July 10 2008

I am really bad about updating this thing. So a quick recap of the last month or so.

Seeing as there is not a lot of stuff to do in West Virginia, we went to a beer fest in a state park and had a whole slew of different beers. And last weekend I went up to Pittsburg for the 4th, fireworks, and Kennywood Amusement Park. It was supposed to rain that day so there were almost no lines there for most of the day.

Other than that, I have spent quite a bit of my free time in the gym since it is one of the few things that I can do after work, and is within walking distance. Seriously, I have never seen so many empty, run down buildings around a college campus. Its sad. But I am not complaining.

But one of the benefits around here is that movies are only $3.50 for matinee and $5.50 for evening shows. This place may suck, but atleast the cost of living is low!

And now I am at the academy. This really interests me because I am seriously considering becoming an agent in the next year or so, assuming that I get in good enough shape that is.

In two weeks I will be in Vegas, and the week after that I am in DC (throw paintballing, firearms training, and more DT into the mix and we have a summer on our hands). Yee haw.

Strella was put down today. RIP 1993-2008.

Hmm... I guess when I can't post these things on company time like last year, I don't do it quite as much. But I got out to West Virginia just fine, and settled into the dorm that I will live in all summer. Yeah, not the greatest deal ever, but the rent is only $340 a month, and that includes cable, power, internet, gym and parking. So I have nothing to complain about. But after a day of settling in, we packed up and drove out to Washington DC for orientation. While orientation at headquarters may sound glamorous, it was painfully boring. We sat in a hot room for an hour, then did a 4 hour marathon without a break, and then our hour lunch break was cut down to 20 minutes. And staying awake in a hot auditorium for 8 hours... whew. But what I did find out is that in this blog, I cannot say what organization I am working for, and I cannot post any work related pictures. But ask me and I can show them to you in person.

After the two days, we had an extra day where we got to tour the Capitol building. Since we were with Senator Byrd's office (the guy that has been serving for 40+ years and is in the hospital right now... here's for term limits!), we did get to see some behind the scenes stuff that was pretty cool. We also got to see the senate as they were voting on a budget bill for the next five years, and 93 of the 100 senators showed up, including Barack Obama on the day that Hilary Clinton conceded the nomination (although neither Clinton or McCain showed up).

Finally we got to the place we would work at, only to have another half day of orientation. I was about as oriented as I was going to get. But I did find out that we will get to do defensive training and firearms training for sure since we are in the right location (the DC kids don't get that). And then we got to work. My boss was out of town for Thursday and Friday, so I was shown around the office and datacenter a bit by some of my coworkers. But I can't say much about that.

Two pretty sweet things though: every intern gets a mentor, and my mentor is the deputy assistant director (second in command in our field office). Second, I will be doing auditing... the kind that I was doing all of last year in school. So it looks like this will be a perfect fit.

The upcoming plans look pretty sweet too: paintballing, skydiving, whitewater rafting, trip to a certain military base that my organization is pretty big at in Virginia, defensive training, and firearms. Not a bad summer coming up.

Well it is time to dust off the trusty old blog for this summer. As usual, I will update this with the different things that I am doing while off, away from Idaho. However, due to the place that I will be working this summer I have to be a little more careful about what I write here. I was essentially told to be careful on what I write that can be searched. So that means that I will not actually say where I am working, but most likely if you are reading this, then I have told you.

Also, due to my clearance level, I probably will not be able to talk much about what I am doing at work. At this point, I am not really sure what they are going to have me do, but I know it will be related to the broad category of computer security.

But there will be plenty of stuff for me to talk about. There are about 20 interns and plenty of preplanned activities for us to do, including firearms training, and defense tactics training. I have heard rumors of other things involving the president's helicopter and supreme court justices, but those have been unsubstantiated as of yet.

I fly out this Friday, and start orientation next Monday in DC. Fly out in three days... start in six. Oh man this is exciting.