Ali’s First Sleepover

Sarah spent Sunday night at her friend Zoe’s house. Zoe and her were planning Zoe’s sister’s birthday party this coming weekend. Alison came with and as we were driving home she asked me when she could have a sleepover because she had never had one before. When she got home she asked Kris as well. Alison ended up asking Olivia (Zoe’s sister) to sleepover last night. I think she was so happy to have a friend sleep over, but she was also worried because she wanted it to be perfect. They (Ali & Olivia) were up late playing games and watching movies, and actually went to bed sooner than I would have thought. They came up to say goodnight around 10:30. I was happy that Ali had a good time.

Papercuts

Is there anything worse than a papercut? I am in my office this morning shredding all sort of papers that I don’t need anymore and I was tearing up my 2009 wall calendar. I have a cross cut shredder and it wasn’t “grabbing” the paper. This is a very heavy grade of paper, I would call it poster quality. So when the shredder finally grabbed it, I wasn’t ready and the edge of the paper cut into my pinky. What is worse, is that as I tried to pull my finger away, the paper cut in deeper. I shook my hand right away and sprayed blood on my pants and desk, Not a whole lot, but enough. I wrapped it in a tissue and went to get a band aid. Well the stupid thing bled for almost an hour! Who would have thought that a papercut would have done that?

The Princess and the Frog

We got to go to The Princess and the Frog today. The Packers spanked the Seahawks so I skipped watching the second half and got some things done around the house which freed us up to go to the late afternoon showing.

Both the girls liked the movie. It was a typical Disney princess story, so if you were expecting any surprises, sorry to tell you there aren’t any. The story was cute. It was set in early 20th century New Orleans (I would put it in the middle of the roaring 20s) and centers around a young girl who is a waitress, but dreams of owning her own restaurant someday. She is persuaded to kiss a frog, who is really Prince Naveen, who has been transformed by an evil voodoo witch doctor. But instead of making the prince human again, she is transformed into a frog also. With the help of a jazz loving alligator and a cajun firefly, they set out to find a way to become human again before it is too late. I enjoyed the jazz music and the songs were very good.

I remember seeing something when they first announced this movie a couple of years ago about it being Disney’s first “black princess”. However, I think that unless you go into the movie with some sort of preconceived notion of what to expect from the characters, you don’t even notice it. I know that I didn’t, and I was aware of all the buzz around it.

I will give the movie a good A-.

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009 has come and gone. Alison started out the holiday sick. She had a fever of 101 on Christmas Eve and we ended up having to stay home and cancel our plans to go over the Kris’ parents’ house. We felt bad, but we didn’t want to go over there and then possibly contribute to Kris’s mom or dad getting sick. All in all it was OK, since Kris had to work Christmas Eve this year and would have been rushing to get over there after she got home.

It really was a crummy Christmas too as far as the weather goes. It was rainy and just generally dreary outside. The kind of day you would just rather stay in bed under the nice, warm blankets and sleep. Ali was up early and was eager to get started on opening the gifts that Santa had brought, but we waited until Sarah finally woke up. The girls got games for their DS’s and the Wii. I think Band Hero was their favorite, but Sports Resort was also a pretty good one. Ali got Connect 4 x 4 and Sarah got books #2 and #3 in the Twilight series. She was very excited when she opened those. The rest of the day was spent opening boxes and reading directions to make sure that we knew how to play all the games. Band Hero took me forever to figure out since the directions were really pretty bad for how to hook everything up.

Kris wasn’t feeling well in the afternoon so we decided to skip the traditional Christmas Day family movie. We were planning on heading out to see the new Disney movie, the Princess and the Frog. The updated plan is to go after the Packers game on Sunday. My review will follow (assuming we go).

It's Official

We received an automated call from the School District superintendent tonight about a couple of things, but most import was the announcement that the School District Board has approved redistricting plans. This of course officially means that Ali will not be going to Riverside next year. Alison was in tears when we told her. I think it is more the fact that the majority of her friends will not be going with her. On top of that, Ali’s Brownie Troop will also be split in half.

We aren’t sure about how she will get to school, but I know that I don’t want her walking. Right now we are approximately 1 mile from (3) schools. We are able to bus Alison because she would have to cross (2) major streets (so we are told). With Shady Lane, she will have to cross one major road, Main Street, which has a stop light as well as a crossing guard I believe. So I don’t know if bussing will be an option.

