Time for the Sunday morning look back.

Busy time at work as meetings and events filled my calendar.  On Monday we finalized plans to implement “normalized” civilian tours in Korea.  The initial tour will be 3 years now (2 in Area I) with a 2 year renewal.  Also, all tours are accompanied, meaning civilians will be allowed to bring family members with them.  General Sharp wanted civilian tours to align with the new military tour lengths, and we have now accomplished that to the extent possible.

Tuesday I chaired the Joint Labor Affairs Committee with my Air Force, Navy, AAFES, and Dragon Hill counterparts.  This committee is tasked with managing all aspects of our Korean National labor program.  Our big item this time was finalizing plans for the 2010 wage and benefit survey.  Exciting stuff, no?

Wednesday was the USFK Civilian Employees of the Year Honor Guard ceremony.  The event is hosted by General Sharp and my office is the proponent.  It is the signature event for civilian employee recognition and it involves lots of detail oriented work over a significant period of time.  And since it directly involves the USFK commander, there is no margin for error.  We pulled it off without a hitch, even the weather cooperated.  The commander was pleased, and that of course pleases me.

The Korean contingent of the Honor Guard marching to Knight Field, their US counterparts have already rounded the corner and are out of range.

The 2009 USFK Civilian Employees of the Year.
Thursday was more meetings about staffing up what will be the replacement for USFK in 2012, KORCOM (Korea Command).  More of a money issue than anything else right now, as there are quite a few military to civilian conversions that need to happen now with no funding forthcoming until the KORCOM actually stands up in two years.  A classic Catch-22.

And finally a longish meeting involving a civilian who volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan and her current unit cannot afford to let her go.  So, this will require 3-star engagement and a memo to the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense.

Am I going to miss all this when I retire next year?  Lord help me if I do.

Given the somewhat stressful nature of my week, I stayed home every night and vegetated.  Unusual for me, but I needed the break.  I’m pretty much burned out on everything right now, including surprisingly enough, darts.

I did play in the Dolce tourney Friday night without much success.  I’ve been in a season long funk and we have a tough first round playoff match with Cake Mix at Bless U Monday night.  Here’s hoping I can bring some game.

Last night I went to Manila but that will be the subject of another post (which you most likely will have read before getting to this one).

And now I am enjoying my lazy and rainy Sunday morning at the keyboard.

Ain’t life grand?