, my wife took Tater out to Folly Beach with a photographer to get some pictures of her before we moved. We got the pictures back a few days ago. As I looked at the pictures, one in particular stuck out. Tater was standing on the beach with the horizon broken only by the Morris Island light. That was when the gravity of the move hit me. That one picture signified a coda for the passage that began in 1986. It occurred to me that to her, Charleston will just be where she was born. I'll take her back there surely, but she'll be a visitor. 

Like her Dad.

Jury duty.

It only took me two months of being an ex-cop before they found me. "They" being the City of Charleston Municipal Court. Some people go almost their entire lives without ever being called. I essentially got the call after being in the pool for two months. In a way, it sort of makes me wonder if someone down at 180 Lockwood Boulevard didn't make sure my name wound up at the top of the stack. As much as I would love a week down in Charleston with nothing to do but catch up on my reading, it would throw a major monkey wrench into my training schedule here in DC.

Oh, and by the way, catching up on my reading is about all I would be able to do on jury duty, since I would NEVER actually be seated on a jury in ten million years. Even if every lawyer died suddenly, leaving behind only idiots and poltroons to be lawyers, I would NEVER be seated on a jury. (I know the inherent joke in the last sentence, I figured I'd just leave it out there....)

The U.S. State Department does not ask that its employees be excused from what is their solemn duty as citizens. (No, not taxes....) Therefore, all I could do was send a letter to the court asking a little leniency and explaining the hardship that would befall me should I miss a week of consular training. My CDO (Career Development Officer- a real stand up guy) enclosed a little letter explaning the impact my absence would have on my scheduled deployment to Vietnam. So, the fingers are crossed, awaiting the verdict.

In the meantime, I am trying to think of how I could answer questions about my fitness to be a juror, if my humble plea goes unheard.

"I'd make a great juror, Your Honor, I can spot a guilty bastard a mile away!"

Newly minted diplomats.

The ceremonial swearing-in ceremony for my A-100 class happened last Friday. Quite frankly, the last two weeks have been a blur and I have finally depressurized to the point that I feel like writing anything. At the ceremony, our keynote speaker was Under Secretary Burns (U/S for Political Affairs). I got to speak to him briefly a couple weeks ago when he gave a presentation to our class over at the Truman Building. I mentioned to him that my old band director from The Citadel tried to encourage me to go into the Navy or Marine Corps as a musician, but since I ultimately wound up in the Foreign Service, I could be considered one less military musician at DoD and one additional diplomat at DoS. (There is an old joke about the comparative sizes of the Departments of Defense and State. It is said that DoD has more musicians than DoS has employees.)

The big treat at our ceremony was the appearance of Ambassador Lawrence Eagleburger. Ambassador Eagleburger is the only FSO to serve as Secretary of State (under George H.W. Bush). I am a relative newcomer to State, and was not all that familiar with him prior to the announcement that he would be swearing us in, but he is quite the rock star amongst the more senior crowd at State. All the ambassadors and Under Secretary Burns seemed thrilled to see him. He was quite the character, too. As it turns out, we have an Eagleburger in our A-100 class who wrote him a letter a few weeks prior to the ceremony, mentioning that she had just learned about him and was intrigued at their shared surname. Apparently Ambassador Eagleburger was intrigued too, because he decided to come swear us in.

Now here I am almost a week later, studying to become a Consular Officer. It seems like a month ago that I was in the sheltering nest of A-100 even though it was just a few days. So many of us have gone our separate ways. Some will be leaving for post this June. Some of us will wait as long as April and May 2010 to depart after language training and other courses. I'll be heading out in February 2010. There are happy hours and outings planned in the near future, but I think it is safe to say that swearing in was the last time we would all be together in one place.

And the winner is....

We got our high bid. Ho Chi Minh City, here we come!

(After learning to speak Vietnamese first, of course.)

Shut Up.

I guess all that talk about dissent being the highest form of patriotism doesn't count any more.

Suspense and torture.