We’ll see how things shake out in the coming months. If we have to drive her to school every day anyway, then I would rather take her to Riverside. We were told that open enrollment wasn’t an option, so it may not make any difference, but we still want to make sure that we fight for what we think is best for Ali.

Trip Home

Sarah was feeling better Saturday so we drove up to visit my brother and his girlfriend for Christmas this weekend. I don’t get a chance to make it home very often, especially since my folks made the defection to Florida, so it was nice to finally get back. We got up there a little earlier than planned so I took the girls on a sight seeing trip around Neenah and Menasha. I took a route through town that I haven’t taken in a long time, and boy, have there been changes. Bergstrom Paper is gone, and there is all sorts of other buildings that have been knocked down and replaced. We took a drive past the sledding hill at Clovis Grove and I remarked, apparently as I always do, that the hill looks much smaller than it did 30 years ago when I was sledding down it on a regular basis (FYI, my brother has confirmed that the hill was indeed larger when we were kids). Kris was making fun of me for sounding old driving around and pointing out “that was so-and-so’s house” or “that’s where I went to school, or when I pointed out the window in the St. Mary’s clock tower where I climbed to in HS.

All in all it was a fun trip. It was nice to be able to spend some time with my brother. The girls love going up to visit. The only drawback was not getting over to see my other brother since he was gone all day coaching at a basketball game. Maybe next time.

Puking

Wed. night Sarah went to bed saying she wasn’t feeling real well. I told her to go to bed and get some rest and she would feel better in the morning. Well she was up around midnight complaining about her stomach hurting. About 45 minutes later she was tossing her cookies all over. Then Ali woke up and had to get put back to bed. Sarah ended up throwing up at 2:50 and at 4:50. It was strange that is was almost 2 hours exactly in between vomiting episodes. So when I had to get up for work, I told her just to stay in bed and sleep. We are hoping that she gets better because we have plans to go visit my brother back home in Menasha this weekend and would hate to have to cancel.

Student Of The Month

Ali was awarded the Student of the Month this month for Mrs. Weber’s class. This month’s trait was responsibility. After hearing about Ali at her conference with Mrs. Weber, I can’t say I am surprised. She had her lunch with the Principal last Friday, which was a big deal. She was so proud, and Kris and I are very proud of her.

Trip to the Mall

Saturday after we got home from Sarah's meet we decided to take Alison to the mall to see Santa. She wanted Sarah to come with, but Sarah said she was too big to sit on Santa's lap (plus it is sort of creepy when you get to be that age). We got to Brookfield Square around 4:00 PM and proceeded to drive around the parking lot for about 15 minutes looking for a parking spot. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the buttheads who decide to park in the middle of the aisles waiting for cars to leave their parking stalls, backing up all the traffic behind them.

When we finally got in, we had to literally push our way thru the crowd to get to Santa. Apparently no one told these people that there is a recession going on. Either that or they have bought into the Obama message that the recession is over (tell that to the over 10% of Americans who are still out of work... but I digress).

By the time we reached the middle of the mall it was almost 4:30. We were worried that we would be getting there just in time for Santa to take his dinner break. I asked and they told us that Santa usually takes hi break between 5:30 and 6:00, so we had at least an hour, closer to 90 minutes of waiting. We were at the VERY end of the roped off lines, but we figured that things would move pretty quick since there were a lot of adults in line. We were sort of right. There were a lot of adults in line, but there were also a couple of groups of adults who wanted their pictures taken with Santa. That's right, you heard me... ADULTS. And not just adults, these were grandmas... all sitting on Santa's lap and sitting on the arms of his chair. Nice! We want to just have our 7 year old tell Santa what she wants for Christmaas and we have to wait for a bunch of old bitties (who I hope aren't drunk) to sit on Santa's lap, not once but twice because they weren't happy with the 4 or 5 photos they took the first time. Unreal!

We finallly got up to see Santa after about a 45 minute wait. They were broadcasting the images via a streaming webcam so we had to sign a release. Unfortunately, we didn't know this ahead of time or we could have called a few people and see if they were interested in seeing Ali tell Santa what she wanted.


