Good day, everyone! I know I have been quiet and out of the picture since early January, but it was for a good reason! (Not really, I just kept putting off writing to you all. Sorry about that!) Anywho, there is a whole bunch of things I want to tell you!

     To begin with, I have been really enjoying work here. There is a fantastic thing where I can pretty much do flex time. I can vary my hours so long as I maintain an average of 8 hours a day. With regards to work though, there hasn't been all that much to talk about at the office. Its been just like working anywhere else. Enjoyable days of working of meaningful things and such. One thing I've been working on is getting contract documents together for the final delivery of a SWATH Coastal Mapping Vessel that covers stuff from 1994 to Present. My office to present has been very full of various papers all over the place!

     Around Silver Spring, I have determined that drivers here are unsure of what to do with the mystical object known to most people as a "car." They don't seem to understand fundamentals of working such a beast, such as cleaning off snow for visibility, using turn signals, respecting lane lines, or waiting for the road to be clear before entering it. Many a time, it has snowed overnight and I have emerged the next morning, cleaned off my car, and embarked upon my commute to see people who have either turned on their windshield wipers and called it a day or used a glove to clear a porthole from which they presume to view the world while driving on snowy roads. These people concern me since they are incapable of seeing anything while they drive. Amazingly, I have not seen any of them do anything more serious than drive over the curb while turning.

    When they decide to turn or simply change lanes, they do so and then turn on their blinkers, usually in the opposite direction than which they just went. I'm not sure they understand what the double yellow line is or its significance either, since they typically drive partially on the other side of it for no reason. I fear that may be partially the fault of the roads, since when they are wet, salted, or snowed upon, the lanes disappear. Or that may be a function of the lanes adapting their meaning to accommodate rush hour traffic. Another thing I've noted is the number of drivers who don't use headlights when its dark, unless its raining, foggy, or snowing, in which case they must use their hi-beams.

     At work, one interesting thing we have been working on is a small, open source Remote Operated Vehicle for underwater work, known as OpenROV. My co-worker Gerardo was the one who built it, but we all recently went to test it in a pool. It was fantastically cool to see go, but unfortunately we were having sealing issues and we had to keep pulling it out of the water to drain water from inside the cylinder that housed the electronics. See the photos of the ROV on dry land and from inside the pool below.

     While I have been here, I have also been able to go on travel to both Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Norfolk, Virginia. When I went to Portsmouth, I was on a trip to go work on a SWATH vessel that NOAA has. This vessel's job is to map the ocean floor for use in creating charts and research. This vessel, the Hassler, has been delivered recently and has already been on duty mapping critical channels to shipping ports following Sandy to ensure that ships can still get into port! Its a fantastic ship, and Portsmouth is actually quite pretty.

     When I went to Norfolk, Virginia, it was to get on one of the Fishery Survey Vessels (FSV) that NOAA operates. These are the ships that are used to set commercial fishing quotas around the united states. It was quite nice and shiny and new on the inside, having been recently delivered. When I was on the FSV, we actually got to leave port and head out to sea. We headed from Norfolk down south along the gulf stream and then back for a total at-sea time of four days. In order to deposit me back on the shore, the FSV anchored off the coast of Virginia Beach and two of the crew took me and another contractor in on the work boat. As we were going in, we threaded through about 14 bulk carriers waiting for an available pilot to go load cargo.

     You have probably heard of the snow storm that has been going through over the last few days. We got our decent deposit of snow last night. Some picture of the snow buildup from when I was shoveling this morning are below. Its quite a lot of snow, but being from Florida, I had fun! =]

    Also, I managed during my time here to build myself a gaming computer rig. It makes me really happy and is quite nice. I don't have any pictures of the build since they accidentally got deleted. I'll probably mock up the build with photos later, but here is a picture of my computer next to Gerardo's computer when were were playing together at his place.

Well, have a wonderful evening, and I will post again soon-ish!

-Eric Harris

Hello!

     So I have completed my second day at the office. It already is a lot of fun. I have been introduced to the various projects and have been assigned work for warranty already! I walked in the first day and was asked if I had ever worked with Microsoft Access before. Seeing as I hadn't, but I have worked extensively with Microsoft Excel, I decided I could figure it out. At the end of the day today, my computer and I were not on the best of terms, but we sorted things out and decided we wouldn't talk about work until Monday. All in all, the work side has been interesting so far. There are a lot of cool things like sextants and other naval tech around the office, which is fun to look at when Microsoft Office decides to crash the computer and restart.

     The place that I am living in for the two months is actually really nice. I didn't really know what to expect of it, but upon arrival I am pleasantly suprised. I have my own space to myself and have full access to everything in the house. I ended up arranging to stay in a room with a couple who rents out rooms in their house as if it were a bed and breakfast. Nice couple, and nice place. I just wish it snowed a little later in my stay so I could have seen the house in all its glory. My first night here I didn't do much but get settled. My second day was the first day I went to work, so the morning was spent getting ready. That afternoon it started snowing pretty hard, so my boss sent me home early at 4:00 PM so that I didn't get caught in the snow. Over that night, it snowed a good four inches, stopped snowing, and then started gusting wind really hard. The result was that this morning I walked out to my car and the doors were frozen shut. After breaking the seal and entering my car, I turned it on and started clearing off the snow. Once I was sufficiently frozen to the bone and my car was clean I jumped in the car to warm up... except my engine decided it liked being cold and took a total of about fifteen minutes to warm up enough to give me heat. The weather when I arrived at work was 15 degrees outside with a wind chill advisory, which was well merited.

     I am working with a graduate of Webb from the class of 2013, Gerardo Nixon. He apparently has become the office resident food guru since he began working there and has already taken me to two fantastic restaurants. The first was an awesome Cuban place where I got some fantastic spiced meat and veggies with a delicious rice and bean mixture. The second was a great japanese place that had wonderful sushi and rice bowls. I'm excited for my lunches to come and I might go out to eat somewhere for dinner tonight, but I'll figure that out when I get really hungry.

Well it was good catching up, but I'm off to go enjoy Silver Spring some more!

Eric Harris

The beginning draws near

     Before any journey, preparations must be made. This winter work, my journey will be take me to the north side of Washington DC. I will be conducting business for ECS Federal along with a Webb graduate, Gerardo Nixon. everything appears to be in order. All that remains is to wait until I move into my place on the first of January, 2014. I am excited for this opportunity and plan to spend a good deal of time wandering DC.

Until next time,
Eric H.