Jennifer & Suketu are engaged!

It is with unabashed pleasure that I publicly announce my baby sister’s engagement. Suketu proposed on New Year’s Day, and they decided on an August wedding in Vegas. Brad and I are super proud to welcome Suketu as a brother-in-law. We adore how he takes care of Jennifer, strives for excellence, and can teach us both a thing or two around the golf course…

We opted to book our arrangements immediately. We cashed in one of our lucrative Alaska Airlines companion fares and booked a spot at Mandalay Bay. One more call to the concierge, and our dining and entertainment options will be secured. Look out Vegas, the flamingos are comin’ back!

Now, unlike her big sister and brother-in-law, I am not sure if they will have flamingos in their wedding photos; but, we may have to get creative for their token. Perhaps buddhas, garden gnomes, or fake deer?

Taking ideas: post, email, or call. We only have seven months to plan, folks!

The love of planning

I love planning. I adore how my calendar already has bookings until November. With the exception of April, I can tell you what I am doing almost every week and weekend until the 2009 holiday season. Sick, right? Nah, I love it.

And even more so, I love complex planning. For work, I have been culling together a team in pursuit of a large contract I was alerted to back in August. This past fall, I gathered multiple team members from my federal practice segment and hosted a strategy meeting. Since the new fiscal year, I followup with potential teaming partners on a monthly basis, and I am glued to all federal programming intel coming from the beltway—esp. in light of the new administration’s economic stimulus plans and evaluation of DoD and DHS components’ budgets. I have lived, breathed, and dreamt about this pursuit. And today, a final piece of the puzzle was delivered to me, wrapped in a bow. I finished my three day stint in Anchorage on a high note. I hosted a meeting with a big wig at another firm. My boss and my new office manager decided to tag along (no pressure, pshaaawww). The big wig and his marketing coordinator, whom I had met before but for a different pursuit, greeted me warmly, and I felt comfortable immediately. I was there to sell a partnership and slip tidbits to persuade them that URS (me) had the intel and know-how to approach and win this valuable and crucial work.

Hook, line, sink ‘er. I got ‘em. I got them so well that my new office manager high-fived me as soon as the elevator doors closed. . Yes, I did the happy dance in response. I was ecstatic and charged with closing the deal asap. Even on the flight home to Kodiak, I opened the laptop and drafted the follow-up email with the information they requested.

A shout out to Flo: forget project management. Focus on honing your subject matter expertise and continue charming the socks off of anyone in your path.

My Morning in Anchorage

So, remember that fluffy snow I JUST wrote about? It is now a sheet of ice. Last night, I could literally BLOW the snow off my car. This morning, all parking lots and roads were slippery-- as in Kodiak, OMG I forgot my yaktrax slippery. My usual ten minute drive from my hotel took almost thirty.

Locals were polite and careful. We took our time, kept our distance, and stopped to help others. At one busy intersection, I witnessed a truck spin so quickly that the chains on his back tires flew off and hit another car in oncoming traffic. Both stopped, precariously picked their way over the ice, greeted each other with handshakes and shook their heads. Other cars stopped as the man made his way to the intersection to collect his chains and return to his car. No honking, no screaming, no drama.

I listened to the radio weather report: continued ice/sleet and 105 mph winds this evening. Oh joy. My flight is scheduled to take off at 1815. Any bets on if and when I get home to Kodiak?

In December, I was stranded in Anchorage for 14 hours. Some fellow passengers had been there for two days or more, so one took it upon himself to book a flight to Homer. There, he took a taxi to the ferry terminal and took the 13 hour ferry ride to Kodiak. We all laughed at him, "Oh, he'll never beat us home." Well, the son-a-gun docked at the ferry terminal 45 minutes before my flight landed that evening. He had rough seas on the way over, but he was warm, comfortable, had movies and a bar to entertain him during the day.

Perhaps I should check the ferry schedule...nevermind, the next sailing from Homer to Kodiak is Saturday.

Snowy Anchorage

Photo Credit

After a couple of weeks below 0 degrees F, Anchorage warmed up. And as a result, we received two inches of snow. The quiet snowfall prompted me to check our weather in Kodiak. Tomorrow evening, I will return to a very wet, soggy island. The snow was beautiful, while it lasted. The dog will likely be depressed as he can no longer bound into the snow banks like the malamute that he is.

He loves snow and hates rain. The rain keeps his daily walks to a minimum. The slate like gravel roads adhere to his fur, and our beautiful black and white dog looks like an old grey Buick as the soggy walks end. And then he goes for a bath, which is defined as torture in Tok-terms. So, I will make do with some in house play while working from home on Thurs and Fri.

