What a difference a year makes

Well, it is hard to believe, but today marks the the first anniversary of my job with General Electric Aviation. One year ago today, my "retirement" ended and my career as a civilian began. It was a pretty amazing year and it seems like I started working for GE a couple of weeks ago. I have learned a lot about aviation design, and how to work within the GE system to get things done. The corporate culture of GE is very similar to the Navy's culture. That part of my transition was pretty easy. However, I had to learn a whole new language of acronyms. Here is a partial list:

PDR
CDR
JA
PSSA
FAI
BIT
AVSI
FMECA
MTBF
CALCE
HFE
SOW
HHA
HALT
RET
SDRL
HASS
SSR
CDRL

The list goes on, but I think you see my point about learning a new language. It has been an amazing year and I am looking forward to the challenges of Year Two.

Slacker Update

OK, it has been a week since I updated my blog. Mea culpa. However, looking after Deirdre is nothing short of a full time job. I needed to take a couple days of vacation before the General shut down for the year, so I was off 23 & 24 December. Having those two days off enabled me to plan all the meals I wanted to make over the holiday break, as well as to pick up the ingredients I needed. Deirdre worked until the Kingdom shut down at 4:30PM on the 24th, so I was able to move freely to make certain that when I picked her up from work on Christmas Eve that we would not have to go out for much of any reason until well after Christmas. I am happy to report that I accomplished that objective.

Originally, our plan was to spend Christmas Eve at home and I was going to prepare one of Deirdre's favorite meals. However, that changed on or about 22 December. Our Grand Rapids parent, Bud & Barbara, invited us to have dinner with them on Christmas Eve. We were just going to meet them for a drink that night, but when Barbara called Dee to ask us over for dinner, Deirdre said we would be happy to join them, but only if they let us take them to the Amtrak station on Christmas Morning. A bit more background on that. One of Bud & Barbara's children live in Chicago and their plan was to take the train there on Christmas morning to spend a few days together. The train leaves daily at 7:35AM from the station, and at first Barbara politely refused our offer to take them there. She felt that it was too much of an imposition on us to get up so early to get them to the station on time. Barbara's plan was to "take a cab." We would have none of that. Our dinner with them on Christmas Eve was nothing short of fantastic and Barbara clearly appreciated that we would be taking them to the train station on Christmas morning.

Samson woke us up on Christmas at his customary time of 5:45AM. We tended to his immediate needs, then headed out at 6:30AM to pick up Bud and Barbara. If you look at the two previous posts in this blog, you will see that we had a bit of nasty weather to deal with starting on 21 December. Close to two feet of snow fell from 21-24 December, which ensured a "White Christmas," but it made for horrible driving conditions. The roads on Christmas Day were nasty, but thanks to Deirdre's tank, the drive that morning was unremarkable. We got them to the station a little before 7AM and just before we dropped them off, Barbara thanked us again, saying that she was concerned about a cab actually coming to get them that morning. We were, of course, happy to help them. We returned home, woke up Samson and then enjoyed a very relaxing Christmas holiday.

We had a fairly busy weekend after Christmas. Our friends Dave and Aileen were married on Saturday, 27 December, and Deirdre served as their photographer. I helped Deirdre with her lenses, tripod and monpod, and after the ceremony was done, we were able to enjoy ourselves at the reception.

Deirdre and I also marked a milestone the past week. On 1 January, we celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe that on a warm, sunny New Year's Day in Guam that Deirdre took my hand in marriage. We looked back on our time together and we realized that we have spent perhaps 8 of those 22 years under one roof. Indeed, I have spent more time at home in the year that has passed since I retired from the Navy than I had in the previous five years. We also reflected on 2008. While it was a difficult year in many ways, it was a pretty incredible year for us. I also want to report that we have great expectations for 2009.

I was back at work on Friday, 2 January. Most of my co-workers took that day off, but there were things that I needed to do in support of the programs I am working. Because Deirdre worked on Christmas Eve, she was off on the 2nd. Thus, she and Samson barely moved as I got up to go to work Friday morning. However, tomorrow we will be back in our routine. As ever, updated to follow as conditions warrant.