I’ve had such fun saying that with a pregnant pause and watching the perplexity on people’s faces because I sound so happy about it.

He’s been making this push for a couple of months, and I’ve been resisting. About a month ago, we were sitting in the hot tub, and he brought it up again. I, as usual, resisted. But he was getting more and more frustrated. First, our house is small and he feels cramped, because he really doesn’t have a place of his own. Which is completely fair. Second, his Mr. Demo-ness has been thwarted, because more than anything, he wants to start tearing into the walls in the bedrooms–and he can’t when one is a bedroom and one is my office.

The thing is, 90 percent about what I like about working for myself is being here–being able to work, then futz around the house, work some more, run errands, go to the gym, whatever. He kept on saying that I need to get over that … and drive somewhere. That was a complete non-negotiable for me. If I had to drive somewhere, I’d still end up working from home–only much less comfortably.

What to do?

I was driving home one day and passed the shack right around the corner that’s been for rent for ages. A light bulb went off.

Long story short, the owner has rented it to me. He’s thrilled to get someone with good credit who won’t deface the walls. I’m thrilled that my commute now consists of walking down the alley. It’s a great solution all the way around. And while the house is nothing on the outside, it’s perfectly functional on the inside. Nothing special, but I’m feeling pretty spoiled that I’ve managed to get a 770 square foot house for about the cost of renting a decent office somewhere (if not less). It’s a great solution on a variety of fronts. First, it’s an office space. Second, it has two bedrooms. I can sublet one if I want, and anyone who comes to stay with us can stay down there. Third, it has a kitchen that I can devote to soaping.

I’m in the process of moving this week; should be completely set up next. Will post pix soon.

And while I’m uploading pictures, here’s a snap of Harry on Christmas. The ribbon traumatized him.

The sad thing is, Seafair hasn’t even started yet. This is what we have in store:

Friday
11:00 a.m. KeyBank Air Show presented by Boeing

1:00 p.m. American Family Insurance presents the Patriots Jet Demonstration Team

1:20 p.m. Fat Albert C-130 Demo

1:30 p.m. U.S. Navy Blue Angels Practice

2:40 p.m. KeyBank Air Show presented by Boeing

Saturday

12:35 p.m. KeyBank Air Show presented by Boeing

1:00 p.m. American Family Insurance presents the Patriots Jet Demonstration Team

1:20 p.m. Fat Albert C-130 Demo

1:30 p.m. U.S. Navy Blue Angels Demonstration

3:25 p.m. KeyBank Air Show presented by Boeing

Sunday

10:00 a.m. KeyBank Air Show presented by Boeing

11:20 a.m. KeyBank Air Show presented by Boeing

1:00 p.m. American Family Insurance presents the Patriots Jet Demonstration Team

1:20 p.m. Fat Albert C-130 Demo

1:30 p.m. U.S. Navy Blue Angels Demonstration

2:55 p.m. KeyBank Air Show presented by Boeing

AHHHH.

My bleeding ears aside, isn’t this a tad excessive? Oh, no, not at all. Let’s burn through all those fossil fuels. So much for Seattle trying to be a green city.

I complained that I always had to do the crappy stuff, like clean up. So Steve handed me a huge hammer and a chisel. And while he did this:

I did this:

Then Steve and I both cleaned up.

Here’s the thing: Smashing into walls is the BEST.

Still no dishwaster. I had one, and it was wonderful. Now I’m washing dishes in the bathtub again.

Which really sucks.

We won’t even talk about the division of labor. Suffice it to say that I have descended to the level of leaving his dirty glasses in the bathtub so that when he comes home and wants to take a shower, he gets a little hint. The first day, he laughed. The second day he said, “Looks like you have some dishes to do.” Today’s the third day. What’s in store now?

Welcome to Chez Smunshi with our unabashedly over-the-top art wall.

Admittedly, the chairs are a little bright. I’ve vaguely thought about having them recovered but that’s a) too expensive and b) way too much hassle. I did finally manage to get the rugs in the living room cleaned, which I picked up this morning.

