I got my first paycheck today. Ok, I electronically received my first paycheck today. It actually doesn't seem nearly as exciting to log in to your online bank account and see the line item "Fed Payroll something-or-other" as it would be to take an actual paper check down to the bank and cash it. But on the other hand the electronic deposit comes a lot faster, and I didn't have to do anything in order to get the money in my account.
I'm still waiting for them to process all of the employee benefits (like health insurance) so I don't think all of the deductions are correct yet. However my pay grade and salary look right so that is a very promising start. TSP was only 3% rather than the 5% I wanted so I changed that through the online interface. (I also got the Employee Personal Page login today.) The rest I will have to wait and see. For those who don't know, the Thrift Savings Plan is the Fed equivalent of private 401(k) retirement savings programs.
In other news, I had a good trip to Chicago last week. Most of you probably don't know that I arrived at HUD and immediately had to arrange federal travel to fly to Chicago the week of September 12 for a program office-wide training event. It was a little bit hairy getting all of the paperwork and my travel credit card and all processed on time. However it all worked out with only a little bit of correction after the fact so I did pretty well. The training session was very good. The biggest benefit was meeting all of the other new employees that have been hired by the Section 232 component of the Office of Healthcare Programs over the last year. We compared new employee notes quite a bit. For some perspective, the number of applications they receive under 232 has gone from about 200 per year four years ago to almost 800 a year today. Apparently it's been a huge workload increase and they really need more people although they've done a great job improving the process and are up to [I ought to have this in my head, but I'm going to get the number wrong!] 600+ applications processed this year.
If you are lucky I will get a couple of Chicago pictures posted in the next couple of days...including a shot of the big shiny "bean" that is such an iconic tourist picture. I didn't photograph the new Marilyn Monroe statue since I'm not very well practiced at carrying my camera around. Here's a link to a Huffington Post blog with pictures if you want. Curiously the statue will only be up for about a year. I wonder why.
Kevin and I went for a great bike ride yesterday afternoon. Sorry no pictures though. We rode across the river and down the Mt. Vernon Trail to downtown Alexandria. Then back over the Potomac on another bridge and up through the new National Harbor development, Oxon Hill Farm, and some rather hilly parts of Anacostia. It was a radically varied range of city environments. Old Town Alexandria is very quaint with brick architecture (Federal style maybe?). The Woodrow Wilson Bridge was long and steep. It reminded me of cousin Gary talking about riding over the bridge in Florida in order to train for hills. National Harbor is very spanking new and still in development with the roads that lead to empty fields with "future site of..." signs. They were building fancy bike paths but didn't yet have many users down there.
Oxon Hill Farm is apparently a National Park Service site. It had classic farm buildings and lots of nice woodlands. We saw a bunch of silly little Eastern whitetail deer down at the bottom of the hill. I didn't spot any antlers. I think they seemed darker and smaller than our whitetails, but I didn't get that close of a look at them is it is hard to be sure. Nice woods and fields and it was a great temperature for a bike ride so this part of the trip was really nice.
Getting back through Anacostia was a bit more interesting. We ran into a couple of places with nowhere to ride safely since the road was fast with no shoulder so we had to hike our bikes along the barrow ditch a bit. But we got through eventually and rode up MLK Avenue. Clearly not a great part of town, but it looks like redevelopment and gentrification is even going on there. I didn't feel unsafe, but I won't be biking back there either. If nothing else it was just too hard to find a direct way though without any bike lanes. I guess if I want to go back to Oxon, I'll either take Metro or go around through Alexandria. I might be able to bike there from the Southern Avenue station.
This Thursday there is a bike party down in Yards Park, which is on the river near the Nationals baseball stadium. It's sponsored by Capital Bikeshare in honor of their one-year anniversary. I'm certainly planning to go so maybe I can get some more bike maps and learn new routes there.
That's all for now. It's late here and time for bed!
Love to you all.
-Sarah
1 comment:
Sarah! You suck! Next time you come to Chicago, TELL me, and we can arrange to meet up! Although, I suppose it's just as well you didn't -- I've been up to my ears in work. Still, it's only an hour and half to two hour drive from me, we could totally hang out!
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