About Us

Life is strange. Patti and I now own two resort properties, but neither is suitable (has enough space) for a retirement residence. That's academic anyway given the size of our nest egg, and the present state of the economy. Patti finished up a 3-month contract job at USAID Tel Aviv in September, then returned to the USA. When they told me I couldn't take any time off for her return, I resigned from my contracts position at QinetiQ North America, a Government contractor in Fairfax, VA where I'd been working since 2008. So we had both been living in our mountain cabin in North Carolina since September.

When I'm here at the cabin, I'm generally busy. The work is pleasant and energizing -- I've always liked clearing brush, building and fixing things, making small improvements. Among the big improvements last year was the installation of a new garden plot on what had been a hillside. The landscape folks shored up the hillside with timbers and filled in the space with 2 trucks of topsoil. I even planted a winter garden, including some lettuce and radishes but the snow got to them first.

We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas here, and find the resort community incredibly welcoming. This is truly the genteel and friendly south you read about. Friends are easy to make, and the locals here are, like us, transplants from the big cities both north and south, with iteresting jobs, extensive travels, and broad interests. We sorta, well, kinda fit right in.

Then the new year. For the last month or so, I've been pursuing new job opportunities. The old financial spreadsheet shows that our assets are insufficient to retire at this time, but maybe after another year or two of working, all will be well. Unfortunately, for me, working means moving back to Washington, DC and leavin this wonderful cabin life behind. There were two interviews in January, and another couple so far in February..

One of those was for a government contracts specialist for an NGO firm in Bethesda, MD, just north of the Washington, DC line. After a friend there recommended me, I was brought on under a 3-month consulting contract. So with one day's notice, I packed the car, drove from NC to DC, checked back into Aunt Martha's house, and started work the next morning. I'm working on spreadsheet quotations for health-care proposals, most frequently in Africa and for AIDS and child-health initiatives. The office is conveniently only one metro-stop north of DC, the folks are friendly, and the work is not (so far) requiring me to spend weekends or evenings. And so my 5 months of so-called retirement has come to an end. I fully expect this to lead to a full-time position and fully expect I will be here for at least a year.

As before, the daily commute requires about a mile trudge both morning and afternoon. And as before, the DC weather continues to irritate, what with colder-than-normal temperatures, north winds, and greater-than-normal rainfalls. Chock that up to the continuing effects of global warming.

Meanwhile, Patti remains in Lake Lure, working remotely with her USAID mission overseas. She will visit me from time-to-time, and will probably move in with me for the summer unless her work takes her back overseas.