Today on the Lstrblg...
Update
I decided early on in the Great Isidening that I wasn’t going to push it. I rejiggered this site and decided I’d write if I felt the urge. I was still grieving the loss of my job—or at least succumbing to a low grade melancholy that arose from the realization that the entire enterprise had been a bit of waste. Life was about experiences, and being laid-off was a new experience for me, for certain.
Or, at least that’s what I told the C-suite exec who pulled me aside after a meeting to tell me what I already knew—it was on the chart in front of me during the meeting and the presenter had the courtesy to appear chagrined: the cuts to the payroll would come across like a tiger’s paw and Communications would be gouged deeply. So, I knew before my boss did. She had assured me, a month previous, that Comms was too lean to get cut further. I think she believed it too.
I had been planning on leaving even before the 4Q19 results came out. It wasn’t quite the most glamorous position, and the commute was slowly murdering me. I felt more than a little ashamed to have been recruited so easily from a good position.
So, I’m writing now. My last meager severance payment has been made and it looks like another month or more before I receive unemployment. Fortunately, my wife and I are savers. I’d like to say that we have a grand plan for financial independence, but largely we save out of an innate frugality and fear of doing the wrong thing with what we have. We need a new car (the beautiful old Saturn Vue was finally put to rest after an incident with a deer on the Pennsylvania Turnpike) and we’ve been making due with the terrible Ford Focus I bought to commute. We’ll likely replace both, along with our leaky home windows, once we’re on a better footing.
We’re engaged in a minor competition to find a new job first, which my wife is winning. The deal had always been that one of us would work full-time while the other stayed at home with the kids. While I’ve had a few nibbles, Aly has already landed two offers. The first offer didn’t work out, regrettably, but the second one might.
So, secure in knowledge that my family would be provided for (and a fully-paid up life insurance policy), I decided to fulfill an old dream to bike to the shore this past weekend. 78 miles, with exactly no training. I’ll share some details tomorrow, but (not to spoil things) I lived.
Review: Six Frigates
One of the great joys of life is reading about death at sea during the summertime, whether that’s historical, fictional or scientifical. I’ve been sitting on Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy by Ian W. Toll since last summer. It was recommended to me by a retired admiral with whom I once worked.
I admit, I was a bit hesitant to begin despite the rave review–or perhaps because of it. Specialists steeped in the history of given topic often like to show off their knowledge of minutia and, for some reason, I often find sailing minutia particularly tedious. I like a bit of detail for verisimilitude, but I prefer not to steep in sailing jargon.
Fortunately, I had nothing to fear. Toll did a fine job of threading the needle between too much talk about canvas and too little context. Six Frigates was well worth the wait, which is your blanket review. It follows the inception of the U.S. Navy post-Independence with the construction of the titular ships, themselves revolutionary in their time–a combination of speed and firepower–that the fledgling nation to project its power for the first time. Toll does good work of covering the Barbary Pirates and the significance of the oft-overlooked War of 1812 in establishing the United States as a minor global power.
Also, to keep with summer reading theme, Toll presents some ripping descriptions of battle. Good stuff.