WOW

That pretty much sums up today. I‘ll try to retell events as concisely as possible.
This morning I received the official request that I make my way to Kelly AFB. The initial conversation I had with Sabrina at P15 was regarding the Chief of Supply position, however, I have the ability to pretty much pick up and go anywhere, something a lot of more established people can’t do. I thought it best to use this particular asset to the fullest, and chose instead to perform pretty much the same job, just localized to Kelly AFB.

I then spent the afternoon meeting with people. I wanted to make sure everything was in place at OSU before I just took off for an undetermined period of time. Everyone was very supportive and assured me I have nothing to worry about. My last stop was a meeting with an Associate Dean in the College of Engineering at OSU, my academic home. He asked their Director of Marketing & Communications to be there as well, and I pretty much told them the story. I just wanted to know my home was both aware of what I was doing and behind me. Wasn’t quite ready for what came next.

By the time I had walked from that meeting back to my office (other side of campus), I had three messages. The first was a call from the College offering to pay for my airfare. This came as a HUGE relief, since I have very little money and wasn’t having much luck at talking airlines into giving me a ticket. Clearing this final critical hurdle pretty much cemented my position at Kelly.
Next was a request to contact the team down there. I spoke with the project director for this site, and was asked to fulfill my supply job as well as serve as the team leader for the Systems Team. This team of 4-7 systems engineers will be responsible for the computing component of our communications system. I’m both honored and humbled to be asked to serve in this way, and I look forward to the challenges it will bring.

Also in talking to them, I was impressed with how things are coming together. The Network and VoIP teams down there are working, and should have something going over the weekend. Apparently Cisco came through in a big way with switches, routers, VoIP handsets, the works. The GOOD STUFF too. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of it. Thanks hardly seems fitting. These guys rock.

The last call was from a company I have a job application on file with requesting an interview for next week. Doh! Hopefully they’ll take a phone interview from Kelly, and hopefully I have some time to prepare. It’s a pretty sweet position!

The last call of the day was from the Gazette-Times, the local newspaper in the Corvallis region. Engineering passed on my story to them, and now they’re interested in following it as well. I’ll be sure to post any stories under the "links" section.

So now it’s after 2 AM, and I’m tired. I’ve been staying up past 3 all week working out details of this project, and now can’t seem to sleep before then. Hopefully tomorrow night I can get some additional rest so I don’t show up at Kelly exhausted. If not, well, we’ll just roll with it. Thanks everyone. ‘Night.

- Matt (currently in: Portland, OR)

P.S. God bless whoever at Google decided to add a "spell check a web form" feature of the Google Toolbar. Who knows if you’d be able to read this without it!