The New Year - and my new life - begins

Just days after the election, a buddy of mine I'd had only intermittent contact with for most of the past 25 years, reached out to me through Facebook.  Approximately a year ago today, in fact. 

We did the normal, "So what have you been up to lately?" questions in an IM session on FB.  He had just gotten back from two very intense years in Iraq as a consultant a few months earlier so was still readjusting to "normal" life, but had really landed on his feet with a new opportunity to help fix and rebuild the part of the DoD finance world that pays US military retirees their retirement pay.  Anyway, it turned out several new senior management positions were being created, and he asked if I'd be interested in one of them.  With very little urging given where I was with everything else in my life at that particular moment, I said yes.  Nothing was guaranteed of course, but it was an interesting new opportunity both in terms of just the professional adventure, but also in terms of it being a 'regular' job again, which at that point was very welcome.

The only caveat, and it was a big one, was that the new job would be in Cleveland.  I'd been to Cleveland once before several years before, on a business trip, but didn't have much of a feel for it.  The reputation of Cleveland preceded it, yet I was open to something new - and maybe this was it.

Over the next several months, the position was eventually posted, and I applied on line (three different times, but that's another story), and managed to word things the right way to get through the automated screening so that I was considered qualified for the position.  Then the security clearance process started, which can be a very long ordeal.  By this time it was early January and my buddy wanted me to start the first of February so it didn't seem like there would be time.  By some miraculous process though, everything got done more quickly that I'd ever heard of and on the 21st of January, I got the final, firm offer I needed to make the whole thing worthwhile considering.   Now all I needed to do was completely uproot my life, end all business relationships, pack, say good bye to my family, and drive to Cleveland - in less than ten days!