Suspense because Friday is Flag Day. This is when we have a ceremony at the George Schultz Foreign Affairs training Center and everyone finds out where they are going for their first assignments. It is called Flag Day because each new FSO is presented with a small flag of the country where they will be going.

Torture because apparently folks in the know at Main State (the Harry S. Truman building) seem to already know that we mostly got our high bids and are dropping hints to that effect. Now I am looking back at all my high bids trying to figure out where I might be sent. We are not supposed to publicize the bid list, and since stating my high bids would be revealing a portion of the list, I'll just stay mum.

Until Friday.

Reason #2974 for getting out of police work

Confederate Yankee wonders if more people died because of the police response in Binghamton, NY.

This is a dangerous speculative road to go down. The post itself didn't bug me, but some of the replies did. There seems to be a notion that there is a duty to protect in police work. Let provide a clue to those of you who do not already know this: THERE IS NO DUTY TO PROTECT on the part of police officers. Before you conjure up mental images of coward cops who would rather stay at the doughnut shop rather than charge into a shooting scene with guns blazing, consider what things would look like if police officers were bound by law to insert themselves into life threatening situations. The implications on the force continuum alone would be enough to make most people think twice about making this a requirement.

The bottom line here is that if you are looking for the police to save you from every situation, then you are in big trouble. The fact that there is no duty to protect is what gives the police the discretion to act on information available to them at the time of an incident. If you take discretion away, you create many more problems than you solve. Mandatory arrest laws (which I still believe to be unconstitutional) have proven this time and time again. Police making arrests for VERY trivial matters invariably make the news and create indignation, but those situations are almost always the result of discretion being removed from a officer's toolbox.

My old department has conducted a lot of training in active shooter situations. If we arrived at a shooting where the shooter is still doing his thing, then we would put together a small tactical group from the officers on scene and we would go in looking for the bad guy. However, even this response is not immediate, and the chance of successfully eliminating the threat is only slightly elevated in exchange for the greatly heightened risk to both innocent civilians and officers alike. I know what I would personally do, given an active shooter situation. I also know that most of the officers I worked with would go in with me. However, I know enough to know that there is no substitute for being there on scene, seeing and hearing what is happening, and that there ARE situations where I would not go in immediately. I would like to say that my department would hae moved in on the Binghamton shooter immediately, but then again, I wasn't there, and neither were the commenters on Confederate Yankee's blog entry.

Ironically, active shooter response requires that there actually be an active shooter present. If officers present do not hear gunfire (either the shooter has left, capped himself, etc) then protocol is to set up a perimeter and wait for a dedicated entry team. I think that Confederate Yankee's post insinuated that some injured people may have bled out and died while waiting for the police to get inside to them. Again, I don't know because I wasn't there. Neither were you.

If you expect perfect performance from the police during critical incidents and shootings, then try applying that standard to your own profession and see how it goes. Critical incidents are dynamic and very difficult to control. The police cannot read minds and they cannot see through walls. If our public is moving towards the point where the police are required to take foolish risks as a condition of their employment, then I say be prepared to take the law into your own hands, because only fools will be police officers.

I can't believe I forgot this.

Consul-at-Arms reminded me that today is National Tartan Day.

It's a little chilly in DC this morning, but what the heck.

ISTP

That's it. I have been condensed down to a four letter indicator and slapped with the label- Introvert-Sensing-Thinker-Perceiver. I never placed a lot of stock in categorizing people, even though I do know that some labels have validity, such as 'tyrant' or 'pederast'. That said, I looked on the Internet today for a little more information on this type from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. (For the unannointed, the MBTI is given to entry level FSOs at orientation.)

It turns out that I found some very interesting things about this person. He can get bored quickly. He needs variety and adventure in his life. He shines during critical incidents. His type can tend to gravitate towards jobs in law enforcement (!) and the military. Hmm.

In spite of some startling revelations during my informal research, I am still one of those cynics who knows that horoscopes are written so ambiguously as to give everyone a sort of "Hey, that's me for sure!" feeling. Even so, reading about the ISTP actually gave me a start once or twice. I know that the MBTI has been proven to be statistically valid, but the test itself seems so simplistic that it defies logic that it could actually be accurate. (ISTPs, by the way, are also analytical, objectively critical, and interested in how and why things work.....)

