We're moving to ...

Milan!
Seriously. In June 2010.
It was our first choice, but we really weren't expecting to get it.
Start planning your trips now.

Don't Mention Pirates

I love this book.
We've had it a couple of years and have read it many times, but when Laura pulled it out tonight, suddenly I remembered how much I like it.
My favorite parts:
The grandpa's friend is called one-eyed Scott. Does he have another friend named two-eyed Scott? Or, better yet, three-eyed Scott? Maybe there will be a sequel.
And when Scarlet goes out in the morning and her mom tells her about them throwing mud pies, I imagine it's my mom saying that. She's definitely the mud-pie throwing sort. Heck, some of you have heard the stories about her baking dirt in the oven.
So, if your kids haven't read the book, track it down for them. I think it's great.
There's another book by a different author but with the same type of illustrations. It's called Pirates Don't Change Diapers. I don't like it as much, but boys might find it more their style.

Dangers of living in a not-so-great house in a tropical place

Our washer and dryer are on an outside patio. This is less than ideal because of the toads that congregate there. Oh, and the fact the humid climate combined with no air conditioning in the laundry room combine to create ...
Rotten laundry.
OK, so I exaggerate slightly. But I'm a person who puts a load of laundry in the washer and then gets around to putting it in the dryer later that day. And then, if it sits in the dryer a little while, big deal.
But if I do either of those things now, the clothes end up smelling funny. In a bad way. And obviously it's not fun to have smelly clothes.
So go ahead, State Department, send us to a cold, less humid place. My clothes will thank you.

Places we could be going

A few people have asked what Kevin ended up bidding on. This was his list -- or at least the last version I saw. There's been some (what I think is) joking about adding Baku, Azerbaijan, at the last minute.
While Milan definitely isn't likely, it's not a job tons of people would want (or would even be able to bid on). So we'll see.

Milan
Munich
Ljubljana
Tallinn
Krakow
Frankfurt
Riga
Bratislava
Montreal
Warsaw
Berlin
Vienna
Sofia
Moscow

The bid list is in

I would genuinely be happy with any of the 20 places (fewer than 20, actually, because he bid on more than one job in some places) Kevin put on his list. Now there's just the waiting ...

Does one celebrate their living situation being classified as substandard?

They do if they're in the Foreign Service. And effective yesterday, Port of Spain is classified as a 5 percent differential post.
Mostly that means people's salaries are boosted by 5 percent while they're working here. But it's also advantageous for bidding, as Kevin will be assigned before people who now are in London and Paris and Singapore and Canberra and Vancouver.
Yes, this is big. I feel like throwing a party.

Trinidad celebrates

Richard Thompson won the silver medal in the men's 100 meters in Beijing. After all the talk about the medals the team was hoping to win, it's good to see something finally happen.
He's also the nephew of one of the Foreign Service nationals who works in the embassy's consular section.

We're all proud of our children for different things

Mine just found Eritrea on a globe, and I couldn't be happier.

Where, oh where will our next post be?

We still don't have any idea, although Kevin's bid list is due next week. We're hoping it'll be somewhere in this area, though. Well, at least if you chopped off Scandinavia. I'm not ready for anywhere quite that cold.

Olympic flashback: The Portrait of Dorian Gray

Since I can't watch real coverage of the Olympics (see previous post on my lame cable provider), I've found myself thinking about previous Games.
I attended some of the equestrian events at the 1996 Olympics, but before that, I was at work on The Tennessean's copy desk the night of the opening ceremonies. And my friend Mark made a very interesting observation: Bob Costas doesn't seem to be aging. The Portait of Dorian Gray idea was his.
And although I haven't seen Bob Costas live from Beijing, somehow I'm imagining he still looks exactly like he did in 1996.
Of course, since we're not due to escape Trinidad for vacation until Sept. 20, I won't be seeing him anytime soon.
Oh, well, I guess I can look forward to London 2012.

Thanks, President Saakashvili

I was trying to decide whether to push Kevin to bid on a job in Tbilisi. You've made that decision a bit easier.

Stupid cable company

Our cable provider apparently is too cheap to pay for the Olympics, so NBC and USA are blocked. How incredibly ridiculous is that?
There is a local feed that seems to be showing some sports, but the commentators leave something to be desired, and the picture quality is lacking.
Yes, I'm a whiner. But I take my Olympics seriously.

Laura makes an appearance in State Magazine

The latest edition of the State Department's in-house magazine finally is online, and there's a photo of Laura as part of a feature I sent in on Port of Spain's Take Your Child to Work Day.
You can see it here. (Scroll down to Page 18.)

Here's how it works

Jim's comment on my previous post made me realize I needed to provide a better explanation of how bidding works.
1. The list is released. (There are different lists for different levels and such.)
2. The high-equity people turn in their wish lists and are assigned. (High equity means places with high differentials: Iraq, many of the Stans, etc.)
3. A revised list is released. Kevin got it today.
4. The low-equity people turn in their wish lists and are assigned in descending order based on the differentials of their current posts. (Port of Spain is zero differential.) This part of the process is particularly complicated by timing -- not all jobs start at the same time, in part because of language training -- and by some people, such as Kevin, still having to meet requirements for language profiency. (So he'll get assigned before other zero-differential people who already have met the language requirement.)
5. A band of magic gypsies in Washington does the rest of the assignments.
OK, so there are no magic gypsies, just career development officers. And things like medical clearances and having spouses who are natives of other countries play into it, too.
So, it's all a lot of fun. Or at least I suppose it would be if it would hurry up and be over with -- and we get assigned a place we really want.

Places we won't be going

Kevin's bid list includes some places he definitely won't be trying for this time around -- Beijing, Cairo, Islamabad and Monrovia, for example -- but there are some good places that have disappeared already. Like Budapest, Florence and The Vatican.
And just after I explained to Laura that Budapest used to be two cities, Buda and Pest. Not that she believed me.