The wedding in review

The Wedding – On Sept 13, 2009 Baska (Aka Amy Baska, aka Amy Sussman) and I were married in Sandbridge Virginia. We were fortunate enough to have cooperative weather (and in-laws!) for a marvelous event. For lunch we were very lucky that our favorite Virginia Beach bistro, Zoes, let us rent out the whole restaurant! If you're ever in the area, check them out! https://zoesvb.com/ After lunch the festivities continued at the D'manfish Beachouse located just south of Virginia beach in the sleepy little town of Sandbridge, Virginia. There the family gathered by the surf and we were led in a modern service incorporating many traditional Jewish elements. Amy wrote the majority of it herself based on the kinyan, a symbolic pooling of elements of both of our lives. What made the ceremony extraordinary to me was that people were laughing throughout the readings, it was truly a day of joy. Our rings are very special to us. They were originally my paternal grandparent's and they were reforged to fit us by Amy and her friends at Future Relics Design.

After the ceremony we held our reception at the Beachhouse. Entertainment was done with a surfer-jimmy-buffet cover band. I was told that it was the first time many of my family danced the hora to steel drums. We had a light bar-b-que going for the night and then finished with pies for dessert. The photos show people enjoying the pool or ocean amid the reception. We both feel so blessed to have started our married life surrounded by the laughter of family and friends.


Geneology - I've been using GENI.com to help develop my family tree. If you are receiving this and are related to me but haven’t been sent a Geni invite, please let me know, I’ll need to weave you into the family tree. Using the website has been great fun, and had me establish connections to many relatives that I did not know about before. At the website users enter names and email addresses of their parents, siblings, and other relatives, as well as profiles with various fields of biographical information about themselves and their relatives. From there users may graphically manipulate sections of their connections network to create a complete personal family tree. I’ve always had a passing interest in mapping the family tree, to connect the dots of many of my far-flung relatives, and this site looks like a great way to do it. For those of you interested in Geneology what do you use to share documents, stories, and the like?



Real Estate News – On November 6, 2009, President Obama signed a bill to extend the tax credit for first-time homebuyers (FTHBs) through June 30, 2010. The bill also opens up opportunities for others who are not buying a home for the first time. First-Time Homebuyers (FTHBs): First-time homebuyers (that is, people who have not owned a home within the last three years) may be eligible for the tax credit. The credit for FTHBs is 10% of the purchase price of the home, with a maximum available credit of $8,000. Single taxpayers and married couples filing a joint return may qualify for the full tax credit amount. Current Owners: The tax credit program now gives those who already own a residence some additional reasons to move to a new home. This incentive comes in the form of a tax credit of up to $6,500 for qualified purchasers who have owned and occupied a primary residence for a period of five consecutive years during the last eight years. Single taxpayers and married couples filing a joint return may qualify for the full tax credit amount. In order to qualify for the credit, all contracts need to be in effect no later than April 30, 2010 and close no later than June 30, 2010.
Walk left, stand right – I’ve started to work on a new project in Downtown DC. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I will be near McPherson’s Square. If you are around, let’s have lunch or coffee after work. I can cut through P street to get to Dupont Circle if that is better for you.

Happy Thanksgiving – Great family and friends is among my many blessings; wishing all of you a very happy Thanksgiving!

Waning days of bachelorhood

CISSP – Last week I found out that I became a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)! This certification marks a high level familiarity with various security aspects covering such topics as Physical Security, Access Control, Cryptography, Encryption, and Operational Security. It is becoming more frequent that IT security projects at the DoD, DHS, and the Intelligence community require that project leaders have this The exam itself was rather grueling; it was scheduled to last for six hours and I finished at the 5:55 mark. I was studying while many of my friends were on their annual summer vacations; on one hand that is a good thing since I had few distractions. On the other I want my summer vacation! I guess that is what the wedding is for. Only two weeks to go!

The wedding – Our wedding is coming up faster than a bullet train. On September 13th in Virginia Beach, Amy and I will do our own march to the sea and become husband and wife. I’m still giddy about it, even as we have been living together for a while. I’m not sure how it will change us, if at all; but I suspect there will be something more ethereal present. Back when we became engaged my sister asked if anything changed. I said to her that it “made the highs, higher and the lows, lower”. Everything just meant ‘more’ to us since we were a couple committed to a destiny together.

The house hunt - One of our pet projects has been to find a house to move into. The search has been long and has absorbed countless Sundays. In my opinion, the housing crash never visited Northern Virginia. We have seen a good share of wrecks which might have made a flipper content, but they were not places we wanted to live. Other places we bid on, only to find the offers were not as good as somebody else’s.

Walk left, stand right – I’ve started to work on a new project in Downtown DC. Every Tuesday and Thursday I will be near McPherson’s Square. If you are around, let’s have lunch or coffee after work.

A little wedding preview of me in the groomsware

Summer Fun on the way

The new job: This has been a very odd year as both of us switched jobs within weeks of each other. Doing so has been a bit more stressful than I thought but I am sure we made the right decisions. Amy is now a Federal Civilian and I switched to another ‘beltway bandit’. An odd observation about my new place is that they refer to themselves as ‘the firm’. When I say ‘the firm’ I do mean ‘The Firm’. They say it with the gravity of a John Grissam novel. We are both putting in extra hours to overcome our learning curves in culture and activity.

