Waggin Trails

A New Year, yes, but Happy???

2006-01-30T19:00:00.000-08:00

Hmmmm, maybe not. Or at least, not yet.

No full-time employment has appeared on the near horizon (or any horizon, for that matter) and frankly, I am getting a little bored.

Oh, I can surf the Net for hours at a time, play idiot singleton games on the computer, read books about this and that, putter about the house, etc. But none of this really stimulates my brain cells very much.

I am getting more exercise. I take an hour+ walk nearly every day, if the weather is even half-decent. (Part of this is mental therapy, part if physical therapy after having surgery on my spine to relieve a ruptured disk and consequent pinched nerve.) My blood pressure is much better and I have lost weight. (Had to punch a new hole in my belt today -- my pants kept slipping down. Now THAT hasn't happened to me in a long time!)

And like lions or boa constrictors, there are some employment possibilities out there -- I just have to track them down, capture them, and make them like me, without swallowing me whole.

More later.

sw

Time to move...

2005-07-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been three months since I first put something up, and I almost totally forgot about it in the interim. It's not that I have been terribly busy, but other things have attracted my attention and energies.
-- Now we are approaching the end of our time in Poland. My three-year appointment with the ODIHR ended in February, and I have not yet been successful in parlaying that experience and my previous work into another position in Europe, so we have to pack up and head back to our house in Northern Virginia. From there, I will attempt to insert myself into the Oort Cloud of consultancies swarming in intersecting orbits about the Twin Suns (State and USAID) and the Beltway.
-- Before we get there, however, we'll be spending some time at my wife's home -- another region entirely, and one covered by various bloggers far more articulate about those issues than I am. I may have some thoughts to share when I am ready to leave there.

First Blog Post

2005-04-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the Blog's title, everybody, but I wanted to get something started, and I didn't have the time to sit around and think of something really exciting or exotic. And I just KNEW that nobody else would ever want to use a name like this one, so I figured it would be available -- and it is...

Now, what will I talk about here? I have no idea. The few blogs that I have looked at seem to fall into two types: either very self-centered, even narcissitic, rambles about one's personal experiences; or highly techno-geekish, narrowly focused on one or two topics like webscript or political fundraising scams or whether the XYZ Corp will release its new chip before Q3 of '06...

Those of you who know me can probably expect more of the former rambling than the latter (because I'm not much of a geek, and because I do like to ramble...) But maybe I'll throw in something a little more technical (in my narrow world of interests, that is), about ODIHR's election observation methodology (which I do know about and care about), or the various proposals to reform the human rights machinery of the United Nations, or the respective merits of Bush Administration nominees John Bolton or John Negroponte (one of whom I have worked for and the other I met once).

And yes, you can expect to see lots of parenthetical comments, because (as those of you whom I have written to directly will recall) I do like to interrupt myself to interject another thought.