the clueless american

Well, after all of my whining, the US came through at the last minute. I went home early yesterday because my brain was fried after 6 straight hours at the ops desk. When I got home there was an email from my commander in Germany which said that he had a copy of the NATO agreement I was looking for and that it seemed clear to him that I was right. While I was reading that email, another one came in from Madrid that said the General in charge of training had approved my flight physical and was trying to call the base commander to pass along that info.

The "sort of" part came this morning when the #2 man on base came running in and pulled me into my supervisor's office. Apparently my supervisor was not keeping his supervisors updated, so it looked as though I had gone behind their backs or over their heads. Instead of saying that he had actually been informed all along, my supervisor played dumb and let me take the heat for my supposed failure to notify the chain of command. He also told me that in the future I'm not to call my US boss in Germany without prior approval, something that will not stand up if they try to press it. So, now I need to tiptoe around the next few days until everything settles back down.

On another note, when I called e to give her an update, she gave me one: the workers were at the house to fix a leaking hot water pipe, and it was looking pretty serious. Apparently the whole water system is 20+ years old and the iron pipes are completely rusted and broken open. What we thought was a small leak is actually throughout the house. Right now we have holes broken through all of the walls so that they can install new pipes everywhere. They claim they'll be done in 3 days, but we'll be lucky to see water flowing again by next week.

In the meantime, just to end on a good note, Fran found a great deal to the Canary Islands: €245 per person for a flight from Malaga and 5 nights in a 4 star hotel. The only catch is that I need to request a week off from work which is occasionally hard to get during the school year. I'm hoping that despite the recent troubles my boss will let me go; I'll find out tomorrow morning at work.