In the end, we bought the minimal package. We only wanted a small picture for out "Santa and Me" photo frame. As we were leaving the mall I mentioned to Kris that I really don't miss the Christmas shopping season, and she agreed. We have been doing the majority of our shopping online where we don't need to drive around forever looking for a parking spot or muscle our way thru a crowd. And the Santa pictures were usually done right at the start of the shopping season (in many cases before Thanksgiving) on a Sunday morning after church when the crowds were minimal. I think it must be something like 5 or 6 years since we actually fought the crowds at the malls at Christmas time, and with any luck we'll be back on an anti-crowd schedule next year.

Watertown Spirit

Saturday we went to Watertown for a big poms/dance competition. Sarah's squad was one of (6) middle school level, large (over 15 members) that was competing. The meet started at 9:00 and Sarah's squad was set to perform at 9:45. Then we had to wait around until 2:00 for awards. This was just for the younger girls. Shortly after 2:00 the high school level competition started. Sarah actually left at 7:00 with the high school cheer squads. That must have been a long day for the high school girls. Luckily we had the release form so that Sarah could come home with us, otherwise she wouldn't have been home until about 9:00 at night. Now that would have been a long day!

More from St. Nick's Day

Since I am putting up a few photos, here are the girls with their stockings the morning after St. Nick came:

Have I Mentioned I Hate My Neighbors?

Well, have I? Here is the latest that they have done to pi$$ me off.

We had our first big snow on Tuesday night into Wednesday. I got up early to snowblow the driveway so I could get out to go to work. It was still snowing when I left and when the plow cam through Kris had to go back out and snowblow/shovel again.

When I got home I was informed that our wonderful neighbors, the ones who can’t clean out the garage to park their cars, has a snowblower this year. The past few years he would just shovel his driveway (if he decided to do it at all). Most times he would just leave it and drive over it. Then when it got cold enough to ice over you could hear him (or her) drive up because of the loud crunching of the ice under the car. From time to time I would be nice and snowblow their sidewalk, but after a while I just gave up. As I said, he has a snowblower now. And at about 8:30 am (just before the power went out) I was informed that the house was being pelted with wet snow. So now he apparently doesn’t know how to direct his chute. I mean how rude is it to simply pelt someone else’s house with the snow from your snowblower?

Then when I got home, I needed to do a quick shovel job on some of the snow that was starting to blow back over the areas that we had previously done with the snowblower. As I get to the end of our sidewalk, I hit a large area/chunk of ice on the pavement. Apparently the rocket scientist just blew the snow across the already cleared portion of my sidewalk with the wet, slushy mix when it was still warm and then as the temp dipped it turned to ice and froze to the concrete. Again, how much of an idiot can be you to shoot your snow into a cleared area on someone else’s property and then just leave it? If that ever happens when I am snowblowing, I will either go back and shovel or go over it with the snowblower.

If this keeps up it is going to be a long winter. The next time I see him outside I will be mentioning this to this butthead.

Who Turned the Winter On?

Starting last week Friday, it is official; winter has arrived. The day started out good, but by the time I got home from work to take Ali to swim lessons the temp had dropped to the low 20s and had gotten very windy. Then we got our first snow that stuck on Monday. It was just a trace amount, maybe a half an inch, but it was something. Then Tuesday we got our first big storm. I thin we got somewhere in the neighborhood of 6" - 8" of snow in the Falls.

It was enough to cancel school on Wednesday. It was a wet, heavy snow too. Enough so to down trees and power lines. Our power went out about 8:30 am and it didn’t come back on until about 4:30. Kris took the girls over to her parents’ house for the day, and when they finally go back, the temp in the house was down to 61 degrees. I should also add that once the snow stopped falling, the temps just dropped. We were in the single digits Wed. Night and Thursday, and more today; all with wind chills in the neighborhood of 10 - 20 below. Looks like it is going to be a long winter. Someone tell Al Gore to come live here for a year and then tell me more about global warming!

As Promised

Here are a couple of pictures of Alison from her Christmas concert.



I may be partial, but Ali was the cutest one up there.

Happy St. Nicholas Day

Or is it Merry St. Nicholas Day? Ali was so happy this morning because St. Nick brought her the Barbie ornament she had been wanting. It was so fun seeing her face light up when she saw her stocking and said St. Nick came, and then pulled out the ornament. I'd post photos, but I had a long day and don't feel like hooking up the camera, so as soon as I feel motivated, I'll post them. Enjoy the evening, I have to go finish work on Alison's powderpuff derby car. We have two days to finish it, and I have to go and spray on the clear coat. Once that's done I can attach the wheels and sand the wood filler on the bottom. This year's car is going to be aswesome.

