You're Welcome

Man, so this random dude I know had such a truly horrible day, I had to write and tell you about it. It was so bad it was comical.

Wait.

Who am I kidding?

You know darn well who the random dude is. I may as well change the title of this post to:

Stupid Kevin Tricks, Vol 37, Ed 9,452

I would say grab a cup of coffee and pull up a chair, but I don't want you spewing that coffee on your computer screen, so liquids might not be a good idea. Let me also just state for the record that it's 32F outside right now, and with the wind chill it feels like 22F that plays a role here and there in this post.

So there I was...

It was my second day in a row of late meetings at work. Got done at the Pentagon shortly after 5 p.m. and had to take the briefing materials back to my office in Crystal City to lock it up for the night. Speed-walked in the frigid cold from the Pentagon back to my office (3/4 mile) and let our office secretary go home who had kept the office open for me. On my way into the office, I swiped my badge, quickly walked in and tossed my handful of stuff on my conference table, then just as quickly turned heel to walk back out and use the restroom.

As I walked out the door of the office, before I let the door slam shut, I said to myself, "Self, make sure you have your badge. It would REALLY SUCK if you locked yourself out of the office." I did a quick grab check and confirmed that my shoestring was around my neck and the familiar rectangular plastic form of my badge holder was against my jacket, so I pulled my foot out of the door and continued walking down the hallway as the office door slammed shut with a resounding THUD behind me.

Can you see where this is going?

Yep.

That "handful of stuff" I tossed on my conference table included my briefing pouch, my spiral notebook, my cover, my gloves... and my badge that I had just used to swipe open the office door. I normally always put it right back in my badge holder, but for some bizarre reason - a disturbance in the force, or an anomaly in the Earth's gravitational pull, or a butterfly flapped its wings in the Amazonian jungle last week, I tossed it on the table and walked out of my office.

The building security guys said they couldn't open it and someone who works in my office and had a badge coded for our swiper had to open it. So feeling like a total dumb-ass, I put my tail between my legs and called a couple of the lieutenants who work for me to find out how far away from the office they were and if one of them was available to come bail me out. One came to my rescue and arrived about 25 minutes later. He was very courteous in NOT pointing out what an idiot I was, but the smirk on his face said it quite well.

It was getting so late that I was afraid I would miss the last bus home. Normally I wear civilian clothes to and from work because they're warmer, but I said to myself, "Self, you've gotta be back here at 6 a.m. in your uniform tomorrow so you can be at the Pentagon at 7 a.m. You're gonna have to drive to work, and you're gonna need to be in your uniform first thing, so just wear your uniform home tonight." And so it came to pass that I skipped my routine of changing out of my uniform into my warmer civilian clothes for the commute home.

Another speed walk in the freezing cold took me six blocks to the Metro station. Off the Metro and onto the Loudoun County bus, I was mentally focusing on the positive, counting my blessings and being glad I caught the last bus home. Well, that's not entirely accurate. I made it to the last bus back to the commuter parking lot at Dulles North, not to "home."

I stepped off the bus back into the bitter cold and felt warmed by a sense of joy as I gazed across the parking lot to my car... one of the last cars left in the mostly empty parking lot... There is a light at the end of the tunnel! My suffering horrible day is almost over! (There were other not-so-good things that happened earlier in the day that I skipped over to keep this short.) I couldn't WAIT to get in my car and start the seat-warmer and crank up the heat.

After briskly walking across the parking lot to my awaiting chariot home, I put my hand on the door handle... nothing. I lifted my hand up and put it back down on the door handle again... nothing. As you may recall from a previous post, my car has one of those RFID keyless entry systems. I don't even think about it being there. I just walk up to the car, put my hand on the door handle, the doors unlock and the car goes, "beep beep," I open the door and get in.

Then the lightbulb went off over my head.

My fancy RFID keys only work as long as they're IN MY POCKET. More specifically, in the pocket of the CLOTHES I'M WEARING, not in the pocket of my blue jeans sitting back in my office in Crystal City.

I'm not proud of the choice of words that came from my mouth at that moment.

Once again feeling like a complete dumb-ass, I informed my wonderful wife what had transpired. She said the boys were still awake waiting for me to come home, so she would put them in the car to come rescue me. It didn't take long for me to start shivering while standing there in the parking lot, so I started jogging laps around the parking lot. That's how my wonderful wife and boys found me 15 minutes later... jogging around the parking lot... in my khakis... wearing my comfy shoes... body numb from cold... with snot running down my face like a river...

