A Banner Year

Remember way back in March when I shared my little secret that sometimes I post a blog entry for very selfish reasons and that that the topic probably won't appeal to anyone. This is one of those posts.

But I had to reflect on what kind of year my favorite sports teams have had during the 2009-2010 seasons.

My old high school alma mater got things kicked off in a big way in the end of 2009. In Kentucky, basketball is king, but in my hometown, we love football (the American kind), and our high school is always among the best in the Commonwealth. This probably has something to do with being so close to Ohio and Cincinnati which has several high school football powerhouses. In 2009, the mighty Bluebirds, one of the weakest mascots in the history of football, knocked off a Cincinnati school for the first time in history, went 15-0, won the state championship, and finished the year ranked in the top 10 nationally in several polls.

During that same stretch, my other alma mater, Ohio University, made its way to the fifth bowl game in school history while also winning more games than any other season. However, the Bobcats came up a little short in winning their first bowl game. It is worth adding that while I was at Ohio, during three of the four years there, they won a total of five games.

You know you are having a great year whenever the Bengals make the playoffs. This was one of the historically bad franchises in all of professional sports in the 1990s. In 1988, the Bengals lost in the Super Bowl. A few years later in 1991, they broke Bo Jackson's leg in the playoffs, and then didn't put together a winning campaign until 2005. We called them the Bungles. In 2009-10, they beat the Browns and Steelers twice and got to the playoffs before losing the first game. Baby steps.

I've already discussed the successes of my college basketball teams, so I won't go into too much detail here. Ohio University made an improbable run to make it to the NCAA tournament and knock out the much higher seeded Georgetown, which was extra nice being surrounded by Georgetown fans. Also, this was the first time the OU football team and basketball team made a bowl game and the NCAA tournament during the same school year in OU's history. And the University of Kentucky had a strong bounce back year making it to the Elite Eight for the first time in several years, had the school's first number one overall pick in the NBA draft, and became the first school to have five players picked in the first round of the draft.

Finally, we have baseball. While not one of my hometown teams yet, the Hermosillo Naranjeros won their championship. Plus they have a very cool mascot that will be easy to cheer for. And as of this writing, the Cincinnati Reds are in first place of the National League Central and are making a strong push for their first playoff appearance since 2000 when they had a one-game playoff with the Mets to make the actual playoffs. At the very least, the Reds are in good shape to have their first winning record since 2000.

And if you want, you could throw in the U.S. and Mexican World Cup teams, which both did very well.

It has been a great year in deed for my sports teams.

EFM: Excessive Frivolities, Maids

Hope you enjoyed "Upon Further Review" Week. I might pull use that method again after I've arrived at post to see how my views have changed.

One view of mine that could definitely change is the topic of domestic employees, or hired help, or maids, or whatever you want to call them.

As we began sharing the news that we were entering the foreign service, the few people who knew what that meant congratulated me on the life they figured this meant for me: Natalie goes to work at foreign embassies and consulates; I lounge about in a life of luxury as our maids cook and clean around me.

Well, I never saw that in the brochure. And quite honestly, it is not a life I would want.

I'm from the Midwest (sorta). I never knew anyone who had a weekly maid service, let alone a live-in maid. And I grew up in a fairly opulent suburb of Cincinnati. Maids and servants were more of a Victorian ideal than a reality to me.

Little has changed for me. I'm still uneasy with the idea of a maid, live-in or otherwise. For one, I like cooking, so I don't want to give that up. Secondly, the idea of a stranger washing my underwear seems odd and invasive. Finally, we don't have any children, so it isn't like I need help with the household chores because there are kids to feed, entertain, change and observe.

As more and more information filtered down to us, reliable or not, I came under the impression that there is a level of expectation that American diplomats hire local help as a way to support the local economy.

So I've been tussling with a way to reconcile my preconceptions of what having hired help will be like with my preconceptions of what is expected of us in terms of being American diplomats on foreign soil.

I definitely could use a little help when we arrive in Mexico. For example, I probably could use some help with Spanish and local customs. And while I would not want to give up the cooking duties, it would be great to learn how to make Sonoran cuisine from someone who knows the ins and outs. And driving in a foreign country doesn't sound like much fun either. (Side story: I studied Mandarin in college, and one of my teachers related to us how shocked she was to see that Americans voluntarily follow traffic laws. I've heard similar stories about several other countries, that traffic laws or more of suggestions.)

Then again, if these preconceived notions that diplomats out to hire local domestic employees are unfounded, then I'd much rather not have to put myself through this. (Though Natalie disagrees. She likes the idea of not having to do laundry.)

So I will pose the question: What are the expectations regarding hiring locals to give back to the community? I imagine, like everything else in the foreign service, it varies from country to country, from post to post. But are there any guidelines?

EFM: Exhausted From Mini Marathon

CINCINNATI-I know I rail against some of the absurdity of government jargon and lingo, but here is a quickie against my own trade. See the start of this posting, with Cincinnati in caps? That is called a dateline. It means I'm writing this while in Cincinnati, but it doesn't include a date. Wouldn't location line make more sense?

Enough journalism insider jokes. For the first time since its inception, EF'M has hit the road. Obviously, this is the start of a roving blog.

I'm in the 'Nati for the weekend to run the 33rd annual Cincinnati Mini Marathon & Heart Walk. (All proceeds, $1.2 million, went to the American Heart Association.)