Winter Weather

Dec. 3rd and we finally have our first winter weather advisory. Looks like we’ll be getting snow with some high winds tonight. Living in Wisconsin is just great! The good thing is that at least we didn’t get any snow in October or November. I'm betting we don't get much though.

2009 Christmas Concert

Last night we had Alison’s Riverside Christmas Concert. Since this will most likely be Ali’s last concert at Riverside, we wanted to make sure we got a good seat. So we got to school an hour before the concert started. The concert is split up into two parts, K-2nd grade and then 3rd-5th grade. This year we don’t have to sit thru both of them, and the parents are usually crazier for the little kids, so the first half is usually crazy. And guess what? There were already people there and all the front row seats were taken. It is really annoying that you can just throw a jacket on a chair, and then leave for an hour, come back, and just expect to get those seats. I wouldn’t have a problem with saving a seat if you were actually there! But we figured we’d suffer through it. We were actually directly in front of where Ali was standing and we were on the aisle, so we figured we’d be OK.

The second complaint is with respect to the parents. Now I don’t want to sound as if I think we are better than any of the other kids/families at Riverside, but what is the deal with getting there early, and then just letting your kids run wild all over the gym, all over the risers, and in and out of all the seats? Apparently behavior is not a big priority with these parents. We let Alison go talk to a couple of her friends but she was not allowed to go running all over causing trouble.

My next question is why do we always seem to attract the losers? For what seems like every single year (though I am sure I am wrong) we always sat by many of the same parents, and they were the epitome of the white trash stereotype. They were parents of kids in Sarah’s class, so I thought this year we would be safe. Well it wasn’t to be. The other parents who sat near us all smelled like a dirty ashtray, or looked like they hadn’t bothered showering, or had hair-dos straight out of about 1992. Nice look people. By the end of the show, I was feeling sick from inhaling the smoke fumes off of the family that sat in front of us!

Finally, I realized that with Alison, we have really nothing in common with most of the families of the kids in her grade range. Sure there are one or two families, but for the most part, I couldn’t care less about the families. With Sarah and her class, Kris and I always mingled/talked with her friends’ parents and it was always fun to go to her school events. Not so with Ali. We had no one there to talk to last night. It was really sort of depressing.

I'll pot a picture or two of Ali once I download them.

Down & Out

My laptop has been out of commission since the morning of Thanksgiving. I was using Comodo Internet Security as my firewall/anti-virus program. The problem is that there were things that is wasn’t catching (I really need to stay off torrent sites) so I decided to change to ZoneAlarm. I always liked Zone Alarm, but it caused things to run really slow. So I installed ZoneAlarm and then uninstalled Comodo. That apparently was a mistake somehow, because all of a sudden I could not connect to my wireless router. Luckily both PCs still worked, but after three days of googling my situation, I was unable to find a fix. I reset all kinds of settings, deleted files, etc. but nothing worked. So finally, on Sunday, I started copying files using a flash drive and putting them on Kris’s PC, and then wiped out the hard drive of the laptop and reinstalled Windows. After an hour or so I was back up and running. The problem was trying to remember all the settings I had on Vista and where all the menus were/are for customizing things.

I will still be reinstalling my software for the next few days, slowly but surely. But at least I am able to post blog entries and get my email again.

I still wonder though about my firewall & anti-virus programs. Right now I am using the Windows firewall and the MS Internet Security, whatever it is called. But I how good is it? I mean, viruses are written for Windows and MS programs, so how safe and effective can they be? If anyone knows of a good FW and anti-virus program, email me and let me know.

Teacher Conferences

The Falls public schools had off last week, which means that we had teacher conferences (end of the trimester). Sarah is getting all A’s averaging from 93 to 99 in her classes. All of her teachers said she is a joy to have in class and does outstanding work. Kris and I were very happy to hear that. But we also found out that she is a chatterbox at times in class and needs to work on that. Plus, she goes overboard on getting her homework done, sometimes taking as much as 4 hours a night to complete it. I hate to tell her to take it easy because she is getting such good scores (it must be working right?) But I also want her to enjoy her free time a bit. I think it has more to do with her losing focus and letting her mind (and her feet when she's home) wander when she is doing her homework.

