Friday, May 28, 2010

It's a New Day

It is the conclusion of my first week at NOAA. Like anyone in any new job, I'm lost right now, but I am pretty sure it will be a good fit for me here. I am basically being left alone to run my program. That is the building in the picture and my office is in the corner on the third floor. I have a lot of work ahead of me because the organization is in need of additional resources and staffing in the government is a significant challenge. We do a lot of systems development here and that is not something I am entirely familiar with so I have a learning curve to negotiate. I learned a lot about all sorts of application development platforms... Oracle Forms, Reports, Apex, PHP, Java, Python, and the list goes on. We need to all agree on a single platform for future development so that is another area I will be working on in the coming weeks. NOAA has a Science Center in Woods Hole MA and I am going down there next Wednesday to take a look at that operation. They do some support for our Regional Office so I need to understand what's going on there. I am looking forward to recharging a bit this weekend. Les and I don't have any plans. I am not planning to do any riding this weekend, but we'll see. I am doing the Minuteman Rally next weekend. It is a 24 hour "bonus" type rally. You can look at http://www.minuteman1000.com/ for more info if you're interested. It is a competition where you basically ride around for a day and find the bonus locations and get points. Kind of like a scavanger hunt. More on that in a couple weeks. Enjoy the holiday weekend.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Last day at GSA

Friday was my last day at GSA. I worked in that office for five years and seven months. That is the longest I've worked anywhere. A few years ago I determined that I moved, on average, every two years since I was 18 years old. I'm 40 now. I've moved a lot. Fortunately, with this new job, I will not have to move. The new job at NOAA is in Gloucester MA which is a 45 minute drive from our apartment. Leslie and I will now have equal commuting times, but mine is a little easier since I don't have to go through the city like Les does. My last day was nothing special. In the morning, I walked around the building and said my goodbyes to everyone who was there. Very few people at GSA work on Friday. GSA has a lot of teleworkers and workers with alternative schedules which allow them to take most Fridays off of work. Sometimes I think I'm crazy for leaving GSA because I have it so good there, but I've been in a rut for the past couple years and it's time for a change. Anyway, the team took me to lunch at Boston Beer Works. My boss gave a short speech thanking me and all that stuff. I received my gift. They gave me a movie theater gift certificate and a BMW motorcycle baseball hat. Then I spent the afternoon chatting with a few folks and then went back to Boston Beer Works after work for drinks with a couple people. My former boss, who is now retired (lucky bastard), came back into town for my luncheon and he stuck around for drinks and then my colleague Tony was there. We had a nice couple hours talking trash about work. I vowed to stay in touch with them. I am likely going to be using GSA services in my new job so I will be visiting them again in the future as a customer. Then I got on the scooter and came home. Nothing too spectacular. I'm not nervous about the new job, just a little anxious. More on that as things unfold at the new gig this week. Later.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Chicago

I spent the first half of the week in Chicago this week attending the GSA CAR Directors Conference. One of the additional duties I have been saddled with in GSA is the role of the Regional Customer Accounts and Research (CAR) Division Director. It is basically managing a team of four marketing folks. It is a good group of people in CAR. They have a lot of energy and passion for GSA and helping our customers, but I have not been able to spend the necessary time managing the program because I'm too busy managing my own program. I'm not sure why my boss wanted me to go to the meeting considering it is my last week at work, but I'm a good soldier to the end. It was a nice and easy trip to Chicago. I was able to go up to the Skydeck in the Willis Building (aka Sears Tower). That is where I took the picture in this post. They built this thing called "The Ledge" which is basically a glass enclosure that sticks out about two feet from the building and you step out on to the clear floor and look down and I guess it is cool or something. It was a bit of a let down, but it was funny to see kids get scared to step on it. One guy pushed his daughter on to it and she freaked out. I got back last night. I spent today finalizing a few things at work and making sure things were set for my departure. One of my colleagues took me to lunch today at Boston Beer Works. I've got a few paperwork things to do tomorrow morning, I will then sweep through the building and say my goodbyes, go to a group lunch, get a card and gift, turn in my ID card, and be on my way. Leslie asked me a couple weeks ago what I would miss most and I said my colleague Tony and a few others. She said "no, wrong answer" and I said "what do you mean?" She said I would miss being able to park in the building. It's true, parking in my building for free in the center of Boston is definitely a perq I will miss.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

ME and NH

I had a great week of riding last week. I logged about 1,000 miles riding around New England. I took the day off of work on Thursday and planned a ride around Western Maine. It took me about three hours on the slab to get to the route, but once I got on the ride it was nice. I even had the chance to do a little dirt biking with the RT. The roads in Maine aren't the best, but they were isolated and there was no traffic anywhere. The roads are a little chewed up because of the logging industry. Everywhere you go in Maine you are going to see logging trucks and over time they pretty much damage every road. There were a few ARRA construction projects going on to improve some of the roads so maybe next summer it will be a different story. Overall, it was a nice day to just be out on the bike. On Saturday, I connected with my friends Marc and Valerie again for a nice long ride on the roads surrounding the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. Beautiful roads and scenery all day long. We stopped at Whitehorse Gear in North Conway for their Open House event. We had some lunch there and did some shopping in their warehouse. They sell almost every piece of motorcycle gear you would ever need. They also run a publishing company that publishes mostly motorcyle-ish books. I purchased a Ron Ayres book and then we were on our way for the ride back. We did some more mountain roads and twisties before linking with I93 for the express back to Boston. It was a perfect day to ride too. Great weather and wonderful roads. The roads were exceptional around the National Forest area.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Back to VT