Now, on to the fun horoscopy stuff-

Famous ISTPs include Rowan Atkinson, Clint Eastwood, President Zachary Taylor, Michael Jordan, Chuck Yeager and Amelia Earhart.

ISTPs make up 5.5% of the population.

Now it's time to log off and go fly my model helicopter. I'm bored.

Suit

I stood at attention and raised my right hand and said the words for the third time in my life today.

Sailor, police officer, diplomat.

I looked around in the building during breaks, in awe of what I had become a part of. I am even more in awe of the people I am surrounded by. There is quite a bit of substance behind all the paper credentials. I am torn between a feeling of humility that these are my peers and a feeling that I somehow fooled someone to be here.

On a lighter note... after 23 years of wearing everything from wool choker collars to bullet-proof vests, this suit thing ain't so bad. For the first time in my life, I had to consider the color of my socks before leaving for work.

A sad end to one of the greatest pipe bands ever.

The Strathclyde Police Pipe Band is folding. This is quite a hit to the pipe band world, even more so than when the Victoria Police Pipe Band was deactivated a few years ago. The Strathclyde Police is essentially the state police for the area in Scotland that includes Glasgow, where the band is headquartered. I have always been a big fan of this band, and I actually visited their practice room at the main HQ in Glasgow back in 2003 when I was at the World Pipe Band Championships that year. I hoisted a few pints with them after their win that year at the Station Pub, which is right around the corner from the main HQ and where I used to stay at Caledonian University. I actually have a Charleston Police patch up on the wall there, where generations of Strathclyde Police pipers have celebrated their many World Championships.

The article about the demise of the band is in Pipes|Drums. Read it here.

Needless to say, this is the result of apathetic chief constables and the current economy probably doesn't help. Pipes|Drums had a few asinine quotes from the Strathclyde leadership, my favorite one was from Anne McGuire, the commander of the division that includes the band:

"Well, once you have learned your songs, why do you need to practice?"

I think a public flogging might be in order. Once this news sinks in in Glasgow, there might well be. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that question from a police commander in Charleston I would have retired years ago. It provides a peek into why pipe bands suffer and die at the hands of non-pipers. Lack of understanding.

It would be funny if it wasn't so prophetic.

A friend sent me a joke today. It goes like this:

How the stimulus plan will work:

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House. One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota. All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me." 

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me." 

The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700." The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?" The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."

"Done!" replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.

Some intellectual honesty from HuffPo!

I don't read HuffPo. The gratuitous beatdown of GWB over the past several years soured me on them, as well as the Kozzers and the rest. However, I am glad that Tigerhawk monitors HuffPo, because he uncovered a real gem of a letter to the editor here. (Blue language alert!)

The author is a self-admitted Marxist and no fan of the right. That being said, he has spent quite a bit of time in Anbar, and knows the political and social dynamic there. It just goes to show that you can be a raging leftist and still be objective about what is going on in Iraq right now. It also shows that even if you disagreed with our reasons for going there, no good purpose is served by trying to promote a defeatist attitude based simply on a dislike for those who support our presence in Iraq.

I'll give anyone some dap for journalistic objectivity no matter what their politics are. This guy gets it.

The Last Shift

My last shift was yesterday.

I started my career back in 1992 as a reserve officer with CPD, and went full time in 1993. I was assigned to Team Three, which covers the James Island and Johns Island areas. It was a sleepy patrol team back then, and convetional wisdom had it that it was not the best place to get one's feet wet as a cop. I was lucky in that I had a hard charging FTO (field training officer) who took me into the busier areas when time and staffing allowed. In the seventeen years since those days, I spent time in every patrol team in the department.

A few weeks ago, before I was given the offer by the State Department, I was transferred back to Team Three from what had been a seven year stint in our department's toughest district (Team One downtown). I suppose there is something about things coming full circle. I only spent about two weeks in Team Three before I dropped my resignation papers. I hardly had time to get to know the new squad I was commanding.