We are still searching for a house: The search has not been easy, for the waves of foreclosures never really hit DC. As opposed to Detroit where I hear 1 in 4 homes is either for sale or vacant. Sometimes the search can be very frustrating, and other times when we can take a step back it is a little humorous. We have made appointments to view houses, only to be informed while en route for a viewing, that the house was sold. Other times we are knocking on the door and the current short-sellers will not let us in to view; I guess they would rather remain as squatters. Ideally we are looking for a contemporary home that would be a relatively easy commute for both of us. While there are opportunities, many of the house styles have just not agreed with us. I know something will turn up we just need to remain positive and keep looking.

The upcoming wedding: It is less than four months away from when we get married! Certainly an exciting time for us and we are making the final arrangements. It is going to be a small 50 person beach wedding due to site restrictions. I look forward to the intimacy of it although sometimes I wish we could have invited everybody.

On DC celebrity: Back in 2001 I remember when all the cashiers at Home Depot were chirping away excitedly during one of my visits. I had just missed catching General Colin Powell being in line by a matter of minutes. Last week, President Obama stopped by my favorite hamburger stand, Ray’s Hellburger in Rosslyn and I had missed him by a day! One of these days I’ll catch the Clintons at the shisha place.

Training: I’m planning to take the CISSP exam later this year. Anybody have resources they recommend? I’m also considering taking an internet course on becoming a realtor so I can so my own house flipping without involving a third party.

Big Damn Films: In early April Amy and I were cast as extras in a film that is set in the Firefly universe. The film, Redemption, is being produced by Big Damn Films, with the premier scheduled for this year’s DragonCon in Atlanta Georgia. Go check out the film’s website at http://browncoatsmovie.com/

Spear and Magic Helmet: Last week we went to see 'Siegfried' at the Washington Opera. This is the follow up opera to Die Walküre (The Valkyrie). We got a seat upgrade to the fifth row after Act 1. An older distinguished gentleman had to leave early and gave us the seats reserved for his wife and him. Score! I suspect it was because we were excitedly chatting away about Wagner's use of leitmotif the second the lights came up. Actually Amy was talking about leitmotif I was wondering what the Fafnur the dragon would look like and just nodding along. The new seats placed us as the youngest people in a 20 row radius, not including the stage.

On the set of Browncoats Redemption

Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to play Dex's Crew #3 in the Firefly fanfic film Browncoats Redemption.

Filming was done at Ocean City, MD's tourist attraction Frontier Town. It is a Western theme park for those

Cherry Blossoms

Picture from the Cherry Blossom festival in Washington DC.

Chrome vs. Iron

Google's Web browser Chrome thrilled with an extremely fast site rendering, a sleek design and innovative features. But it also gets critiques from data protection specialists , for reasons such as creating a unique user ID or the submission of entries to Google to generate suggestions.

SRWare Iron is a real alternative. The browser is based on the Chromium-source and offers the same features as Chrome - but without the critical points that the privacy concern.

Try a copy at:
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_download.php

A picture of me at the Yale School of Management podium. Ahh how I miss those school days!

Welcome Aboard!

The digital world has long enabled me to keep up with all of you, but I have only my lack of effort to blame. This blog & email list is my attempt to keep you up to date with my life, and help us stay in touch.

You can catch the blog at www.abelsussman.blogspot.com

Since this message is public; I’m keeping everything slightly sanitized. Privacy does not exist on the internet. But don’t let that stop you from asking more! I’m happy to catch up by email or phone whenever!


Latest & Greatest information: I just completed a week long course at Yale for executive leadership. For me, the best lectures came from Dr. Victor Vroom (http://mba.yale.edu/faculty/profiles/vroom.shtml) a professor at Yale since the 70’s who speaks about team dynamics and leadership style. For his class we were broken into groups and given a ‘survivor’ assignment: we were all stranded in an island and asked to rank a bunch of items in order of importance as a group. Then we watched the video tape of our breakout to see how our members behaved and came up with ideas on how to improve our team synergy. It was an interesting theoretical experiment.

As part of the class each of us received a personal analysis of leadership style. Mine matches most of Yale CEOs over the past 30 years (go me) except for 1 aspect. I tend to avoid conflict. Interesting. I did try to answer the questions as if I was away from my day job in an ideal environment; so perhaps there is something to the analysis that I need to work on.

What I do from 9 to 5: Currently I am with BearingPoint working as a contractor at the Department of Defense. There I am looked to as a trusted government advisor for overseeing Personal Identity Verification (PIV) compliance and privacy efforts for the Common Access Card (CAC), the largest federal smartcard program. I lead teams consisting of government and contractor resources on mission critical privacy protection issues and policy. One of the major programs I am overseeing is the transition of JPAS (the system that holds security clearances) from Defense Security Services (DSS) to Data Manpower Data Center (DMDC).

What I do at night: I’ve become a huge fan of P90X. It is an extreme home fitness program that has done wonders for my strength and endurance. Within the first 10 weeks of the program I’ve gone from no pull ups to being able to do six in a row. I’ve only got two weeks left, but truthfully, I’m a little burnt out since the program has you intensely exercising six days a week for about an hour.

The upcoming wedding: Yes, finally I’m tying the knot, getting hitched, and slapping on the old ball and chain. We found a great place in Sandbridge, Virginia and are looking forward to a small beach wedding. Look for honeymoon pictures in September.

Birthdays: Who doesn’t appreciate a call on their birthday? Please write back and let me know your telephone number and birthday. I promise to call!


Please let me know if you’d like to be removed. (No hard feelings, I promise).