HOWEVER (comma) I'm trying to focus on the bright side and count my blessings. I made it home safely. I gave my building security guards, my lieutenants, my wife, and my kids a source of amusement for the evening. And I got some exercise.

But what it really comes down to is this. I did it all for you. I played the role of the sacrificial anode. I jumped on the grenade. I kept Murphy occupied all day today so that each of you could have a hassle-free day. I figure Murphy can only be so many places at once, and he was pretty darn busy with me today, so...

You're welcome.

Pentagon Gouge: Save the Date

For you bubbleheads in the DC area, the Submarine Birthday Ball is on April 10th, 2010, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott.

Update from Bizarro World

Wow. Not sure what I did to deserve this, but I think it's pretty funny. (Scroll down and read the first comment.)

A tool of the forces of evil???

A swing and a miss...

This is a follow up to my previous post on our new Epson printer.

My biggest (only?) complaint about our previous HP All-in-One was that when the ink was out, it ceased to function as a scanner or fax machine. Since a few years have passed and All-in-One printer/fax/copy/scanner machines like this have been around a while, I thought to myself, "Self, SURELY they have evolved to overcome such silly obstacles."

Self...

I hate to tell you this... but you were WRONG.

We've owned this new Epson WorkForce 600 printer for 3 months and have NOT done a lot of fancy color printing on it. Nevertheless, the yellow ink cartridge just ran out.

ALLLLLL STOOOOOOOP!!!!!

[cue sound effect of Engine Order Telegraph - RING! RING!]
"Maneuvering, Conn, Stop the Shaft."

Do NOT pass GO, do NOT collect $200, go directly to jail! printer-hell. The lack of YELLOW ink prevented doing ANYTHING else.

Wanna print something in black and white like your Blockbuster free rental coupons that expire today?

Too bad.

Wanna scan a check that you need deposited to your bank account pronto?

Tough.

Wanna fax an important counter-offer to your realtor 6,000 miles away?

Better call the wah-mbulance.

That empty yellow ink cartridge brings the printer to its knees.

I was pretty disappointed, but sadly not all that surprised. As long as Epson is making and selling the ink cartridges, it makes sense business-wise for an empty ink cartridge to be just as crippling as removing the electricity. It forces you to buy more ink from them instead of just living without that color.

But it's a sleazy business practice if you ask me.

Even so, I decided to write to Epson to express my disappointment. In my email, I offered two suggestions to improve their product. First, a short term mitigation would be to put a slip of paper in the printer boxes or user manuals that warns customers that the device will cease to function if you run out of any individual ink cartridge. Recommend to the customers that they should always have a spare of EVERY ink cartridge (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow) so that they won't have any important scanning or faxing held up by the lack of an ink cartridge. Second, as a long-term fix, I recommended updating the firmware in the printers so that it would allow scanning or faxing to override the "out of ink" error.

Much to my surprise, an Epson customer service representative called me last night.

Why did she call?

That's an excellent question. Let's see if you can guess. The Epson rep called me to...

A) thank me for being a supporter of Epson and writing nice things about them in at least two past blog posts.
B) apologize for the inconvenience that was caused by their poor systems engineering.
C) thank me for my recommendations to make their product better.
D) offer to send me a free yellow ink cartridge to show their appreciation for my loyalty and continued positive blogging.
E) all of the above.

Go ahead, talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a moment to consider just how awesome was Epson's response to my complaint. Think you know the answer? Ready? Good. I'm sorry to say it was a trick question. I should have offered you an option F) None of the Above, because I have absolutely no friggin' CLUE why the lady called me. She didn't thank me for my feedback, didn't apologize for the inconvenience, and didn't offer me anything short of a little didly and a lot of squat.

Not like I really would have expected her to offer me anything, mind you. The only thing I wish she would have said is that I am absolutely RIGHT (that you should be able to scan or fax even if you're out of ink or print black-and-white when you're out of color ink) and offer me some assurance that they would upgrade the firmware.

Nope. None of that. She very matter-of-factly stated that they will not be making any changes to the printer firmware and she just wanted to let me know.

Um... Gee... Thanks... I guess. Why bother calling and wasting my time?

I suppose I give Epson some credit for making an appearance that they care and acknowledge that they actually READ my email. The phone call response was about as effective as the infamous, "duly noted," response in the Navy. They could have given me THAT lip service via an automated return email and save money on the salary of the phone representative.