This also is home for me. I grew up across the river where I also attended high school, so this trip also was probably my final homecoming before we leave for Hermosillo, though we will stop here en route.

It was good to see my friends, even though we watched the University of Kentucky Wildcats lose in the Elite Eight of the Tourney (which concludes my NCAA basketball coverage until next March) and visit my family.

And then, of course, there was the run...15 kilometers up and down hills along the river (the Ohio, for the geographically-challenged) on Columbia Parkway. I hadn't been training the way I should've been, but was happy to finish in about 1:22 (haven't checked official results, yet).

Some day, I'd like to run a marathon, you know, just to say I ran a marathon. (Historical side bar: Lots of people run marathons, but I wonder how many know how the very first marathon ended? Let's just say the runner [there was only one runner] didn't fare particularly well. He ran the distance, yelled "Nike" [translation, "Victory," well played shoe company], and died. Why do so many people feel the need to do run this distance?)

I don't know how much running I'm going to get to do in Hermosillo. When the summer rolls around (let's call it June-August), I'll have 80 reasons not to run. Those reasons are the average low in Fahrenheit during that time of the year. Also, the thought of running through a country I don't know, where they speak a language I'm struggling to learn and where my gringo-ness will stick out potentially making me a target, I might need to find some alternative way of exercising.

There is a country club, and I don't mind running on the treadmill, but I've never tried running further than a 10k on a machine. It gets too boring to run much longer than that, in my opinion.

No doubt, I'll figure something out, but this is one of those lesser known challenges/sacrifices we make in this lifestyle.

And now I'll be signing out from Cincinnati.

Day One at Home

I got my first taste of what life will be like in Mexico as I spent my first day in my new office, the living room.

Sure, there were a few difference between working at home in Crystal City and working at home in Hermosillo. For example, while it did reach a sunny 61 F here, it was a sunny 74 F in our future home. And their low only dipped to 50 compared to the nearly freezing 37 here. Oh, and everyone I interacted with spoke English, but otherwise, yesterday was a microcosm of my future life.

The day got off to a rude start as I had wanted to sleep in until 7 a.m., but Natalie was less than quiet getting ready in the morning. For almost five years, I've been getting up before her to go to work, quiet as can be, and on this my first morning of getting to be the later riser, no dice. To her credit, she improved a thousand times over this morning.

After seeing her out the door, I started my new morning routine - making my own pot of coffee. While I'll be saving a lot of gas money and time not having to drive to and from work, I will be incurring new coffee costs as there was always as much free Starbucks coffee at work that I could drink. At home, I use Guatemalan coffee beans I bought through a vendor I met at the Crystal City's farmer's market last summer. Now, I like coffee, but I don't love coffee, but if I don't get two cups in the morning, I start going through withdraw by lunch time, which is marked by a throbbing headache.

Then I took Tiffy on her morning walk, and came home to get our breakfasts. I don't think my being home altered Tiffy's schedule too much, as I imagine this is how she spent her days while home alone. She didn't pester me at all.

Fed and caffeinated, I spent much of the morning getting organized. This included lots of e-mails. Some of it was work related, some personal and some foreign service oriented. The main task was to get an extension from Free Spanish on Internet (FSI) for another three months of Rosetta Stone access. I've been in touch with our Career Destruction Office (CDO; after much discussion, this has been accepted as an alternative to the Official Unofficial Acronym Chart's designation as Curmudgeon who Decides Overseas post), FSI and some other group, and I hope this gets resolved today.

After a couple hours of this sort of work, I went a jog until I nearly puked. I made it five miles, but before you say "good job," let's not forget I need to get to 9.3 miles by the end of the month for the Cincinnati minimarathon. That pretty much wiped me out for the rest of the day, but I ate lunch, checked on my e-mail accounts to make sure I wasn't following behind on my communications, and ended up watching TV for an hour or so.

Of course, this is when Natalie came home from work, finding me sprawled on the couch in pajamas. This is how I get judged.

All in all, I felt like it was a good start. I need to create a routine to make sure I get everything done, and yesterday went a long way to doing that. This is an exciting time right now, and I don't want to squander the opportunity to start good habits to maximize my situation.

Charitable Works

I wanted to share with everyone three charities my wife and I are/will be involved with.

First, for those of you who live in the D.C. area, the Fightin' 148th is hosting a fundraiser to support the Foreign Service National (FSN) Emergency Relief Fund to support the locally engaged staff in Haiti as well as Doctors without Borders. There's some info on the event in the image to the right, but in case it doesn't appear on your screen, the event is from 6-11 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 27 at the Ghana Cafe, 1336 14th St. NW. The suggested donation is $5-$10, and Ghana Cafe will donate an additional $1 for every beer sold and $2 for every cocktail.

And there is a decent shot I'll be working a beer-only bar at some point in the evening, so stop by, donate, have a drink and tell me what I can do to make this blog more appealing.

Further down the road a bit, I'll be running in the Cincinnati Mini Marathon & Heart Walk with my brother-in-law-in-law (my sister-in-law's husband) to raise money for the American Heart Association. Eric is creating a team to raise money in memory of his father, and if you are interested in donating (or running/walking, if you live in the Cincinnati area) feel free to do so by clicking here.

And finally, Natalie will be walking in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Washington, D.C., on May 1 and 2. She doesn't have a donation page set up, yet, but I'll pass that information along when it becomes available. Natalie and her sister, Mindy, will be walking in memory of their mother, Laraine T. Long, who died last summer after an 18-year fight with breast cancer.