So. Yeah.

Not much blogging lately just because life has been nuts. That's always the excuse but this time its somewhat legitimate...

I resigned last week from Accenture and accepted a position with World Vision. I'll be returning to Africa as the Program Manager for Global Supply Chain Management Implementation there (a mouthful, right?). I'm flying to Nairobi on January 10th and will be looking for an apartment there, at least in the short term. Doesn't really matter where I put my stuff, the position will be 75%+ travel to the countries across the continent (primarily southern, eastern, and western regions) that we are working in to set up SCM offices within WV's existing architecture. Its exciting but its going to be a lot of work.

I'm finishing up a 10-day stint here at home in Cali tomorrow and flying back to NYC tomorrow night. Its been good to spend time with the entire fam, eat all my favorite foods, and get a day of riding in on a foot of freshies. Also I think I caused some nerve damage in my arm that I need to see a doc for next week. Speaking of next week, I also need to:

- get a medical screening done for WV
- see a travel clinic to update any of my immunizations
- meet with my financial guy and sort all the 401k rollovers out
- interview potential sub-letters for my place
- host the NYE party at Lincoln center
- schedule an appointment with the derma doc
- figure out how to transfer all my personal stuff from Outlook and OneNote to the home computer
- back up the home computer
- get new headphones, an external hard drive, a projector to serve as my TV in Africa, and potentially a DSLR (woot)
- find my old receipts and submit them for work expenses
- finish all the administration around leaving the company
- send some thank-you cards
- pay my parking ticket
- find a new bank account that won't screw me on withdrawal charges in Africa
- figure out where I'm going to store my stuff
- start packing
- find some jeans sample sales
- get a living will drafted
- send my (late) holiday cards
- finish all the on-boarding paperwork for WV
- see Grand Torino
- switch all the bills over to Dave's name
- figure out how to get out of my Sprint plan without having to pay
- eat slightly healthier and perhaps even get a few runs in

Also, I have decided that I will be acquiring a pair of dogs once I get settled (so to speak) in Kenya. This makes me happy.

More when I get around to it...

Week in CA:

- flew there uneventfully.
- went to Margy's wedding (still need to put pictures online).
- spent the rest of the weekend with Peter then took the train back to Sacto.
- worked a bit.
- spent some time with Aunt Betty and Uncle Joe and then with the grandparents.
- worked more.
- drove down to Santa Cruz with dad and got an afternoon of surfing in.
- flew back. had an upgrade on my LAX-JFK flight which was nice.

Last weekend I finally saw Burn After Reading and Sunday was the old routine that I've rather missed in the last year - church, youth group, football. The week's been uneventful. Foot has been healing up from a cut I got when coming out of the surf, so I couldn't run til today.

I want to get back to writing posts of some merit more than these blase updates but I'm horribly lacking in motivation during this limbo period.

Gaze upon its beauty, and fall before it in your terror.

I have acted foolishly this week, and disregarded the apostle's wisdom and guidance to flee temptation. Nay, I have sat down in the midst of temptation, time and again, and stomped upon her gas pedal of power, pushing dangerously close to and perhaps slightly exceeding the speed limitations of the various counties of the greater Los Angeles area that I have traversed these last few days.

I'm pretty sure I've avoided breaking the tenth commandment, because this is Hertz's car, and since technically I'm paying them to rent it, if I envy it, its kind of like coveting something I actually own myself, which really isn't coveting at all. Right?

I'm not sure I can say the same for the deadly sin of lust, however. To look at this car is to lust for speed.

This car. Just...wow. On the drive back to the hotel each night I have a very real and very serious struggle with the idea of just driving past my exit on the 10 East, and taking it to the 15, and seeing Vegas for the evening. But there is work to be done the next morning. Except for Friday, which is a South African holiday, which means I get the day off, which means that Thursday night...

The grinch had a wonderful, awful idea!

So anyway yeah...I've never driven such a small car with so much horsepower. I've been thinking for a while now that I want my next car to be a project car - a late-60's mustang I can re-work. But now...now I just want pure unadulterated Japanese speed.

In black, please.

(Slingshot...engaged.)

OK so I'm in LA. For a bit.

I got my shower in LHR. Turned out to be a lot easier than I thought - premier exec status on United gets you lounge acess when flying international. Go me.

Flights were still long but Peter was waiting for me in SFO in his uniform, which was kinda cool, cause I was on the phone fighting with Sprint to get my super-discounted plan re-set-up, and he took my luggage cart, which made me look like someone super-important, with a military-looking escort to push my crap around.

Hung out with Peter that afternoon / evening, we got drinks with his boss, John the Harbormastor, which is always fun. Then Friday morning I took the train up to Sac, and worked from there. Mom made meatloaf that night because she loves me.

Saturday we drove off to Yuba City to see Joey's lacrosse game. I was surprised to see that he was the biggest kid on his team. I guess it makes sense cause he's huge, but still. He's fairly new to the game but he's already pretty decent. I sat on the bench for a bit as older-brother-who-knows-a-few-tricks-to-the-game. One of his teammates was an about 4'11" kid who got trampled in one play and then came out of the game (all pissed off) for trying to start a fight in response to the trampling. I explained to him how to casually walk next to the opponent, push his elbow from his side, and deposit the butt of his staff into the kidney of said trampler. Etc.
Joey enjoyed that, but he's too nice to ever do it himself. I'm not sure anyone on the opposing team would be brave enough to piss him off anyhow. Not that they could.

Anyway, they had a local dad as the only ref, which was complete BS, so the game was totally slanted. The home team would have won anyway, but he seemed hell-bent on giving them all the help he could. I have a nasty word for people like that which I will not use.

Lunch with the fam and grandparents, who also came down for the game, then tacos at home for dinner. Mom loves me.

Interesting evening which culminated with me shaving my beard to a very short length while I was not really in my right mind at about 5 in the morning before Joey and I shot off to the airport.

Then I was in LA. Afternoon/evening prep meetings for our presentations which began this morning, with WV's Exec Board Advisory Group. Re: presentations: I always freak out a very little bit right before go-time, but then I end up kicking arse. Anyway it was cool to see the work I've done in stark relief, and have people actually appreciate it.

ALSO...

Hertz hooked me up with a 350Z.

You probably don't know what that is, but it deserves its own blog post in and of itself. Suffice to say that if this car does not send me to jail before I leave on Saturday, self control is a fruit of the spirit that I have in spades.