Friday, May 30, 2008

Update from John



Hi everybody:

Well I'm back in Knoxville adjusting to the new job and trying to get things settled in before the rest of the family joins me in late July. We are in the final negotiations both on the sale of our house in Carlsbad (at a loss) and the purchase of a new home in Knoxville. The pictures show our new house (top picture is from the back porch toward the horse farm), provided we come to a final agreement (they need to agree on some repairs). The kids are very excited about having our backyard essentially back up to a horse farm. We just hope the farmer doesn't sell the rest of his property any time soon for development (we have no reason to believe this will happen). I met a few of the neighbors and they seem great, so we're all pretty excited.

The job is going fine so far, although I really have my work cut out for me. I have to create a whole new program at the Y12 nuclear weapons facility for cleaning up and demolishing over 200 old Manhattan Eng. District buildings (which are quite nasty) and making way for evolution of the overall facility into a modern complex. The project will probably take something close to $4B and 25 years to complete, and I'm in on the ground floor with no budget and no people, but plenty of local support. Looks like a juicy challenge.

Curt: Are you guys all settled in yet? I'd love to see some photos on the blog!