Holiday Message 2007

You're probably here because of the little flyer in our Holiday Cards. So here goes...

Just by virtue of getting married, it was the biggest year in either of our lives! You can go backwards in our Mike & Katie 2.0 Blog to read about the proposal, wedding, and two receptions (coming soon, it's still really hectic around here). And by wedding of course I mean running off to Vegas to elope.

But a lot of other things transpired in the last year. Here's the rest of the story.

First up, our own Katie:

WAIT! I have a better idea. Rather than each of bragging about our own accomplishments, we will each talk about the other. This will be WAY more fun. So here's what I recall about Katie's year:

Katie used to work at the place called Backcountry.com. Being in the military, I have a tendency to abbreviate thinks. So I've taken to calling it "BC.com" for short. Anyways, last winter Katie started coming home really frustrated. I even asked her to marry me just to cheer her up, but a week later she was bummed about work again. She started saying things like "I think I want a new job in media." Perfect, I thought, maybe she can help me resurrect my ski magazine.

Not so fast! It wasn't long before Katie was looking for other gigs writing about mainstream sports. You know, sports like baseball and football and basketball. She wound up getting a part-time job writing a blog for some guy out of Portland, Oregon. She went to grad school there, so I guess that had something to do with it. She seemed happy so I thought that was the end of it.

Not so fast, again! Katie still hates work at BC.com. She informs me she is applying for jobs with: the Philadelpia Phillies, Cleveland Browns, Oakland A's, Toledo Mud Hens, and something called Entertainment Sports Network, or ESPN as I like to call it. Well, unfortunately ESPN didn't hire her for the job that was available, but they offered to keep her resume on file. So Katie threw her considerable weight into applying for an internship with the Oakland A's, where she would use her "Saber-metrics" approach to baseball stat-keeping to help the A's with the upcoming baseball draft.

She even flew out to Oakland to interview with the A's, and blew everyone away. But alas, no internship for Katie. When I politely asked what the job would have paid, she said something like $500 for three months. "$500 a month?" I asked. "No, $500 for the whole three months." What would you have done if you got the job? Moved to Oakland. Hmmm.

But, in a cruel twist, ESPN called back and said they had another job opening. Something called a "Researcher 1." Or is it Researcher 3? I can never keep it straight. This application process was a little more involved. Eager to see Katie emerge from what was now a 6-month depression, I supported her online application, phone interviews, in person interview, and final online exam.

During this time I asked how much this one paid. "About the same as BC.com" was the reply. Not so bad. But what are you going to do if they hire you. "Move to Connecticut" was the reply.

Mind you, we had just bought our condo in Park City. I owned another condo across town that I rented six-months at a time. I had nine jobs in the ski industry (that's not a misprint) in Utah and my reserve job in Sacramento. Not exactly next door, but Utah is a lot closer to California than Connecticut.

So when she got the job, it was a serious "life accelerator." I think that's a Navy recruiting term. We eloped, I left for a pre-planned exercise in Germany, Katie moved to Connecticut, I came back and listed the condos, started packed, and sending our cars across country.

I could go on and on and on about our dull, boring life in Connecticut. But I prefer to reminisce about our exciting transition getting here.

So what does Katie do at work? I still don't know, but I have figured out that in about another year she might get promoted to Researcher 2!

In summary, we both had to give up a lot to come back East (I'm from upstate New York originally). But at least we are together. That's what matters most. We're farther from Utah friends, but much closer to family and childhood and college friends. We have nice little condo with an absolutely HUGE flat screen TV so Katie doesn't go into withdrawal when she comes home from ESPN. We go skiing every week on Katie's "weekend," usually Tuesday-Wednesday which means the slopes are usually deserted.

OK, over to Katie, to brag about me I guess :)

That brings us to Mike:

Mike started off the year "accelerating his life" when he was chosen as the Officer in Charge of Command Naval Forces Korea Detachment C. But since we're talking Navy stuff, I'll use abbreviations -- he is the OIC of COMNAVFOR KDC. That sounds cool, but what does your unit do?, I ask. Here's your answer, straight from the LCDR's mouth: "we stay ready in case we are called. Called to Korea, or anywhere else in the world. My initiatives with my unit are to increase morale by (1) giving my people a better idea of their specific role in and when we go to Korea and (2) to help train them on their job in Korea, both in a general sense and in a more specific (read: classified) sense."

Great, he's in charge of a group of guys who are supporting our nation's efforts to bring peace to North and South Korea -- two nations that have been at war for about 500 years. Sounds easy enough. Brilliant, Does that mean we have to move to Asia, I ask? No, silly, Mike says, but I do get to go there for two weeks a year and buy really cheap suits and electronics!

Mike as you know, lives a Superman life, and has a civilian job as well (and a civillian wife too!). At work he was recently promoted to "General Manager" with nossaTV. For those of you who don't know about nossaTV -- what planet have you been on?! -- it is a action sports video website. They actually say they're a website, media player, and advertising solution, but basically its like watching TV, but on your computer. Cool, if you have a 30-inch monitor. There are loads of skiing, snowboarding, surfing, and skateboarding videos for action sports fans (raise your hand?). His role as General Manager is to lead the planning and execution of the company. From the GM's mouth: "Basically I have to keep track of what we are doing, in addition to doing a bunch of work getting new videos, attracting users to the site, and selling advertising. I'm also the point man between our small sales and marketing side of the company, and what is essentially the parent company that is responsible for developing the software the raising funds." Ok, so he does everything to run the company except the nerdy computer programming stuff. But I bet he could do that if he wanted.

On the skiing side of things (you knew this was coming), he smartly got in touch with New England Telemark upon arriving in the winter wonderland of Connecticut. NET, as its called, is a group of grungy telemark skiers who like to show others how to telemark. For the uninformed -- again, what planet have you been on?! -- telemark is a form of skiing, the original form of skiing some will say, where the heels of your boots are free to come off the skis (and your mind is free to do lots of other stuff I can't write here). It's essentially a funky mix of alpine (downhill) and nordic (cross country) skiing. Here's a quick history lesson on the sport -- waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day, the Norweigens thought it might be fun to turn while sliding downhill on their nordic equipment (yup that sounds like a party to me), so they developed a technique to make it practical. Practical is not the word I'd use to describe -- challenging, frustrating, maddening, painful, sore, graceful, beautiful, face-plant, thrilling, grunting...those are the first words that come to mind. And that's why we love it!

So that covers the main parts for LCRD Sharp. Navy, nossaTV, and telemark. Oh yeah, he also decided to become a student again -- I think it was an excuse to drink more beer -- and graduated from the AJPME course at the JFSC (for the non-military, that's the Advanced Joint Professional Military Education course at Joint Forces Staff College). It was a combination of "distributed learning," or taking courses online, and "face-to-face" instruction there at JFSC in Norfolk, VA. And since he liked being a student so much (and having an excuse to drink more beer), he started his Masters in Systems Analysis (MSA) from the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey via distributed learning. His first course was in Statistics, and I'm pretty sure he passed because he's the smartest man alive (besides my father).

Pretty big changes from just one year ago. He can ALMOST call himself a man now -- in charge of his first Navy Reserve unit, Head of a company, And working on a masters degree. Yes, he left behind eight of the nine jobs that he had in the ski industry in Utah, and has nicely diversified his portfolio (did I mention that he's a budding financial planner? at least I hope so, because we've got two mortgages, two condos, two cars, 4 TVs and want to buy a house soon).

Happy Holidays!