Iran, Do You Like Me? Check Yes or No.

I was reading the BBC earlier. Check this out:

Earlier this week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he was interested in direct talks with the US.

He also said Iran was interested in an idea being floated in Washington – to open a US diplomatic mission in Tehran for the first time since the revolution.

Furthermore, it doesn’t look like this is all on Iran’s side:

The White House announced yesterday that William Burns, a senior state department official, is to be sent to Switzerland on Saturday to hear Tehran’s response to a European offer aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff.

What does this mean, exactly? Well, first bear in mind that these are two differing news sources, but considering the hawkish approach the US has taken with Iran, this is a surprising turnaround during the end of President Bush’s term. Considering that we’ve been dealing with Iran mainly through the Swiss embassy in Tehran, even establishing a US interests section under another country’s roof is a huge deal.

It means being able to deal directly with Iranians, both in the consular and public sense. Imagine not being able to talk to somebody except through an intermediary, which I like to think of as the Note Method. You know how in middle school, you’d get a note from across the cafeteria saying, “Do you like me? Check Yes or No.” And then you’d send the note back with an extra checked box under “Maybe”?

Well, such notes are rarely delivered by the author. Rather, the author sends an intermediary, a representative of Embassy Julie Klonkerstein sent to gauge Jeffrey Brunderman’s response towards the Fall Dance. Wasn’t it annoying and frustrating? I mean, why not just talk to him face to face?

Imagine the bedlam involved if Jeffrey Brunderman just up and sat next to Julie Klonkstein; the “international community” of the school cafeteria would go bonkers with gossip. If you’ve followed my example thus far, I should send you a cookie. I can barely make sense of it.

The kind of a move outlined by the articles isn’t so much Jeffrey sitting next to Julie, but maybe he’s sitting next to her lunch table. Or, one of his buddies is sitting at her table, overhearing whatever it is that middle school girls like to talk about. Odds are, it isn’t the veracity of Julie’s enriching uranium for energy purposes, but I’m just speculating.

For Jeffrey’s friends, this is either an exciting or terrifying possibility. On the one hand, “Hey! I’m sitting next to girls! People will think I’m so cool!” On the other hand, “Hey! I’m sitting next to girls! I am so in over my head.”

So, maybe this is all for show. I’m interested to see how this will affect the campaign season and who John McCain takes to Spring Fling.

Tension. Lots of Tension.

Today was the first day of A-100. I obviously can’t get into specifics, but suffice to say, it’s everything one can expect from a job orientation compounded by the general tension of the bid list looming over us all. For those of you wondering what a bid list exactly is, allow me to explain:

Every incoming group of new hires — each A-100 “class — receives a list of available posts to ship out to upon completion of training. Departure dates can range from right away to almost a year after A-100 if an officer needs to take a language course. There’s exactly the same amount of posts as there are people, so there’s a good amount of speculation and “bidding strategies” involved. While State works extra hard to see that each person gets the post they want, somebody inevitably won’t be too jazzed with their assignment. But then again, that’s why we swear to worldwide availability, so…tough nuggets?

Anyway, we received our bid lists and a good chunk of the next several weeks will be spent agonizing over which posts I’d most like — and not like — to go to for work. The eventual list will be turned in to the folks responsible for doling out the postings.

This is going to be great.

Seen & Heard Again and Again

Alas, my time with News 13 has come to an end. Since I’m currently stuck here formatting a PC to go to Goodwill, I figured I’d mark last night by throwing up a few of the pictures I grabbed with my trusty cell. Without further ado:

It’s amazing how much progress can be made in so little time, eh? Once engineering got right down to it, all sorts of crazy stuff started appearing in the control room. In place of the glowing wall o’ monitors, my [former] coworkers will now get to enjoy all manner of quality reporting on those four massive displays. Of course, there’s about fifteen monitors on the floor as well, all with a specific function. Add in the nine or ten computers from the weather center and it’ll be flat panel ecstasy come the big switch in September (October).

Working on Saturdays means extended dinner breaks. With the sun setting later and later, I usually was treated to some spectacular views driving back to work. Since snapping photos on the interstate is a good way to get in a wreck, I opted to grab this shot while at a stoplight. They don’t call this place the land of the sky for nothing.

All too often, when we worked on promos to air before the show, there would be a flub or two on the part of the talent. If whoever was on graphics (that’s the person who cues up those handy lower-thirds and all of that) was quick on the draw, it was possible to catch the moment of the flub, such as Mr. Siltzer’s above. There’s a whole collection of these moments squirreled away in the system — carefully hidden to keep them from being deleted, of course.

Oh, what the heck, here’s one more:

It’s a shame I didn’t swipe that Flavor Flav poster while I had the chance. Now that I turned in my access card, I can’t grab any of the spare ABC/MyTV promotional posters. Rats.