TIUs: Thoughtless Individuals in Uniform

I've decided that after 17 years in military service, there are quite a few Thoughtless Individuals in Uniform. There are educated TIUs, mind you, but TIUs still the same. The worst sort of TIU is one who has gained power by virtue of rank. TIUs are recognized by actions, not words. The most clever of TIUs are those who speak with a forked-tongue... watch out for these sorts!

A TIU may exhibit the following characteristics, wholly or in combination:

• TIU Boss: Tends to give last minute "important" tasks to subordinates at the end of the day or week but leaves promptly at 1630 or earlier. Does not keep up with email communications and wastes time by requesting information or resends of emails because he/she didn't keep up with previous emails. Brings children to work but does not like it when subordinates might have to do the same. Climbs the corporate ladder without giving appropriate credit to subordinate for their contributions.
• TIU Ladder Climber: Throws peers and subordinates under the bus.
• TIU pseudo-family man/woman: Uses excuse that child is ill or child has a field trip (or some such excuse) to be out of the office with little to no warning to coworkers or boss.

A Major Promotion

Hubby was finally promoted to Lieutenant Colonel this month. Actually he started getting paid for his new rank on the 1st of the month but didn't "pin" it on until just before Christmas. He wanted to wait until after most folks from work were back from a joint exercise up "north of Tokyo." I know he despises being the center of attention, preferring to be behind the camera rather than in front. (I share the same feeling...always have) So it was nice to bear witness to the respect others have for him. He didn't expect so many people to be there to watch his promotion, especially since he didn't send the general "all-hands" email out to everyone that others might do. You know the type...they usually send one to EVERYONE and even go so far as saying WHO is doing the promotion, i.e. "General So-and-So". Hubby's not like that and takes great pains to avoid it. (He was even glad that he was limited to less than 6 guests at his last promotion ceremony because it was in a highly secure location, the Defense Intelligence Agency...)

It's rare that anyone sees either of us in our military dress uniforms. Hubby has a TON of chest candy (like the little pin for jumping out of perfectly good aircraft). I'm really quite proud of him and his accomplishments. Since he normally wears the "new" Army easy-to-care-for ACU, it was nice to see him dressed up. As for moi, the only times in recent years when I've worn my service dress blue uniform was for the winter uniform inspections, so this was definitely a special event. (I've usually been in working or wash khakis.) I'd post a photo of the promotion ceremony but I think Hubby would not want that out for all to see... it's bad enough that I'm even writing about it here...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, HUBBY

We just celebrated 2 significant dates this past month. We met 7 years ago on the 5th of December and married 4 years ago on the 6th of December. We had a wonderful dinner at Wellington's restaurant in the New Sanno Hotel. As always, the staff at the Wellington's were utterly professional and attentive. We enjoy seeing the same folks & catching up, much like we are at the Army Navy Club in DC: Iwin, our host; Saito-san, who is always "genki" and has a great twinkle in his eye; Jaybee, a fellow Filipino, who reminds me so much of several of my cousins; Franz, who's Indonesian, who charms us with stories about his "naughty" 5 year old son who we know isn't naughty at all, but is just being 5. We ate at Wellington's two evenings in a row. We've begun to think of the New Sanno a lot like a cruise ship. I can get my nails done there. We can hit the gym in the morning before breakfast. We can go shopping. We can just hang out if we wanted or we can wander around town. We love heading up there for a weekend!



In this case, we've both been so busy with work the past few weeks that we just vegged. We're back to almost the beginning of our househunting search so we spent some time going over the San Antonio areas. Although we could afford a big house with a big yard and so on, we don't want to live beyond our means. So, we're considering buying a place "just big enough" for us and we will look into buying other places as investments.



Okay, I started reading financial advice books recently. I'm gulping down Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad and highlighting different areas that might come in handy in the future. Note: I've subscribed to Tim Ferris' blog, the 4 hour work week, and he recently posted clever ways to take notes, good notes. I've started indexing my highlighted areas of Rich Dad, Poor Dad based on Tim Ferris' ideas. Since both of my parents have recently suffered severe illnesses, I've been preoccupied with the thought of being responsible for their medical care in the future as well as the welfare of our future children and not being able to do either well. While money can't buy happiness, it can ease or prevent financial burden.



While we are far from rich, we are also far from poor. We have good, stable jobs and we live within our means, not beyond. We share the goal to live comfortably enough to allow us to travel outside the U.S. often. Now, you may think that we travel expensively as well as extensively. I'll be honest: we have traveled luxuriously and rather enjoyed it! We took a 10 day cruise through the Caribbean for our honeymoon and took another 10 day cruise around French Polynesia for our 1st anniversary. We met some wonderful people on the cruises but we've kept in touch with more folks from the trips where "roughing it" was the norm.