Having been used to very busy shifts for several years, it was somehow numbing to spend my last day on patrol with very few calls. I suppose that was a good thing. I really don't need to be subpoenaed back to Charleston while I am trying to do my training in DC. I still have a few cases that have not been disposed of yet, but there are other police witnesses in those cases which will likely allow them to go forward without me.

It was a lucky day for a most of the people I came into contact with in the official sense. All traffic stops ended with a warning ticket, all investigative detentions ended with a release. I looked for aggressive panhandlers out near Secessionville Road. I dispersed some of the local dope peddlers around Ferguson Village. I had lunch with one of my patrolmen who I have known for some time. I made my way around the main headquarters saying goodbyes. I signed off on a couple bank fraud and B&E auto reports. Ditto for a couple of traffic accident reports.

At the end of the day, around 1700, the evening shift checked in service. It was time to take the car to the barn for the last time. I decided to take in a couple places along the way, so I drove past where Ricky Love bled out years ago. I took in the cemetery on James Island where Brian McEvers is buried. I drove downtown past the corner where Dennis LaPage was murdered in cold blood. I then pointed the old car towards headquarters, passing the police memorial in Brittlebank Park where all of our line of duty deaths are remembered. I turned into the parking lot and found a spot close to the building. It was time to get on the radio for the last time, to record officially on the dispatch tape that I was no longer in service. Not just for today, but forever. I sat in the car for what must have been ten minutes, looking at the citizens and officers walking around, going about their business. I sat there with the mike in my hand. Perhaps somebody was out there listening, waiting to hear the Sarge check out of service for the last time, for good or ill. I should consider myself lucky. Some guys' last acts on this job have been to stop breathing, and a bugler marked their passing. I wish I could still hear them on the radio today.

I replaced the mike on its hook without saying anything, got out of the car, and walked away.

Caswell Airpark

The official blog of the Caswell County Historical Society recently put up a post about the airstrip on the family farm back home. It is an interesting read, and includes a picture of the underground hangar that my grandfather built there. 

He was always burrowing.

Stranded

Another gratuitous picture of the Tater:

Last week, Mrs. Warpiper took her eyes off the Tater for approximately 5 seconds. Tater managed to get stuck on the sink, giggling and laughing at her predicament. Laughing in the face of adversity isn't a trait I would have expected from a 16-month old, but I'll take it.

Alone

It is like an itch I can't scratch. 

Mrs. Warpiper and Tater went to Philly for the week to see old Bucknell friends. I have reverted to my younger days and have actually played the sax out on the town for two nights straight now. Maybe I am just trying to take my mind off the fact that I miss them. 

Speaking of playing the sax, I really have no idea how I played in various rock bands for so many years. After playing at a club with an old band member last night, I woke this morning (morning is a misnomer in this case) with a raging headache and what had to have been about twenty cotton balls in my mouth. Stinky cotton balls, at that. I don't know what happened to my stamina, but I used to do this about four nights a week, on average. Right now I think that if I did it one more night I would need supplemental oxygen or something. 

Today, after I managed to get over the worst of the day-after blahs, I managed to clean out a portion of my storage unit in preparation for the big move in a couple weeks. I was amazed at how easily I was able to sever the bond with so many old possessions. Then again, I think I cut the cord with about 50% of my stuff when I left for Iraq back in 2004. 

I hope that one day many years from now I don't find myself wishing I still had my old 7th grade report cards.

Gross Tater

Adorable kid, yes? That's a ruse. This child has a dark side. Among her other tricks, Tater has learned an especially adorable little one that she displayed for us today. Tater likes to stuff entirely too many graham crackers in her mouth. In the past, she would just chew and chew until she got them to go down. Today she learned that she can spit graham cracker mush into her hand and then feed it to the waiting and ever grateful dog. Mmmmmmgood!

Also, Mrs. Warpiper has informed me that it is customary to credit photographers when displaying their art. 

The above photo was taken by Mrs. Warpiper.