Obviously, this is my office. My wallet is open because I just paid that stupid parking ticket from when I got towed three weeks ago. One of these days, I may actually get a real desk. And the floors refinished. And the ceiling repatched from the skylight leaking …

**Well, we think it’s livable. Those who prefer, um, uncluttered homes will no doubt hate ours. And given the state of the kitchen (and how long we lived with the bathroom), we all know how low our standards are.

Steve burst into the bedroom at 7:30–far too early when one stayed up until two reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics–and shook me awake. “The electrician is coming in two hours. Can you clean up the basement?” Meanwhile, Dave was finishing framing the bank of windows we’re putting in over the freshly reporcelained old kitchen sink and the dog was whining that he hadn’t been fed in HOURS.

So I cleaned up the basement, ignored the fine dust on everything else in the house, got dressed, and started out the door. “Oh,” said Steve, “I forgot. Those carriage doors on Craig’s List? Can you go look at them?” (Yet another project–the garage. I remain hopeful that it will be turned into my office.) I went; they were a mess. Now, I’m sitting in All City Coffee in Georgetown. Right outside the window is a matched pair of pet goats on dog leashes.

The plans are:

1) All new appliances, for one.
2) A really funky farmhouse sink that we got at Re-store. It’s being reporcelained as we blog and is going approximately where the existing sink is–though at 51 inches will take up a considerably larger amount of space.
3) You see that taller window at the end? That’s going away, and the fridge is going there. But wait, you say! Getting rid of windows? Actually, we’re adding a bank of four windows over the sink instead.
4) The stove is staying where it is, but will be flanked by cabinets.
5) Steve’s brother is coming out next week to do some of the above, and will also tear out and replace the ceiling.

There are lots more ideas floating around Chez Smunshi, but we’re not terribly organized about the process. Some neighbors are also redoing their kitchen and we goggled at their beautifully rendered plans. Ours consist of some chicken scratch on graph paper.

To tell the truth, we added a lot more color to the room–but it probably looks its best here. The tenants who lived here were apparently anal (to put it politely), and were a LOT cleaner than we are. We painted the walls and put down slate floor. Also added wainscot around the room.

And the problem is that you can see how crooked everything is–and if it’s not crooked, it’s just crap. when everything was white, it at least looked, well, clean. We’ve been living with this for two years now.

Until two weeks ago, at which point Mr. Demo decided it was “time to commit to redoing the kitchen.” I can’t complain about Steve having problems with commitment; he dragged out a chainsaw and sawed off half the counter.

Keep posted, and I’ll show you what the kitchen is looking like today.

And so, when it came to buying a new laptop this time around, I decided to go with an ODMed machine. Don’t know what an ODM machine is? Here, read this. I should say that my last laptop was great–the HP Compaq NC6000. It was solid and had fantastic battery life. (And my HP XE2 from 1999 is still alive and kicking; even though it only runs Windows 98, Steve uses it regularly, though he will now upgrade to my new old laptop.)

After months of obsessive research, I finally decided to go with the Compal HGL30, which I bought from discountlaptops.com. The specs are:

14.1″ WXGA (1280 x 800) Glare TFT Glossy Display
Core 2 DUO 2.16 GHz Processor (Merom/ T7400 / 4 MB L2 Cache / 677 FSB)
Upgrade to Artic Silver 5 (AS5) Thermal Cooling CPU Compund Paste
nVidia GeForce GO 7600 (G73M) 256MB VRAM
2048 MB DDR2 (667 MHz) Corsair Memory (1 GB x 2)
80 GB Hard Drive (7200 RPM) – SATA (Hitachi)
8X DVD / 24X CD-RW Combo Drive w/ Software
Internal 56 kbps Modem (V.92)
Internal 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN
Internal IntelPRO 3945ABG Wireless Ethernet/Lan (802.11 a+b+g)
Smart Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell / 10.8V x 7200mAh)
3 in 1 card reader for SD/MS/MMC
S-Video, VGA, 3 USB 2.0 Ports

And then of course, I had to install Windows Vista Ultimate and Office Ultimate. So my little mini-review of the machine itself is intertwined with Vista experiences. And in no particular order, they are:

1) I like the laptop. The screen is amazing. I had this open side by side with my old NC6000 as I was transferring data, and my faithful old laptop just faded into obsolescence before my very eyes.

