One, two, three weeks

Three weeks prior to trip start and now in final stages of preparation.  Timeline for the last three weeks has been busy with a lot to happen in short time.

Today was my last day in the office.  I manage a small team and hence made certain to write all employee evaluations, discussed those evaluations and made sure tasks and people were transitioned as best I can.  Cleaned out the cubicle and packed everything up.  I enjoy my work and teams I work with – but will also be nice to take a long break, doing different things.

Over the next week is what I jokingly refer to is transition to becoming “homeless and unemployed”.  In addition to starting a vacation + leave of absence for until July 2013, everything from my Austin apartment needs to get packed into storage and I give up the apartment.  Monday morning I pick up a U-Haul truck and load everything (keeping the TDA items to the side).  Just to add fun, I also have a closing sale for a condominium I owned in Portland, OR.  Keys have been turned in and paperwork signed but assuming buyers financing completes, the official sale will be done by Thursday.  I also drive up to Colorado after that.

Also in next week, is day the Sudan Embassy gave as pickup date for my passport.  I hope it has a visa stamp attached.  This has been a somewhat frustrating saga.  I originally sent in my passport to a visa expediter on October 25th.  It went to the Sudan Embassy in Washington, but they returned it five weeks later and said they needed more information from TDA.  So we pass along info as best we can and resubmit.  I was given a pickup date of December 28th for resubmitted passport.  Still no indication if it will have a visa attached, but if not I need to get the passport back to try in Cairo.  A visa expediter is supposed to ease this process but they can’t tell me any more than I can do myself and only a level of indirection here.

In two weeks is day I fly to Egypt. My bags aren’t yet packed but I’ll go through checklist and assemble things at same time I pack the apartment for storage.  Once in Egypt, it will be one more week until we start.  The trip itself will be a pretty big change from living/working in Austin, TX particularly after flurry of activity to have all in place for departure.  Unfortunately, I’ll get in some bicycling but not as much as perhaps might want, however will look forward to changing all that in Cairo.

It will nice to finally be on the road and have a simpler life with lots of cycling…

Comments are closed.