Happy Birthday Jenna Lee

Happy 17th to Jenna Lee

Head West, Young Man

Eric has finally found out his future plans (sort of) with the USMC.
He should finish his current class just before Christmas, so he plans to spend 5 days in IN and then 5 days in Chicago!! Then,he has to report to his new duty station at Camp Pendleton, California by Feb 1, 2012.
That's right, Eric and Jill are moving to sunny southern California! He will be assigned to the Dark Horse Battalion or the 3/5. This group is an infantry battalion that lost the most members in Afghanistan of any other group in the last 10 years. Luckily, when Eric joins, their assignment will be a little different. In August 2012, he will be deployed (for the last time, hopefully) as part of a Marine Expeditonary Unit (MEU) in the western Pacific. Their main job is to be available if needed in that part of the world. Pray that it will be only humanitarian, not war.
We are hopeful that since this group suffered such losses, they will be kept from more fighting unless absolutely necessary. There are several videos, stories, etc about this group on the internet if anyone wants to read about their past.
Eric and Jill plan to DRIVE all their possessions cross country. The marines will pay for the move and Eric and Jill will be reimbursed. They expect 5 days on the road. Personally, I can't imagine this, but I know it's probably been done many times. I guess I'm getting too old to see the adventure in it. But, maybe with a motor home.............
Anyway, Eric will be gone 8-9 months, then he will only have 1 year left!!!!!
I want to rent a house out there next summer and am interested in who all would like to come. I want to get an idea of how big a house we will need.. I was thinking maybe June or July since Eric will be leaving in August. Let me know ASAP so I can find a house.

Disaster Mitigation at Disney World

I bet y'all never knew the exciting, jet-setting ways of the housing policy world. This week finds me in Orlando for the FLASH Annual Meeting. (That'd be Federal Alliance for Safe Homes.) It's a fairly small affair, only around a hundred folks, but they've been showing us a great time. (It doesn't hurt that the main sponsors of this sort of thing are reinsurance firms. And, as one of our hosts explained last night, just one of their executives certainly makes more each year than our entire dinner table of 8 people put together.)

In any case! Yesterday we got to go behind the scenes at Epcot on our way to visit StormStruck! It's a ride/experience in 4-D (!! I'm still trying to figure out what the 5-D thing could have been in Gatlinburg, btw.) that replicates hurricanes and tornadoes to edutain guests about disaster mitigation in their own homes. Things like what's the best kind of roof for wind-resistance (answer: hip!) and that you shouldn't, actually, crack or tape your windows before a storm. It was actually a lot cooler than I thought it would be.

Then we had dinner and fireworks back at the Boardwalk Inn where we're all staying. It's a pretty nice place (I'm sitting on the veranda right now listening to jazz while I catch up on some work).

Later tonight we're being shuttled over to Animal Kingdom for a tour and dinner, then my big plan is to sit in the "quiet" pool (one of three here at the hotel) for awhile to properly vacation this up. (I have, of course, been sitting in a conference room all day, learning about disaster mitigation and preparedness. Really!)

Generally speaking, I am not a big Disney fan, but, oh, are they good at what they do: delicious food, helpful staff and a really great room (with a furnished balconey); I'll be kind of sad to leave tomorrow afternoon.

Happy Late Birthday Laura

Sorry, I am late with this. We were so busy packing, unpacking, and driving-I mean Mort was driving-I slept almost the whole way home that I failed to honor Laura with the traditional birthday photo.
Anyway, here it is. Laura, I love you and hope you had a good birthday pre-party since a bus ride does not seem like the way to celebrate (unless you drank both bottles of wine on the bus- in which case, I hope you found your way back to your apartment). I may
be slow but we will always have the Salt & Pepper Museum.

Birthday time!!

It's Carrie Ann's Birthday! 

Happy Birthday, sister!

Pictures

Jill has sent me the discs that have all the wedding pictures on them and a release for printing whatever we want. If there is anything particular you want, let me know!

Disaster Update!

So far we've had a hurricane and an earthquake in the last fortnight. Now we can add monsoon flooding to the tally.

I live on a hill. This morning our building had notices posted that we shouldn't venture into the basement, as it is flooded out. It hasn't really stopped raining since then, and we (DC) are not even getting the worst of it...this is nearby Fairfax County (just west of DC), where this evening they have apparently had up to three inches of rain an hour at times.

Luckily, aside from my basement (which rules out doing laundry on-site anytime soon), nothing but an overwhelming dampness for myself and my apartment. Which is a shame -- you'd think with this mess Metro could at least flood a little bit and be a reason to stay home from work. Maybe tomorrow.