2) The CTRL and FN keys are reversed; this is messing me up, though I suppose I’ll get used to it.

3) Even with the Artic silver upgrade, the handwrests get pretty warm. But the fan works so I don’t think this is much of an issue in terms of function. But I don’t particularly like it.

4) I’m not sold on the keypad, which seems solid, but a little springy for my taste.

5) This shipped with a BIOS that was 6 versions old–and of course running Vista 64-bit puts a kink in things. The Compal web site has the most current versions–though it’s hard to figure out which it is–and THEN the zip files are password protected. HMMPH. I got mine from Bizcom instead.

6) Am I an idiot? (Don’t answer that.) I didn’t even realize this was 64-bit. This is a Vista issue, but can I tell you? There is NO SOFTWARE (non-MS) that works with this. I am trying to find a podcast receiver program, and NONE OF THEM WORKS!! This is a problem. Also, the IKEA kitchen planner software doesn’t work either, which is another issue, but deserves its own post as it concerns Mr. Demo wielding a sledgehammer stop a sawed off kitchen counter.

7) No microphone. My NC6000 had one built in, and I used it often enough for interviews. So I have to buy one. Not a big deal–they’re ten bucks–but it’s yet more stuff to lose/misplace/not be able to find it when I need. I would happily trade in the webcam for a microphone.

Media Office, which does use the webcam, seems supremely useless to me, as are the buttons on the top righthand corner dedicated to it. And there’s no external volume button. Again, not a big thing, just a minor inconvenience.

That’s about it for now, but I’ve only been running this for three days. I’m sure there will be aand lots more. All in all, though, I am pleased. (Knock on wood.) Especially considering that I’ve spec’ed out similar machines from HP and Dell, which would have cost a minimum of a grand more.

Update***
The speakers STINK.

Iraq Rebuilding Short on Qualified Civilians

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 24, 2007; A01

In Diyala, the vast province northeast of Baghdad where Sunnis and Shiites are battling for primacy with mortars and nighttime abductions, the U.S. government has contracted the job of promoting democracy to a Pakistani citizen who has never lived or worked in a democracy.

The management of reconstruction projects in the province has been assigned to a Border Patrol commander with no reconstruction experience. The task of communicating with the embassy in Baghdad has been handed off to a man with no background in drafting diplomatic cables. The post of agriculture adviser has gone unfilled because the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided just one of the six farming experts the State Department asked for a year ago.

“The people our government has sent to Iraq are all dedicated, well-meaning people, but are they really the right people — the best people — for the job?” asked Kiki Skagen Munshi, a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer who, until last month, headed the team in Diyala that included the Pakistani democracy educator and the Border Patrol commander. “If you can’t get experts, it’s really hard to do an expert job.”

Almost four years after the United States set about trying to rebuild Iraq, the job remains overwhelmingly unfinished. The provincial reconstruction teams like those in Diyala are often understaffed and underqualified — and almost unable to work outside the military outposts where they are hunkered down for security reasons. Today, there are just 10 of the 30-person teams operating in all of Iraq.

President Bush proposed last month to double the number of teams, saying such civilians are central to American efforts to “pursue reconciliation, strengthen the moderates and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance.” But the new plan is running into what Munshi and several officials familiar with their work described as the problems that have plagued the U.S. government effort from the start: Turf wars between federal agencies. Outright refusal to fill certain vital posts by some departments. A State Department in charge of the teams that just doesn’t have any agronomists, engineers, police officers or technicians of its own to send to Iraq. “No foreign service in the world has those people,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained.

After Bush’s new plan was announced, Rice asked the Pentagon for help filling 140 slots on the teams until State is able to hire private contractors to do the work, which could take up to a year. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he was “troubled” by State’s request, then grudgingly agreed. The teams are supposed to be up and running by next month.

It’s time to “step up,” a frustrated Bush lectured his Cabinet.

