It’s too clichéd to say that the year went by fast and it did! Also it’s getting a bit worn starting drafts by saying “it’s been a while since I last updated this blog…” as that is the truth. It seems 2010 was not an exciting year but to the contrary it was.
The Year of the Tiger is fierce as indicated in the Chinese calendar and everything that happened this past year was indeed fierce. The resistance to the move to Newport heightened in 2010. Petitions, letters and angry responses to NOAA’s persistent stance that the move was good for “all of us” transpired. It went as far as a letter signed by employees who opposed the move that Seattle mayor Mike McGinn personally handed to Commerce Secretary and former Washington governor Gary Locke during Locke’s visit to Seattle last summer. Locke much like his reputation as governor was ineffective and worst of all disingenuine in his answer by blaming the Bush Administration for the entire process. The lease was signed four months after Locke took office as Commerce Secretary. It was politics as usual. The folks in Oregon were overjoyed with their “victory” over Seattle and acted as if every job that were to move to Newport were vacant.
I resigned to the fact that I was to uproot my family and live in a cultural doldrums of Lincoln County Oregon until I was eligible for retirement. Oregon’s taxes are too oppressive and as much of a middle of the roader I am in politics it is one state that can use a good dose of conservative Republicanism. I like Portland as I do any large city. Portland has the best microbrews in the country and largest selection available and much industrial activity along with multi-ethnic and cultural diversity. To me, it is a smaller version of Seattle.
To be fair we have met some nice, friendly and hospitable people in Newport. It’s a cute town and a place I would not mind spending a three-day weekend but not live there. We would get bored quickly and doing simple things such as getting groceries would be a strenuous task to sustain our way of life. I have yet to hear from Lincoln County schools about ESL courses and such for my stepson. I feel what they have to offer and our unorthodox lifestyle would conflict and not made for each other. Some have suggested we assimilate but I would rather integrate as assimilation means denial of old culture and customs. But there is a silver lining in every cloud.
Several months ago talk started to revive about opening ET billets in Hawaii at the port office at Ford Island. I have been “commuting” to Hawaii from Seattle for the past eight years. With the family situation and keeping our livelihood, Hawaii would be a perfect setting for us. I submitted my letter of interest and am waiting for results. My last trip to Hawaii from the beginning of November until last week only resolved my desire to move there. If NOAA would have stayed in Seattle, it would have been a tough decision as we both like Seattle and made it our home the past two and half years since “L”s arrival in the US. But with the move to Newport looming, for us it is a no-brainer in choosing Hawaii over small town on the Oregon coast.
The year started with me sailing on my old ship, Ka’imimoana, to Apia Samoa in January. It was a two-week cruise before spending three weeks of leave with “L”s family before meeting the Hi’ialakai in American Samoa. I visited Lalomanu and saw the damage caused by the September 2009 tsunami. It is different seeing the wreck in 360 degrees instead of through lenses and videos. If you go back to the January archives you can read the articles I wrote during my stay in Samoa.
I finally finished the beginning of the year cruise in the Samoas in April and returned to Seattle. It was a tough four months and unlike the Navy NOAA has no communications network in place for families or give you accolades for what you did. We did survive the separation and the three-week stay in Samoa was worth it. It also gave me time to bond further with my stepson as we are still working to bring him to America. Maybe next year this time I can write that the non-married members of the family reunited and living in Hawaii.
I have not forgotten you “M” (my daughter) as we had a “family reunion” of sorts this Christmas weekend. It was good to see my daughter, her husband and my grandson as I have not seen them in months due to work schedule and other issues that rose. We ended the “reunion” with a visit to Genki Sushi at Seattle Center. To my astonishment little “G” has grown and getting difficult to carry as he is getting taller. He loves “L” as she was the first person he ran to and hugged as they came into the house. I will be having another grandson arriving in March of next year. We didn’t get to see “G” much in his infant years but certainly would invite him to spend the summer in Hawaii (if we are there) when he gets older. It’s one of those things that the late Harry Chapin described brilliantly in his hit “Cats in the Cradle” though he talks about his son but it can apply to daughters as well.
The rest of the year was highlighted with the battle over Newport and local cruises to the monument (a.k.a. Midway cruise). “L” and “I” made a return visit to Samoa for a month last summer. It was also the year we switched from Windows to Mac. I enhanced my knowledge of Linux and divorced myself on the personal front from Windows to alternative operating systems. On the professional front we are still in the Windows XP world along with Server 2003. With the condition of government finances, I doubt we will see any serious new upgrades soon. But I have to give Microsoft credit though. If we (NOAA) were to use Linux or Mac for our network, I would not have a job. So a toast to you “evil empire in Redmond” as your incompetence in trying to perfect an operating system guarantees me a job for life.
Not everything was rosy this past year. My mother’s dementia increased and she was placed into a home where she can get professional care. My father’s health is holding up but physically showing and feeling his age (78). When parents get older you start to evaluate and look in retrospect the relationship you had with them. Like the roller coaster of life there were ups and downs. You apply those experiences with your own children as they get into the same situations that seem to repeat with every generation. You understand the rebellion more and sympathize with their struggles though not necessarily their causes (age old generation gap). There is a tendency to avoid arguments because sooner or later they will come around, especially when they reach my age. You start to sound and act like your parents despite of swearing to an informal oath not to do so. I recall ignoring my father’s advice about retirement planning in my 20’s despite of his assurances that sooner or later I will be there. Well, here it is, he was right but life has a cruel way of revealing that to you. You always want to do something different from what your parents did. As you get older, you realize that what your parents did was not unique to them but part of the component of life called parenthood. To my parents, I hope that the New Years will keep them healthy.
I re-established contact with several friends through Facebook from my adolescent years. I found an obscure photo of a teen-age rock band formed in 1974 and posted it. That brought us closer together and talked to each other on the phone for the first time in over three decades. Contacts with two friends I knew in Regular Navy happened as well though I had talked to “R” in Salt Lake on and off via telephone and one brief face-to-face stopover in Bellingham in 1999 since we left Utah two years prior. However there was “P” who was my roommate in Memphis when we all attended “A” school and “R” helped re-establish contact. I last talked to “P” in 1988 in San Diego though he denies it, or probably does not remember. We are all getting older now and fortunately I have not received any news of peers who passed away. Though some have lost a parent or parents and even if I did not see them for quite some time they did play a role in my life. When I heard the news of their passing, their image and my lasting memory of them were frozen in time as if they were in they're 40’s forever.
The Year of the Tiger is to end and the Year of the Rabbit is supposed to bring calm and peace. I hope that does happen and the excitement of the past year seem to have turned towards the negative. Every decade seem to bring a new bout. The 80’s brought matrimony, maturity, parenthood and travel to Japan. The 90’s was the decade of Utah as that was our home for seven years, another child in the family and the millennium decade brought Washington, divorce, Samoa, Seattle, re-marry, grandchildren and different concept and viewpoint towards life. What will the next decade bring? Hard telling as I stopped trying to establish a path that seems to detour all the time! Oh well, I will end this by wishing everyone who reads this a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Years! May the Year of the Rabbit be good to you.
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