Nose to the Grindstone

The dust is back today.  Funny, it wasn't in the weather forecast yesterday.  That forecast called for several more days of clear weather with highs around 100-102 and lows around 70.  Good flying weather.  This morning, though, it was pretty dusty at first light and got thicker as the morning went on.  We all thought that the weather guessers finally poked their heads outside and said "Oh ... dust .... well, that changes things ..." and then updated their forecast accordingly.  Now it's supposed to be here for four days.

I sent a memo to my boss a week ago that outlined the status of several projects we're watching.  He must've thought it was interesting, because the next thing I know, it's being reformatted and routed up the chain to the Ambassador.  I thought, "Damn, I hope I got it all right ...."  It's called the "ohnosecond", that split second right after you hit the "send" button when you think, "ooohhh, NNOOOOOO!!!"  Actually, it wasn't that bad, my memo was pretty well researched, but still ...

Speaking of the Ambassador, I sat in on a meeting in which he was briefed by some pretty high-level people.  I was just a fly on the wall, really, which was more than fine with me.  I was really impressed by his grasp of what we were talking about, how well he knew it, and how deep he could probe with his questions.  Lesson learned: do your homework before getting up in front of The Man.

The past few days have been very intensive.  I've got a report to write and have been spending a lot of time digging through old records and talking to lots of people, trying to get the information together.  We're working on a lot of projects that have been in the works for maybe three or four years.  Some are nearing completion and some still have a long way to go.  Most of the people who dreamed up these projects have been long gone.  We have about a 80% turnover every year, so I can't just go talk with the person who started a project because they've probably been replaced two or three times already.  Meaning their files have been purged two or three times, too.  And some of them didn't keep very many records.  Which is understandable: when you're going full-bore day-in and day-out, there's not a lot of time to file stuff away.

So I operate on the assumption that the people who started these projects were pretty smart, and that the staffs that approved, funded, and implemented the projects were made up of knowledgeable, dedicated people who made the best decisions they could.  Which is what I see in the Embassy and in the military organizations every day.  

Now it's bedtime for Bonzo.  I'm gonna crawl in my sack, read about two pages of a trashy Robert Ludlum book, and be out.  Maybe the dust will be gone when I wake up.  Then again, maybe not!