Ch-ch-ch-changes
This is my first daylog in a while. I’d given them up for some time because they seemed to get lost in the shuffle. It’s hard to tell a good daylog from a bad one by just the date.
Anyway, I’m going to start again, at least for a while, for this rather compelling reason. Yesterday, my contract as Special Counsel at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (“OFHEO”) was not renewed. It was only a two-year contract, but I’d honestly expected it to be renewed for another six months, at least until the hearing in the matter I’ve been working on was completed.
It wasn’t, though, for a lot of reasons, many of which I’ll talk about as time goes by. Let’s just say that the most important reason was that I had spent over 12 years as a litigator and partner in private practice before coming here, and the culture clash with senior management just became too great to handle. I wrote probably the ten best papers this agency had ever seen, and dozens of the best letters they ever put out. But I wouldn’t kiss their ass. I’d show up late one day if I’d been working late the night before. I’d expect them to cut me some slack after I won a motion that essentially established the agency’s right to exist –- a principle they hadn’t quite managed to establish before I showed up. They were used to GS types who mindlessly toed the line, which is funny in hindsight, because they hired me specifically to take on the partners at Williams and Connally who had been eating their lunch before I started working here.
So, true to government form, I’ve been given only several weeks to get the Hell out of Dodge. Fortunately, my wife and I have already sold our house, and we have a bunch of places in North Carolina where we might be able to stay while we get ourselves set up. My problem is this: I have no idea what kind of Internet access, or free time, I might have at any new job. I mean, I’m sitting here at my work desk writing this now. A good 75 percent of my nodes have been written from work. So I can see my output, such as it is, dwindling rapidly in the months to come.
The thing is, I really want to make it to fourth level before that happens. There are a ton of nodes –- both old and new –- that I am desperate to honor with a C! They’ve been so important to me and my time here at e2 that it would be a shame if I was stuck merely tagging them with anonymous upvotes.
So in the next three weeks I’m going to make a concerted effort to node my way to level four. With my LU factor, I’ve got 14 nodes to go. With any luck, I should be able to make it.
But before I started, I just wanted to announce to one and all that I wasn’t simply noding for numbers. I have a very specific reason for trying to pick up the pace. If the quality of my nodes falls drastically, I humbly apologize beforehand, and I ask that you tell me so. I need to be kept honest. But for now I’m a man on a mission. Hope you enjoy the show.