One of my favorite cartoons is pinned above my desk at work. It shows an executive sitting at a desk, with his in and out boxes labeled "plotting" and "perpetrated." It's just the sort of thing I'd do to enhance my "evil genius" reputation at the office.
Not that I was particularly evil or a particular genius this week, though our new Air Force guy continues to marvel at our group. He was rushing to leave earlyish on Friday and was rather astonished when I wrote up a report and sent it about 3 seconds before he asked me to handle it. My bigger accomplishment of the week was finally getting a document signed off that's been lingering for months. On the negative side, our secretary is gone and is not likely to be replaced - or, at least, not until our latest reorg is finished. That means I am going to have to deal with setting up my own travel, for example. Which I will get to do tomorrow, as I have a short notice trip to take this coming week.
As for non-work things perpetrated this week, I took advantage of nice (i.e. non-humid) weather on Thursday by walking to the Mall after walk. (I should explain that Washingtonians always mean the National Mall by that, never a shopping mall.) From the office, I walked over to the Iwo Jima Memorial, past the Netherlands Carillon, and to the Arlington National Cemetery. I had to deal with one nasty traffic circle to get from there to the Memorial Bridge, but then it's a straight shot past various monuments. This was my first view of the World War II memorial, which does fulfill one of my personal laws of architecture. Namely, if you're going to make something ugly, you should make it big enough that it can be useful as a landmark. All in all, it was a pleasant three plus miles.
The major thing I'm plotting is, as usual, travel. I have far more things that I want to do than time to do them in. But I am laying the groundwork to take a three month or so leave of absence, probably late next year. Meandering around Central America is the most likely option, but things are still too preliminary to say.
Copyright 2004 Miriam H. Nadel