As State and the Pentagon were sparring over who would staff the reconstruction teams, Bush used his State of the Union address to call for the formation of a civilian reserve corps — three years after the State Department first proposed it and several influential senators backed it. “It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time,” the president said.

But the corps won’t be built anytime soon: The administration’s 2008 budget, which was sent to Congress earlier this month, includes no money for it. A senior administration official said the White House plans to wait another year before asking Congress for funding.
Ambitious Plans Meet a Tight Purse

“There has been real inertia and myopia,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.). “We have not really approached this in the right way.”

By the fall of 2003, Lugar had grown worried about the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq. L. Paul Bremer, who was running the occupation government in Baghdad, had been pleading for more staffers with skills in post-conflict rebuilding — people who could repair the electricity infrastructure, rehabilitate hospitals, retrain the police. Bremer urged Cabinet secretaries to send experts in their departments to Iraq. Some did; others blew him off. Pentagon officials, meanwhile, were recruiting young Republican Party loyalists for tours in Iraq. Many of them lacked reconstruction experience, but they were willing to work in Baghdad.

At the time, Lugar was thinking beyond Iraq. “We need to be ready for the next crisis,” he told his aides.

They summoned experts in postwar rebuilding, among them James Dobbins, a Rand Corp. expert in post-conflict stabilization, and John J. Hamre, a former deputy secretary of defense. Most participants embraced the civilian reserve corps idea.

Lugar did, too, and in February 2004 he introduced a bill with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) to create the Response Readiness Corps, its mission to stand prepared “to be called upon at a moment’s notice to respond to emerging international crises.”

State didn’t bother waiting for the legislation to pass. Four months later, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced the formation of the State Department Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization (SCRS).

The job of running the SCRS was given to Carlos Pascual, a former ambassador to Ukraine. Pascual wanted to create a 200-person active-duty response corps, half of whom would be drawn from State and the rest from other parts of the federal government. They would serve in the corps for two years and then become reservists. In just four years, Pascual noted, the government would have 200 active reconstruction personnel and 400 reservists.

In addition, Pascual sought to create a 3,000-person contingent of people drawn from state and local governments and the private sector. That group was to include police officers, civil engineers and economists. And there would be a fund to hire and deploy private contractors to help with reconstruction within weeks of a crisis instead of waiting months for a special budget request, which is what State is now being forced to do.

The problem was the price tag: $350 million for the first year, Pascual and his staff figured.

The White House budget office balked. Pascual’s request was whittled down to $100 million.

Congressional appropriators were even more skeptical. Republicans questioned whether the initiative was a priority for the White House. Democrats expressed concern that the reserve corps might encourage the administration to invade another country.

The appropriators chopped so much that in the end the SCRS got just $7 million in 2005. The message from Congress was clear: If State wanted to fund the corps, it would have to find the money elsewhere in its budget.

“The bureaucratic antibodies were immediately activated,” said Michèle Flournoy, president of the Center for a New American Security. “The rest of the State Department tried to kill SCRS because it was a competitor for funds. It never had a chance to succeed.”
Broad Support but Little Traction

In 2006, Pascual tried again. This time, he first hit resistance in his own department.

“There was this perverse cycle that began,” he recalled. “The legislative staff at State would say, ‘The Hill doesn’t like this, therefore we shouldn’t ask for much because we’re not going to get it.’ Then you had the Hill saying, ‘The administration hasn’t made this a priority so we’re not going to fund it.’ ”

The Pentagon was in favor of the idea. “If you don’t fund this, put more money in the defense budget for ammunition — because I’m going to need it,” one Marine general warned at the time.

Eventually, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, persuaded Congress to allow the Pentagon to transfer up to $100 million to State for post-conflict civilian deployments. But Defense and State couldn’t agree where to spend the money. Defense wanted much of it spent on stabilization operations in Haiti. State wanted to use it to help in the aftermath of last summer’s war in Lebanon, officials on both sides recalled.

And then there was a round of fighting in State over which office should spend the money. Not everyone thought it belonged to the SCRS.

But the money had come with a condition: Spend it before the Pentagon could find other uses for it. By the time it was all sorted out some nine months later, the $100 million had dwindled to $10 million.