The Call

   It came today. It was totally unexpected. My ranking on the hiring register was such that I was hopeful for a call for the May A-100 class, but it looks like I now have a little over four weeks to close up shop in Charleston, get my life in order, pack out, and report to DC for the start of the next class on 2 March.

   It is hard to know how to feel right now. The last seventeen years of my life have been spent as a cop. Being a cop is akin to being a prison inmate. You become institutionalized. Cops tend to only hang out with each other for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the shared knowledge of a calling that is mostly misunderstood by the general public. I am going to miss my friends and comrades of the last seventeen years. I'll miss the unpredictability of the job, but then I am sure that being a U.S. Foreign Service Officer will have plenty of that, as well. 

Right now, Mrs. Warpiper and I are walking about six inches off the ground, with an excitement that is tempered with the knowledge of the five million things we are going to have to accomplish within the next four weeks. I think that this is going to be a great trip, and I'll be sure to keep you all up to date on the upcoming journey.

The Underground House

   My grandfather, Dr. L.G. Page, had eccentric interests. Papa was a dentist, entrepreneur, amateur inventor, professional whisky drinker, de-segregator, pilot, and from what I can tell, a professional dreamer. Stories about Papa could fill volumes, and even to this day I hear a story about him that is new to me. 

   One of Papa's interests was in the area of underground dwellings. He built an underground hangar on the airport on our farm in North Carolina. Airplanes have been kept in it for many years. He also built an underground "house" next to his regular house on the family farm. Built into a hillside with concrete walls and ceiling, this underground home was very modern in 1961. It had full plumbing and electricity complete with a living room, two bedrooms and a kitchen. Recently, WRAL TV in Raleigh did a short story on the underground house, with a brief interview with my father. 

The link to the video is here.

   Dad, ever the "It's No Big Deal" guy that he is, didn't mention to me that he had done the interview. My aunt sent me the link. During the email exchange, I mentioned one story of Papa which had always stuck in my mind. It seems that Papa once built a bicycle with an alternative form of propulsion. Instead of linking the pedal chain to the back wheel, he linked it to a propeller mounted to the bicycle. Papa would propel himself along on that bike, dressed in his white shirt, tie, and wingtip shoes. I could swear that Dad once told me that Papa drove that bike to Danville, VA once. 

   Thinking about Papa also brought to mind something that I learned about him just a few years ago. Back when flying lessons were being offered at our airfield (most likely in the late 50s to early 60s) a young black man apparently asked Papa if he could learn to fly. Papa, always more than ready to introduce someone new to the joys of flight, was more than happy to oblige him. Apparently, however, there was a small problem with some of the flight instructors not wanting to teach a "n*****" how to fly. I cannot remember what I was told about how Papa dealt with the flight instructors, but I think it had something to do with telling them they could find somewhere else to ply their trade if they didn't like it, and if he wanted to teach a black man how to fly he would damn well do it. Papa also refused to segregate the waiting room in his dentist office. I know that Papa was very racially progressive for his day, but sometimes I wonder if there wasn't a small part of him that was that way just to piss off the yokels. I learned about this story during my bachelor's party trip to Las Vegas. Dad was with us, and at some point he mentioned that the young man Papa taught to fly went on to become a successful engineer, and that he had a second house in Las Vegas. Dad mentioned that in a recent conversation with the man, he told Dad that anyone who was in the family of Dr. Page was welcome to use his house if they were ever in Vegas.

   Papa was also known as a hard drinker. Apparently some of the best stories about Papa revolved around his exploits while having a tipple. In fact, his eulogy involved such a story. Papa had a series of gates down on our farm road by which he could open and close to limit access. Access by whom or to what, I do not know. Maybe people who wanted to fish without paying $1. Anyhow, one day, Papa drove up to one of the gates near the end of the runway to the airstrip  and got out of his old 1938 Lincoln to open the gate. he must have forgotten to set the brake, because the old Lincoln began to roll back down the steep hill from whence it had come. Papa took off running after the car, but tripped and struck his head on a rock, knocking him unconscious. The local Methodist parson was taking his daily walk down on the farm and came across Papa who was regaining consciousness. Legend (and the minister who eulogized him) has it that Papa told him, "You know, if I had had just one more highball I would have caught that damned car!" I guess Papa thought he was more functional drunk than sober.