Had plans to go riding in Vermont on Saturday, but it was pouring rain and thunderstorms all day. I don't mind riding in the rain, but when the purpose is to hit the twisties hard and enjoy the scenery, rain is an annoyance and ruiner of fun. I ended up going early Sunday morning instead. I met my friends Marc and Valerie who ride 2-up on a BMW K1200S which is a sport bike and built for the roads in Vermont and the track. I like riding with Marc because he is a better rider than I and it is a challenge to stick with him on the road. We met another guy named Jeff who rides a Ducati Monster 696 which is a "naked" sport bike. Jeff lasted about 10 miles and peeled off because his hands were getting too cold. It was cold on Sunday, but I didn't make the same mistake I made a few weeks ago, I wore my heated gear to stay warm. We took 119 out of Mass and through NH to get to VT then linked with VT 5 in Brattleboro before heading north on VT 100 to Rutland for lunch. Some great roads along rivers and rolling hills. We got to Rutland and everything was closed (Mother's Day), but we found a pub that served burgers and ate there before hitting the road back home. All in all it was about 400 miles over 10 hours. I got home in time to watch the Amazing Race.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

IBA

I mentioned in a previous post that I completed a Bun Burner Gold (BBG) ride in the summer of 2009. A BBG is an Iron Butt Association (IBA) certified ride. I have been a member of the IBA for a couple years. The first ride I did was a Saddlesore 1000 which is 1000 miles in 24 hours. I rode down to Atlanta where I met Leslie and we attended a friend's wedding. The IBA requires documentation of the ride in order to get it certified. I had to provide a map of the route I took with the stops I made highlighted on the map, I needed to have a start and end witness signature on a form, I had to submit all of my gas receipts along the way, and I needed to fill-out a fuel log marking the location and odometer readings at each fuel stop. I submitted all the paperwork and about six months later I received a certificate. Kind of a lame nerdy thing to do, but I'm kind of lame and nerdy. Well, the Saddlesore ride was kind of easy for me so I wanted to do something the IBA calls an "extreme" ride. The BBG is 1500 miles in 24 hours. That is averaging 62.5 mph including all stops. You really have no time to relax on a BBG because you need to keep moving. My route was basically all slab (I90 to I94 to I35) from Boston to Hinckley MN. On the Saddlesore I was able to pull over and get a four hour nap and still have plenty of time to complete the ride. The BBG was a straight shot. The only stops were for gas and two 20 minute food stops (combined with gas). I completed the ride in 23 hours. It was an interesting experience because you have the challenge of achieving the goal while fighting things like fatigue and boredom. I didn't have my GPS yet at this point so I was doing all of the calculations in my head as I was riding which kept my mind occupied. I would figure out what my average speed was because I knew it couldn't drop below a certain number. When I got to about hour 20, I couldn't do the math and just focused on the road and looking out for deer along I94 through Eau Claire, Menomonie, and River Falls WI. The only mind/fatigue weirdness was when I was heading into MN they were doing road construction so there were orange cones along the interstate and I was imagining they were closing in on me so I had to hurry and pass by them. It was kind of like that scene in the original Star Wars when Luke was in his X-Wing going around the Death Star half tunnel thing to destroy it and it was getting narrower and narrower and he had to fire and pull out of there before hitting the wall. I thought for sure the cones were going to close-up and block me from going through. I laughed after I got through the construction area. I have heard several fatigued riding related stories and they all crack me up. Ron Ayres has written a few books about his experiences as a Long Distance Rider. He tells a funny story from one year he was riding in the Iron Butt Rally which is basically 11,000 miles in 11 days. Anyway, one of the riders on like day-8 was pulling into a gas station to get gas and his eyes were dry so he wanted to drop some Visine into his eyes. He leaned his head back and put the drops into both his eyes and then realized he forgot to take off his glasses.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Postponed

Well, a lot has happened in the past few weeks. I had to postpone my vacation trip. I was recently offered the position of the Director of Information Resource Management with NOAA in Gloucester MA and I accepted. It's a big job and a big opportunity to do something new with an agency that has a completely different mission. I couldn't go on vacation for two weeks and then leave so I decided to postpone the trip. I am wrapping things up at GSA over the next couple weeks and then I start at NOAA on May 24. I have been with GSA for over five years now and if you look at my track record, that is the longest I've been anywhere. It's time to move on. I am hoping to do the bike trip in the fall, maybe October. I have been thinking about this trip for about a year and I have been planning it for the past six months. It would be a shame not to do it. The upside is that I have the summer to ride around New England on the weekends. Last weekend I did a loop through central Vermont. Here is the route: http://tinyurl.com/684d8b I road some of the nicest roads I've ever been on. I left at 5:00 in the morning and it took me two hours just to get to the starting point of the route. It was freezing for the first half of the day and I was regretting not bringing my electric vest. The road through the Groton State Forest was a wild ride. It was the middle of nowhere deep in the woods and if I broke down, I doubt I would have seen another vehicle for days. There was still snow on the side of the road as well. Once I got up to Stowe, I had to take off the layers of clothes I had on to try and keep warm because it almost instantly got hot outside. I pulled over and had a quick lunch in Stowe. The last half from Stowe was such a nice ride, I want to do it again this weekend. However, I've already got plans to do a nice 180 mile swing around southern New Hampshire on Saturday. I'll let you know how that goes.