Well I guess I could update this every once in a while

So my life isn't really that interesting, which is why I haven't really been keeping this blog up the way I'd like to.  However, it should be getting more interesting in the next year.

Okay here's an update.  I'm so happy it's the end of February.  March is coming, and with that, hopefully we'll get some nicer weather.  I'm sick of it being cold out!  I know March doesn't automatically equal warm weather, especially around here in the DC area, but at least the potential is there more than in February.  I've found February to be my least favorite month of the year, at least the past two years now.  I can't explain why exactly, I guess because it's cold out and dark when I get home from work, so I end up spending most of my time inside.  In Oklahoma, the weather would be starting to warm up by now, at least while I was there.  I really miss the short winters we had.  However aside from that and the awesome people I would hang out with out there, there wasn't much else that was very awesome about Oklahoma.

March is going to be an interesting month this year.  The first weekend I get to go to an old friend's wedding in Southern Maryland!  I've known her since middle school so it's pretty exciting.  The second weekend, two friends from college are coming out from Dallas, Texas, to visit for the weekend.  Hopefully the weather will be nice, because we'll be showing them sites in DC- last time we showed friends around DC it was the coldest weekend of the year in January, so hopefully it'll be much more pleasant this time! 

3 days after those friends leave, we'll be heading out to Seattle for Aaron's older brother's wedding.  Well.  We think, haha.  It's 3 weeks away and as far as we know, no plans are finalized.  The only reason we even bought our plane tickets before knowing details was because we saw a really good deal on nonstop flights to Seattle from here, and we knew that if we waited, the deal would disappear.  Good thing we didn't wait, because we still wouldn't have our flights at this point!  It's nuts to me that they don't have finalized plans yet, but I'm not worried since we have our plans to go out there made already (although I'd love to be able to get a hotel!  We'd like to be as close to the wedding place as possible since we won't be renting a car...but we don't know where they're getting married yet!).  We'll see what happens!  At least we get to see everyone, I'm excited about that.

So we'll be in Seattle for about 5 days.  The weekend after we get back, we'll be going up to NYC to meet up with two more friends.  March is so busy!  But February has been pretty lazy so it's going to be fun to actually have stuff to do.

Well that's my update.  Not too exciting.  By this time next year I expect it to be more exciting :)

I suck at blogging

I really do.  I spend most of my day writing emails for work, which is probably why I'm not so good at the updating thing.

You know what's fun though... having the BS required for those emails come naturally.  I feel like I'm using another part of my brain when I write them.  It's kind of funny.

Hmm.  Well, here's a real update:  I need a new job.  Not because I dislike my job (I kinda do...they have me in two positions right now, and I'd really like to only be in one, that would be cool), but because my office is being absorbed by another organization.  The people who control our funding (16 US Government agencies) decided they didn't like the direction we were headed in, so they're not going to fund us unless we do what they want.  Of course, what they want is for the office, Ocean.US, to disappear, and any administrative duties that the office was doing to be taken over by a non-profit organization called Consortium for Ocean Leadership.  It's possible that my two co-workers and I would have jobs available within that organization, but that's not something that has been explicitly said to us, and we're all against this move anyway so we're all trying to find new jobs.

The main thing that these funding agencies don't like about our office is our PHYSICAL location to one of the 16 agencies, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).  The NOAA Head Quarters is in Silver Spring, and that's where our office is.  The other agencies won't fund us because our office is located in Silver Spring, too close to NOAA.  By the way, this office used to be located in Arlington, until one of the other agencies, ONR (the Office of Naval Research) told us that they wouldn't fund our rent anymore, which forced us to move to Silver Spring (NOAA pays our rent at the moment).  Anyway, it's like middle school, and it's stupid, and it's just screwing over really low-level employees, because we only have 3 full-time employees (me, and my two co-workers Jessica and Deanna).  The rest of our office is made up of part-time or half-time people who have jobs elsewhere and are only detailed here for short periods of time.  Meaning they're not losing their job by this recent turn of events. 

So our contracts end September 30, so we need new jobs by then.  We have some high-level people helping us try to find jobs within NOAA.  I really hope that something works out with that, because I hate job-searching.  Oh, yea, also, we all just found out about this about 2 weeks ago, and it's one of those things where decisions need to be made by the end of July for anything to happen.

Anyway... that's a real update! And probably really confusing for anyone not engulfed in it 8 hours a day like I am. 

Bureaucracy sucks

Links to funny things, part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43JNZnET9vU

I think you'll enjoy this.  Oh, Josh B. and his insanity....and disgustingness...

hmm