   Everyone has a Graham Page story in Yanceyville. Sometimes I wonder if I do not live with the same luxury as they do, recalling and retaining the good, the memorable. My Dad and his siblings may not have this same luxury, but they do not seem the worse for wear. I am sure that there are memories of Papa that my Dad and his siblings might not commonly relate. I can tell that he was famously strict with Dad and his brother John. Some might even say he had a cruel streak when it came to his sons. Dad speaks of him admiringly though, and it seems as though time has accentuated the good in the man while at the same time blurring the less memorable. Ultimately his children seem to have taken from him those qualities that were the stuff of stories instead of those things that would detract from his memory. I imagine that this is the best kind of legacy a man can hope for.

   I consider myself fortunate that I actually have a memory of Papa. Of his many grandchildren, I think I am the only one with a conscious memory of him. He died when I was two, but not before I imprinted a memory of him feeding me Cracker Jacks from the box, one by one as I stood in front of him.

   There is an old fantasy question that people are sometimes asked, and that is if you could have dinner with just three people, who would they be? My answer has always varied on that subject, but the one person who is always part of that fantasy trifecta is Papa. Time has probably helped to embellish the stories. I would think that I would rather know the real man - not just the good, but the warts, too. When I am home for visits and I run across people who have always lived there, I am more Papa's grandson and my father's son more than I am myself. Just broaching the subject invariably leads to an anecdote, a story, or a comment about how much larger than life he was. As the years go by it is harder to find people who knew the man personally, but maybe that is just as well. I am content to know him through the tales of the many who knew and admired him, and the memory of a two year old boy who only knew at the time that the kind, aged man sitting in the easy chair in the big house was the source of a comfortable lap and Cracker Jacks.

Spend baby, spend!

Let's look back at the Washington Post from December 2005 here.

Seems like there was a lot of criticism of Bush's second inauguration and the fact that it cost about 40 million bucks. The fact that it was wartime was what prompted some of the chattering. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) was particularly vocal. The Post mentioned that this cost was pretty well in line with the cost of previous inaugurations, and that it actually fell under the 42 million dollar bill for Bill Clinton's second inauguration. 

That's all well and good. The left would have criticized Bush for curing cancer. Not a big deal.

Here comes the however. HOWEVER, I wonder if anyone has bothered asking Congressman Weiner about the bill for next week's festivities. Obama's inauguration is going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 million. That's right, more than 3 times the cost that four years ago produced all the whining.

Not only are we still at war, but aren't we supposedly in the biggest recession since WWII? The chirping of the crickets is deafening.

The big HIGH FIVE goes to...

....Chesley B. Sullenberger III, or "Sully."



Simply amazing. Most folks who know me know that even though I don't have a whole lot of time in the air, I know a few things about airplanes. I also know enough to know that Captain Sullenberger performed a brilliant ditch in the Hudson River. Even ditching in a small airplane is a dodgy affair, and this guy put Airbus' equivalent of a 737 in the water in one piece. What is great is that this guy is getting not only a slap on the back from the general public, but aviation types are also giving him the Bravo Zulu because they are the ones who know what he really pulled off here. From what I understand, in the three or four minutes the aircraft was in the air, Captain Sullenberger had an apparent bird strike that took out both engines. Then, he actually was able to fully contemplate all his options (return to LaGuardia, divert to Teterboro, or ditch in the river) and then made his decision and deadsticked the plane into a perfect ditch. He then assisted the passengers in getting out, and was the last person out of the plane after double checking that everyone had safely un-assed the airplane.



A few thoughts on the crash yesterday:



Blackfive says that Captain Sullenberger was a former Phantom (F-4) pilot. I can hear my uncle now (former Marine Phantom pilot). Sullenberger was also a Zoomie, but then nobody's perfect.



Rachel Lucas has suggested that we should look for PETA to try to outlaw aviation since it seems to be dangerous to geese.