Some current and former SCRS staffers, as well as people familiar with the office, contend that Pascual should have focused his operation on helping with State’s two biggest priorities: rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, he and Powell decided in 2004 to use the SCRS to prepare for future crises and to help with smaller-scale stabilization missions.

Pascual said the SCRS would have been “overwhelmed” if it had assumed responsibility for rebuilding Iraq or Afghanistan. “It would not have been able to have done either well,” he said. “The intent was to learn from both of those missions.”

But some current and former SCRS personnel believe the office should have sought to work on part of the Iraqi reconstruction — perhaps assuming responsibility for a few provinces — as a way to make itself more relevant. “If we had been working on Iraq instead of Haiti and Sudan, we would have had a better chance at getting the money we wanted,” a State Department official said.

Had that occurred, the official said, “SCRS could have been producing many of the civilians we need in Iraq today.”
Little Eagerness to Work in Iraq

When Kiki Munshi started the Diyala reconstruction team last April, she expected she would have an agriculture specialist working for her. The Department of Agriculture had promised to send six farming experts to Iraq, including one to her team.

Since fruit and vegetable farming is the principal occupation in Diyala, Munshi figured she could generate support for the American presence in the restive province by helping growers increase their yields. “Knowledge is something the Iraqi farmers really need,” she said.

Winning over the local population through small-scale projects was the logic behind the provincial reconstruction teams. While Washington was squabbling over whether to fund Pascual’s proposed civilian reserve corps, the teams were established in Iraq last year by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who had pioneered the concept in Afghanistan. Before that, the U.S. government had essentially no civilian presence in Iraq beyond the Baghdad Green Zone and a handful of regional embassy outposts in four major cities. In theory, the teams would significantly increase the number of American civilians in places where they could actually help Iraqis on the ground.

But as Munshi found, that was often just a theory. Her agriculture specialist never even arrived.

The USDA had trouble finding six people who wanted to work in Iraq among its more than 100,000 employees. Although a USDA official said the department encouraged its workers to apply, officials at State believe USDA did not move with alacrity because the two agencies had not agreed on a mechanism to reimburse the USDA for the services it would provide in Iraq. Eventually, USDA and State agreed that USDA would provide just two of the six. The other four would be private contractors hired by State.

The first USDA specialist, Randy Frescoln, a rural credit specialist from Iowa, landed in Iraq in December and was sent to the reconstruction team in Tikrit. Although he was supposed to stay in Iraq for a year, he said he plans to leave next month because he received a promotion while he was away. The second specialist has not yet arrived.

Even if USDA and State were to get an agriculture expert to Diyala now, Munshi believes, it is too late. Security conditions have deteriorated so significantly in the province that reconstruction personnel are lucky to make one or two trips a week off the military base where they live and work.

“At this point, nobody can do much in Diyala because of the violence,” said Munshi, who returned to her North Carolina home in January for medical reasons. “The window is closed. I wish it weren’t. I hope it opens. But it is.”

Maj. Gen. Eric T. Olson, who is in charge of the provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq, called Diyala a “very, very tough place to work.” He added that many of the staffing problems Munshi identified are “Diyala specific.”

Reconstruction teams in Iraq, he said, “are, in general, doing good things under tough circumstances.”
Another Effort to Build a Corps

Today, the SCRS corps that Pascual envisioned as a rapid-response force with 200 federal employees ready to deploy has just 11 people on active duty.

Lugar and Biden reintroduced their bill this week. It mandates the formation of a 250-person active-duty response unit drawn from the federal government and the creation of a 2,000-strong civilian reserve corps. It also authorizes $145 million to fund the operation.

“Hopefully,” Lugar said, “we’ve come to a point where we finally realize we need to do this.”

Steve’s brother was laid off. He doesn’t seem overly concerned about it, so we’re not either. But Steve flew him out here and is paying him to finish the bathroom for us. The boys have left for Home Depot and it’s going to be a flurry of activity around here. Not only is Dave doing the bathroom, but he’s also replacing my leaking skylight.