Hopefully, my return home will be a bit more peaceful than my commute on Monday. And special shout out to a certain graphic artist extraordinaire in Denver-- the Indiana Jones theme music has been stuck in my head since you commented via email.

My Commute to Anchorage, Beechcraft Style

This morning, when I checked in for my flight from Kodiak to Anchorage, my counter agent, Judy (yes, I know all their names by now), let me know that our plane was a Beechcraft. This plane has no toilet and no attendant.

Pshaawww, I thought. I have flown in a box with wings from Mombasa to Nairobi. How bad can it be?

I approached the plane, and the ground crew advised me to wait, “Only one person on the stairs at a time.” Once seated, the co pilot walked the aisle to ensure we had on our seatbelts. She turned around, secured our packages using seatbelts that bolted into the sides of the cargo area (think C130 cargo storage), and grabbed a flashlight. In the darkness that is 0730 in Alaska, she used the flashlight to ensure that she had secured the door. Nonchalantly, she turned to the closest passenger and informed him how to open the door, should the pilots not be able to turn around and pivot the 1.5 feet from the open cockpit to the door. It was at this point that I really started to tighten up.

And yes, you read “open” cockpit. Never, in my life, have I been able to see the runway taxi just as the pilots do. Even in Kenya, our shoebox with wings had a door that closed off the cockpit. Apparently, that feature was not available on the Beechcraft assembly line. Either that or Era Aviation felt it hampered the pilots’ being able to get up, pivot, and open the door, all in 1.5 feet of space.

The runway in Kodiak was, um, slushy at best. We taxied to the end and attempted to fully turn. With the engines blowing full blast, we tried to turn our wheel so that we lined up with the runway. Evidently, the pilots did not think that taking off at an angle was an issue, so we took off sideways. Have you ever been in a rear wheel drive car in the snow/ice and have it fishtail? Yeah, well, imagine being in a plane and doing the same maneuver during takeoff. Tightening continues.

I find myself laughing to myself at the absurdity of it all. The roar of the engines drowns me out, but my fellow passengers decide to take a picture to commemorate what may have been our last flight.

70 minutes later, we approach Anchorage. Through the front window (heh), we see the lights of the Anchorage skyline and the runway. The wind picks up as we descend, and as we land, we pull another one of those fishtail maneuvers. Fun. I tell ya, if my sphincter had not been so tight, I may have laid a golden egg immediately upon landing. Ahem.

The copilot took off her headphones, hollered back to us, “Welcome to Anchorage!” She flipped some switches, unbuckled, and got up to open to the door (with flashlight). I de-boarded and made my way to the rental car garage. There, I used super human strength to pry open the doors that were iced shut, let the car warm up for about 10 minutes, and made my way through the snowy streets of Anchorage.

At to think, my normal commute is made in pjs, and my only two stops are letting out the dog and brewing coffee. Sheesh, what a commute.

Tok's Seat

Most of you giggle at the mere thought of Brad sitting in the front seat of the bug. Luckily, the curved roof gives him much more headroom that my old Saturn coup.

Well, nowadays, Brad is not a frequent passenger, but Tok is. He has a seat cover to protect my leather seats and keep his fur at bay. He goes with me almost everywhere. There are a couple of places where he can enter with me, but many businesses cite health code violations and kick him out.

So he sits and waits. He looks around and observes everything in the parking lots. And his perked up ears and licks are such a warm welcoming after walking through snowy parking lots.

Happy New Year!

Brad and I rang in the New Year in ultra low key style. We joined our friends, Becca & Jason and Trudy & Jeff, down at the water to watch our firework display and then retreated to the Dorvals for party hats and a re-run of the NY Times Square ball drop (gotta love that four hour time difference). This was the same display scheduled for Fourth of July and then Labor Day weekend; both had been rained out.

On a clear, cold night, we bundled up and drank hot chocolate and waited on the dock. We focused on Near Island, where the display had been set up. As we watched our breath almost crystalize in front of us, we pointed out constellations (love having Coasties in my life) and remarked on the blue law enforcement light atop CGC Roanoke Island, who was patrolling our area while all three of our cutters enjoyed the holiday in port.

Big pops and bangs followed lots of sparkly explosions, and the show was a big hit with the locals. And truthfully, it was a good show. Forgive me, I, like some of my other east coast counterparts, have been privy to some pretty awesome fireworks shows (Boston, DC, etc), but it was all in good fun and sparkly.

The top hats and appetizers helped us ring in the new year with a delayed Carson Daly. Thanks to all those on the east coast who left messages at 8 PM AST. It was fun to listen to all the excitement from friends and loved ones.

Welcome 2009.