Courtesy Heads-Up Reminder: Pinewood Derby

For those of you involved in Cub Scouts, I offer a courtesy reminder that your Pinewood Derby is probably fast approaching. This is evidenced by the increasing number of hits I have been getting on my blog from people doing Google searches for Pinewood Derby designs.


Each year I procrastinate. Then the last weekend before the race, I quickly throw something together with my eldest son. Somewhere along the way, I mumble to myself, "Self, next year, you should start working on this a lot sooner and not wait until the weekend before the race." Especially this year since we're doing two cars - one for ES's official entry and one for YB to enter the "sibling" category of the race.

So here we are... 4 weeks out from the Pinewood Derby. I should probably get the boys to decide on their designs and colors and get to work.

But I've got plenty of time!

Reflections

Happy New Year everybody!

When I stopped to look back on 2009, I said to myself, "Self, where did the year go?" No PCS transfers, no trans-oceanic household goods shipments, no deployments. Just driving a desk, being a power-point warrior, and routing urgent memos around the Pentagon. The biggest thing that happened for us this year was my promotion in August. So I browsed back through my 2009 blog posts to remind myself what else happened.

Last New Year's Eve was fairly typical in that I was the only one awake at midnight. This year was the first year my entire family has been awake and watched the ball drop together. The five year old was especially wound-up and had trouble calming down to go to bed afterwards.

Last January, we celebrated my youngest son's birthday down at the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg. It was a great time, but the happy memories were sadly overshadowed by our return home to news of a family tragedy. Rest in Peace Uncle Chris and Aunt Elaine.

I started the Pentagon Gouge Index to keep track of posts about life in the Pentagon, and I tried to start a routine of writing Pentagon Gouge posts on Mondays. Although I haven't managed to post every Monday, I have received positive feedback from readers who have appreciated the posts. Many thanks to those who have provided me feedback through blog comments, email, and face-to-face in the Pentagon.

I wrote several unsolicited Advice for Junior Officers posts. I thought I had posted an Index to keep track of those posts, but I just found it in the draft file never posted, so I'll post it now. If you have any suggestions for future topics you would like to see in this category, then please let me know.

I learned the difference between a nerd, a geek, and a dork. Although I didn't need to go back in my blog posts to remind me of this. My wonderful wife reminds me I'm a dork on a regular basis. :-)

We had a few visits by family and friends and went sight-seeing around the DC area (with S&C, with P&E), visited Luray Caverns and Monticello, and the International Spy Museum, and Mayne's Tree Farm.

My awesome wife bought me a kayak for Father's Day and I managed to get out on the water eight times over the summer (first 7 times summarized here then the last trip here).

We had an awesome summer vacation in New Hampshire (see the several blog posts from 8/14 to 8/22).

My friend B and I went on a couple of awesome bike rides along the C&O Canal Tow Path and the Great Allegheny Trail.

Looking Forward: What do I look forward to in 2010?

Here's what I'm looking forward to in 2010...

- Spending time with my family on shore duty while it lasts.
- Enjoying the changing seasons in Northern Virginia.
- Our church moving into our new permanent home.
- Our Spring Break family vacation in Orlando.
- More kayaking.
- More bike rides with my friend B.
- Another summer vacation in New Hampshire.
- More reading.

If I had to make one new year's resolution, then it would be to read more. Unfortunately, I'm a slow reader, and the list of books I want to read grows much faster than the rate I actually read the books I accumulate. I have been making more of an effort to read lately, and I will continue that as we move on into 2010.

With that, I bring my 2009 blog to a close and set out to find new things to experience and write about in 2010.

Happy New Year!

Advice to Junior Officers Index

Here's an index to previous unsolicited advice to Junior Officers topics in my blog. Like the other index and favorite lists on the right side of my blog, I'll periodically update this post whenever I write a new post in this category.

Here are the things I've written so far:
- Award and Eval Gouge
- DAPA / Alcohol Issues
- Intrusive Leadership and LES- Nuke Bonus and Thrift Savings Plan
- PCS / Travel Entitlements 
- Social Networking Groundrules
- Tax Withholding Status
- Timing of signing a nuclear officer continuation pay contract
- Uniforms and Formal Functions

Gear for Deployment:
- Comfy shoes
- Don't buy a Zen MP3 player for use on deployment
- Headsok
- Adapter for foreign power outlets

Not so much advice as just information:
- Submarine Officer career path