We also received a great report on Ali. Her teacher said she is one of the leaders in her class and that she can count on Ali to help her and the younger kids in the class when she needs it. The only thing we heard about her was the same as S.E., sometimes she is a little chatty when she should be listening. But her reading skills and writing skills are way above average. I think that coming up in the next couple of months we (and by we I mean Ali and myself) will be working on her math facts.

I am so happy that my girls are doing so well in school!

FINALLY!!!

I quit using Incredimail about a month ago. I decided the hassles I had with it weren’t worth it and there was zero tech support from Incredimail, so I decided to go back to the tried and true Mozilla Thunderbird. It is a simple, easy to use program and with all the add-ons available, it can be customized quite nicely. However, the one thing that I wasn’t able to do was import my messages that I had saved in Incredimail, until now. After a day or so of googling and searching message boards, I was able to finally find a fix. There is a, mbox import-export xpi file that you can install that will import all eml messages. NICE! If anyone else is reading this who has the same problem, here is the link.

I am finally up and running Thunderbird and completely done with Incredimail. Good Riddance!

Four Hours I Won't Get Back

Last weekend was Sarah's first dance team (pom pons) competition here in the Falls. It was a day long invitational for cheer and poms. Since the Falls was hosting, Sarah had to be there early. We got there a little after 12:00 after finding our Christmas tree. Sarah, we were told, was supposed to perform a little after 1:00. Unfortunately they were running behind. We ended up getting to see about 5 or 6 cheer teams do their stunts etc.

I was wondering what was taking so long. There was about five minutes in between teams performing and then once everyone was done, there was maybe a 20 minute wait while the judges tallied every team's score. Really???!!!! There was so much wasted time in between performances they could have very easily been back on schedule. Then in between cheer and poms there was about another 20-30 minutes while all the cheer teams and parents cleared out.

Sarah came on about an hour behind (maybe a little less, it's hard to remember since it was so mind numbingly long in between performances). They did a pretty good job I thought, but the wait was torture. There were some other really good squads I have to say, but is that how I really would have wanted to spend three and a half hours on a Saturday????

The good thing about this competition is that it was local. Sarah has another one coming up in Watertown where we won't have the luxury of being able to just show up. We'll have to get there and stay there all day. Oh, and the best part was that it cost me $5 ($13 for Me, Kris, and Alison) to watch it. I hope that someone upstairs was watching and plans on letting me have an extra four hours down the line about 30 or so years from now.

New Christmas Tree

Kris and I went out shopping for a new Christmas tree yesterday. After last year, we just couldn't save the tree for another year. The top was broken as well as a bunch of the sockets for the branches. So we drove to a few stores looking to get a new one. The problem is that I HATED every one we looked at. The one or two that I did like were pre-lit trees, which I don't want. I end up putting on enough lights to heat the room (depending on how I am feeling, 1800-2500 lights). The unlit ones just look cheap, and the color of the needles looks unnatural.

We ended up settling on one that has some pine cones and red berries mingled within the boughs. Also, it is a little wider than I wanted. I was hoping to find one that was 44" in diameter due to our space contraints. We ended up settling on one that is 54". Hopefully it won't cause any problems going up. I am also hoping this tree lasts for a while.

No More Indians

Well, the Falls lost the state championship football game 7-0. Tough break. But what is even more disappointing is finding out that that the Falls is going to be losing its nickname next year. Rumor has it that the Falls will no longer be called "The Indians" and will be changing its name to "The Falcons" next year.

Apparently the old principal at the High School was fighting for years to keep the name. A few years ago they changed the logo from an Indian Head to an "F" with a couple of feathers. It was a compromise to the morons who were demanding the change out of respect for the First Nation tribes. Now that principal has retired and word is that the new principal at the HS is doing everything he can to change the name.

First off, the name Indians was in honor of the Menomonee tribe, who lived in the area originally, and for whom the Menomonee River is named (which cuts through the NE corner of the village). If we have to change the name of the HS mascot then why not the name of the village as well? It is completely ridiculous. Secondly, why should we have to knuckle under to the wants of one clown who is running the school? My guess is that if you asked the residents of the falls, you would get about 75%-25% in favor of keeping Indians, and in my opinion that is all that matters.

