In Other News….No News

Well, despite having a lot going on, I don’t have much new to report.

On the Foreign Service front, I’m still waiting on my security clearance.  As far as I know everything’s in order, but they don’t really give too much information.  The expected completion date is next week, so I guess I can’t really start stressing it until then.

On the travel front, last week I went to Nashville and Miami for work, but was in and out in 48 hours total. Enough time to check out some of the honky tonks in Nashville with a colleague and get myself a nice new hat, but I didn’t get to see any sights in Miami unfortunately.  And I forgot to charge my camera battery, so all I have are a few poor shots in Nashville from my phone.  Still, I liked Nashville, and really enjoyed the music, since– and I realize those who have known me for a while don’t really believe this is true– I like country music!  Next week I have meetings in Seattle and Portland (Oregon not Maine, otherwise that wouldn’t make sense as one trip), so I am actually flying out to Seattle Saturday to check out the city, since I’ve never been to the Pacific Northwest before.  I’m looking for good things to do without a car for the couple days I’m there, and for the extra afternoon I’m going to have in Portland as well.  So please, share your favorite things to do in these cities to keep me busy!  And I’ve made sure to charge my camera battery already!

I guess I should mention the Olympics, even though I’m more of a Winter Olympic fan than summer, and have mostly been following the progress through news updates, friends’ Facebook updates, and office chatter.  So even though I don’t watch myself, I feel well informed.  And I’m suddenly interested in skeet shooting…. is that weird?

That’s really all I have to report at the moment, I’m afraid.  Only a couple weeks until school starts up again, I’ve really enjoyed not having work and school at the same time this summer.  It’s going to take some getting used to, splitting my attention between the two again.

Finally, in case anyone is interested, I’m including a link to www.kiva.org; if you’re not familiar with this site, it’s a micro-loan website, where you can lend in denominations of $25 to individuals or groups all over the world, who are seeking small loans either for business, home improvement, education, or any other number of reasons.  I just donated to my 9th loan, all of which have been repaid in full.  If you’re looking for an easy and satisfying way to give something back, check it out.  You can keep re-lending the same money to new loans as it is paid back to you, or you can pull your repaid money our at any time.