August 2011

Hey there fans!

It's been a while (as usual). Now where were we?

10th-14th August - The Shaklee conference

Well, as soon as we had got back from England and (almost!) recovered, it was time for the Shaklee Global Conference here in DC.

Just to rewind, Shaklee is a US firm which sells all-natural vitamin tablets and other products exclusively through independent (self-employed) distributors, and it has been my mother-in-law Maria's calling in life for the last 28 years.

Early in their life, Maria set up a number of her customers under John & Karen, who have continually provided us with a little bit of extra income whenever they make a new order. We've now reached the stage where Karen is wondering about seizing the business by the horns and growing it to provide a little more diversification to her, sometimes inconsistent flow of translation work.

This year, it just so happened that their annual conference was to be held at the improbably named Gaylord National hotel (below), just ten miles from us at the National Harbor development over the river in Maryland. With a chance like that, who could refuse?! And so we decided to attend the full three days of the event.

Having only "married into the business", much of the information more specifically directed towards selling the products and the details of their health benefits went well over my head; although I was very impressed with so many people proclaiming both what a difference the products had made to their and loved ones' health and by how possible it evidently is to make a successful living from it. Also inspirational, beyond the speakers, was the mere sight of 6000 fellow attendees, at various stages along the path Maria has followed (and beyond).

We were also treated to a couple of very enjoyable motivational speakers, shuttle commander Mark Kelly (now better known as husband of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was very nearly assassinated in Tucson, AZ earlier in the year) and Aron Ralston, whose incredible and gruesome desert survival story is documented in Danny Boyle's film 127 Hours.

The highlight of our time was the final night, where there was a kind of cabaret featuring Shaklee distributors who also just happen to be professional actors and singers in their "day jobs". This was followed by fireworks over the river, which we were able to watch from the comfort of our shared suite - definitely an experience of "how the other half lives"!

20th August - House hunting

Recently, we have started to think about getting on the property ladder. The idea of finally getting some equity under our belt is appealing, and also the cost of renting in Alexandria doesn't leave much for future plans or for a rainy day. The same, of course applies to houses nearby, where you can easily pay $400-500K for a modest three bedroom terrace (or townhouse, as they're known here).

With this reality, though we have really enjoyed having easy access to Old Town and The District, the message is clear - time for a move out into the suburbs, or more distant ones, anyway. We're considering two areas, both about 20 miles out of DC along two of our local Interstate highways.

The type of property we're considering, a townhouse, is a very common configuration in this area. They are like terrace houses in the UK, except they have three habitable levels. The ground (first) floor is a utilitarian space, perhaps a comfortable extra family room or office; the first (second) floor is the main living level, with kitchen/dining and living rooms; then the bedrooms are on the second (third) floor. In some, all these levels are above ground; others are built into a hillside, so that the bottom level has garden access, then the front door is on the first (second) floor.

In August we had a look at our first handful of places, to help us to start getting an idea about what we're after, and this was our favourite. It was listed at $185,000 for 3 bedrooms and 1600 sq ft, not including a large finished basement.

One feature I particularly fell in love with, which appears on some houses, is a raised wooden deck off the back of the first (second) floor. Those of you who have been along for the ride for a while will've heard me wax lyrical about our balcony here on many occasions, and I'd really like to find somewhere with that, so we can continue that tradition.

We've barely begun to gather information right now, but the idea is to start the buying process around the end of 2011, with a view to moving in sometime in the spring.

23rd August - The earthquake

On 23rd August at 1:51pm EDT, we experienced an earthquake of 5.8 on the Richter scale, which hit near the state capital, Richmond, less than 100 miles away.

It was like nothing I have ever experienced. Since we both work from home, when the visible shaking of our 9th story apartment began, we jumped up with no real clue about what was happening. Living just five miles from the 9/11 attack site at the Pentagon, terrorist attacks are always in the back of your mind. Once we worked through to the improbable possibility that this was actually an earthquake (the East Coast is half an ocean away from the Mid-Atlantic Rift, and no-one had ever mentioned this as a possibility), it was a case of "should we stay or should we go?". By then, it had been almost a minute though, and all of a sudden it was over.

We and millions of others jumped on the internet to try and work out what had happened. Further away from the epicentre, people were making light of the event, as in this picture of a fallen-over garden chair, which went viral on social media sites.

©J McKinley: http://ow.ly/6Lfvm

In Washington itself, thousands had been evacuated from public buildings and even sent home. No such luck for the self-employed :-) but we were a bit shaken up, and it was hard to focus for the rest of the afternoon. The most notable damage to the area was some structurally significant cracking to the National Cathedral and the Washington Monument.

So what is the proper course of action in an earthquake? Not something i expected myself to ever have to find out, but there you go! Well, in fact the United States Geological Survey (USGS) actually recommends that people stay INSIDE buildings. Apparently more people are killed in such situations by objects falling off façades than from building collapse. Instead, they recommend sheltering under sturdy furniture such as a able or desk, or in a doorway. This is just as well, as we live five stories up!

27th August - Hurricane Irene

I probably don't win myself too many friends back home talking about how lovely the weather often is here in Virginia. Well, we've had a bit of Karma here in recent weeks. A few days after the quake, we heard that the first hurricane of the 2011 season was set to travel all the way up the East Coast, and hit us with a glancing blow on its way by.

As the storm made its way north out of the Caribbean, the hysteria about the whole situation was palpable - bulk buying and the usual wall-to-wall talking heads on CNN. In the event, we got away with torrential rain, very high winds and some brief power cuts. Thank God we don't live nearer the coast though. You will likely have heard of the horrible damage that was done to New Jersey and Vermont, many hundreds of miles to the north of us.

Just a few days later, the area was hit by another storm system, which inundated from our area up through Pennsylvania continuously for a period of several days. This was more than the many streams which criss-cross our area could take, and nearby areas suffered some bad flooding. Thankfully we are on a big hill here, but it makes me aware just how careful we will have to be in choosing an area for our new house.

1st September - Free American football

In the dying days of August, I won three pretty good tickets to a pre-season home game between our own Washington Redskins and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We decided to take our friend Jill from church, who is an avid sports fan. Our seats were about on the centre line and only 20 or 30 rows back, so for once in a huge sports stadium I actually felt like the experience was worthwhile. Shame such tickets usually cost $100 each!

I went in with suitably lowered expectations, as the 'Skins are not considered to be a particularly good team, and ended up pleasantly surprised. Our team held the lead for nearly half the game, then slowly but surely Tampa edged back until they took the lead with only two minutes remaining. Thankfully we had some steam left, scoring a minute later to narrowly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

I still struggle watching the sport to a certain extent, with all the stoppage and referee decisions which it seems you would need to PHD to understand, but I appreciate it more and more with time. The thing about American football compared to "real" football (yes, I said it :-) is that it's an extremely painstaking and cerebral game, almost like the sports equivalent of turn-based strategy games, so it can be difficult to just dip into casually.

Hope this letter finds you all well,

Mark