Congratulations on the job offer!! 

I haven't been through the security clearance process yet so can't offer any advice there. 

As for living in the DC area, like everybody said, it is the BEST place for any IT work, especially in security.  The other piece of advice I would offer you is to find a place to live (maybe start renting) close to your place of work.  Springfield is close enough to Lorton and if you ever end up working in DC or anywhere that is metro accessible, you have the metro in Springfield.  Driving on 95 to get to work is no joke.  Not only is it a horrible commute, but in the worst of cases it can cost you your life due to the superb and polite drivers we have here in the DC area.

That will work for me! Thanks BillV!

Ok, that one only shows the unread topics since my last visit.  I was hoping for an expanded version of the "Recent Forum Topics" list on the right side.  Maybe one with dates and times when the forum topic was posted, and one that would list topics across all forums.  I guess for now I'll either use the recent forum topics list or I will click on each forum and scroll through.  I'm a noob to the site and the security field in general...so I am thirsty/hungry for knowledge!

Cool, thanks for the link.  I think I will take this class from professor D. Boneh...I need to bone up on cryptography.

I see on the right side of the page a column labeled "Recent Forum Topics".  It currently shows the last 34 recent topics.  I was wondering if it was possible to view ALL recent forum topics.  I'm looking for a view that would show all the recent forum topics as they are created where I could scroll through them in chronological order.  I know most would not want to view them this way but I find a lot of posts in the different forums very interesting and this list of recent forum topics would allow me to view more than the most recent 34 topics. Thanks!