For anyone who does not know the inherent danger in ditching a large aircraft, here's the Wiki on what usually happens.



One can only wonder how those passengers are feeling right now, but one thing is for sure: today is the first day of the rest of their lives.

New FS Blog

I started following a new FS blog, The Hegemonist, since it popped up on the list at Life After Jerusalem. The blog itself is run by a Foreign Service Officer and the latest topics have centered around the actual process of joining the FS. Since I have been through this process recently, it is an interesting read. The most recent post is about the written test, which I did not find as difficult as most people have made it out to be. To be fair, the test is somewhat more condensed from the traditional version, which used to take about half a day. It was recently revamped to make it more user-friendly, and new measures for rating candidates have been added to compensate for the shortened test. Personally, I thought the most difficult portion of the process was the Oral Assessment, but The Hegemonist has not posted on that part, yet. The link to the latest post is here. 

I am a candidate in the Consular cone, and The Hegemonist's post about that particular career track is here.

Stupid parents.

I drove Tater out to the aquarium today where she screamed with glee at the top of her lungs at all the fish. After about an hour, I knew it was time to head on home because 1. Tater decided that she no longer wanted to wear shoes (that's my girl!) and 2. I got into a confrontation with another parent over her butt-wild four-year old muscling Tater away from one of the displays. Actually, I don't have a problem with four-year olds being four-year olds. What I have a problem with is zombie parents who won't correct their little darlings when they bully other children. Basically, Tater was on this play boat thing that they have set up for toddlers. She was having a ball steering the wheel and moving the throttles back and forth. Another kid who was about three times her size essentially shoved her to the side and started playing with the wheel. (I mean, isn't there some sort of protocol for taking the helm? Even the captain has to request the helm from the bridge officer, right?)

Anyhow, I looked over towards this kid's mother who was with another mother and what I assume were their spouses. I was expecting this lady to say something to her kid, since she saw the same thing that I did. When she decided to ignore it, my blood pressure began to rise and, realizing that I was in one of those situations where I am a private citizen and not a cop (and therefore not subject to an Internal Affairs complaint for rudeness), I decided to yank this woman's chain a little. I asked her if it was okay for me to chastise her darling if she was going to abstain. She replied that her little darling was none of my business. I retorted that her little darling's ability to do what he darn well pleases stops at the border of Tater. I made a couple more comments to her about her hands-off parenting approach and then took Tater off to see the sharks. I could not help but notice the two she-men husbands, likely long ago emasculated by their wives, standing there with their hands in their pockets saying nothing. I'd like to think that they were silently cheering me on for speaking to Mommy in a way that they have long since dared to do.

Disconnect

Grandfather Mountain from Blowing Rock

Nothing is nicer than fleeing Chucktown for a few days where there is no cellphone contact and the computer is sitting at home cold and dead. Actually, I intentionally left the laptop at home, but I could have used the phone a couple times. For some reason, T-Mobile doesn't work in Boone, NC. Actually, my Father-in-Law has T-Mobile, and his cellphone works just fine up there. I must have the Confederate version of T-Mobile that doesn't work in areas of Unionist sympathies. 

Mrs. Warpiper and Tater went to Tobacco Road a couple days early to see Nana and Papa while I stayed in Chucktown segregating the haves from the have nots. A couple days before the New Year I drove up to Boone and met Mrs. WP there. The new cabin is excellent. Really nice views, although it is hard to find a bad view up there as long as you are up on a mountain. Tater liked the Blowing Rock. She especially liked the gravelly pebbles that made up the walkways. Most of our time was spent stopping and picking up handfuls of the pebbles and then trying to hand them to perfect strangers. Tater is so giving.

New Year's Eve was nice with grilling out on the deck and card games, although I have to admit that the Warpiper pooped out at about 2230 hours (that's 10:30 p.m. to Zoomies). I stayed up in the mountains until yesterday. Really the only thing that drove me back to the Lowcountry was the fact that Mrs. Warpiper and Tater came back Monday for Tater's doctor visit. Otherwise, I'd still be up there being incommunicado.

If this stupid fence wasn't here I'd be testing my wings!