One thing you quickly discover when joining the Foreign Service, is you are surrounded by a team of nerds. Being a nerd myself, I quickly acclimated during orientation when I was invited for board game and trivia nights, and it has carried over into Mauritania. Since arriving, I have been able to get a few
Today’s post is going to talk us on a cultural journey of a different kind, and we are going to spend some time talking about bidet’s, why they are so great, and why the United States is woefully behind the rest of the world when it comes to bathroom hygiene. If you have spent any
Holy Moly! Today this blog celebrates one year of age, and what a year it has been!!! Although I am on the verge of shipping out to Mauritania, I wanted to take some time and reflect on the past year, and the blog as a whole. Obviously quite a bit has changed over the last
This last week of orientation featured a lot of self directed learning, and proved to be a fantastic week for my family to come from Texas for a visit. It was a jammed pack week of monuments, museums, a quick trip to Williamsburg, and good eating. It’s difficult to articulate how wonderful it was to
As I begin my move to the DC area, and make my way to the airport in just a few short hours for FS orientation, I find myself reflecting on just how much I love and will miss my hometown of El Paso. Located in the far tip of West Texas, El Paso is where
The last two weeks after getting invited to April orientation and setting up my PCS lodging in Washington have been fairly calm. This week I received my Salary Offer from the State Department, and as expected, I was salary capped in my entry level grade. I wrote an AMA here, about salary and all the
After accepting the position with the State Department, I immediately knew it would mean parting with my beloved Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, aka ‘The Crimson Fury’. I have always been a car guy, specifically a luxury/sports car guy, and since graduating from college in 2007, I have had some pretty cool cars. In order since
Since I have a blog and a website, I thought I would jot down some of my thoughts and feelings about the ongoing pandemic here. This post will have absolutely nothing to do with the Foreign Service. It will just be some of my thoughts about the last 2 years of the pandemic, and what