I was told that the reason for the switch to "Falcons" is so that the school can keep the F logo with the feathers. I would like to offer a different scenario. It is being done so that the school doesn't have to spend thousands of dollars to change letterhead, business cards, merchandise, etc. I saw it happen when Marquette changed it's name from Warriors. I seem to recall the word million being tossed about when the cost of the change of updating all the materials such as letterhead was discussed. While I'm sure that it wouldn't be quite as much to change a HS mascot name, it is still going to have a cost, one that is entirely unnecessary. And in this day of the crappy economy, we don't need to be soaking joe taxpayer anymore just to satisfy some moroon who think it might be offensive to call your team The Indians.

If the name does change, I will be doing my best to be an a$$ at all games I attend. Sort of like at Marquette games when the students still chant We are Warriors.

Breech in the Hull

As I was cleaning up from working outside Sunday I happened to be moving some things around in the basement when I happened to look up near the gas meter. I saw a clump of leaves and grass that looked like a nest sitting under the front corner of the house. It was covered in cobwebs so I figured that it was old, but I looked around the foundation for holes and didn’t see anything. There was obviously something that was living in there at some time in the past 6 months or so. I went outside and shone a flashlight under the siding and asked Sarah to watch for light coming through into the basement and as soon as I got to the corner she yelled. I crawled down to take a look and there was a small hole about an inch in diameter right at the corner of the house. So I took to filling the gap with expandable crack filler from the outside and I will try to get the inside patched with concrete filler.

It’s a good thing we have a cat or we may have had mice running all over the house by now (insert laugh). Actually I think it may have been the chipmunks that we caught this past summer since I saw them going into holes under the porch.

Painting

I was lucky enough to be able to get the doorways painted on Sunday. The forecast called for mid 50s and partly sunny. Well, that didn’t happen. I don’t know if it broke the 50 mark. I was worried that the paint wouldn’t dry, or it would dry but because of the temperature I’ll be having peeling problems within a year or so. But the primer was dry in about 3-4 hours (or at least dry enough to be able to put on the top coat) so I was able to get both doorways painted. Now it really makes the doors look crummy so I know what one of my next projects is going to be. I also needed to replace the caulk around our two front windows. Unfortunately I only got to one of them. The good thing though, is that I was in by 4:45 so I got to see some of the Packers game this week.

Bad Drivers

Kris and I were driving out to the place where Alison was at for her friend's birthday party today and I got a late start. I was figuring on 20 minutes to get there (out in Sussex) and I was cleaning up paint chips and putting things away before leaving, so by the time we hit the road, it was 3:41, 19 minutes until the party was supposed to be over. So as we pull out, I figure I will just go a few mph over the limit and we'll get there in plenty of time. After all it is all two lane, country road driving. Well I end up getting stuck behind some clown who is doing about 2 mph BELOW the speed limit. I ended up taking the first turn and taking a different route. We ended up getting there with a couple of minutes to spare. Then after we got home and Sarah left for the football game, we took Ali with to the grocery store. We were driving home some stupid lady decides to do a U-turn as I am pulling out, but then she decides to stop in the opening in the median because there is a car coming, even though there are two full lanes. Turns out the woman is talking on her cell phone as well as working a cigarette, both of which are obviously more important to her than driving her car. Man, I try to be patient but sometimes I wonder how the state of WI decides who gets a driver's license.

Still Lots to Do

Well I didn't get as much done today as I had hoped. I managed to scrape & sand the stoops, but that was it. Alison had to go to a birthday party so driving her to and from it kind of put a kink in the plans. I'm all prepped, so I guess first thing tomorrow I'll get the primer on. Sarah is up in Oshkosh with a friend right now watching the Falls-Appleton North semifinal football game. As I am typing this there is just under 2:00 to go in the fourth quarter and the Falls is up 10-0. Looks like we'll be heading to Camp Randall next week to take on Marquette again. Maybe we'll go, who knows. It isn't often your team makes it to the State Championship game.

Winterizing

It looks like this weekend is going to be the last semi-good weekend of the year, so I'll be outside getting everything winterized. I have to check the caulking around the windows and I wanted to scrap and re-paint the door stoops. Hopefully I can get it all done before it rains.

Need a Christmas Tree

So what has been happening? Well in the two weeks since I have updated things, I have been working like a dog, putting in long hours. It could be worse though, I could have no job to put in the long hours at right? It is frustrating though knowing that there are things that we are doing now that I had suggested two years ago and was poo-poohed. Hopefully since the shake up in the management structure we'll see a little more action. the good thing is that I am getting more projects to work on and less butt time at my desk, which I like. But it also doesn't keep me from having to do all the paperwork stuff, I just have to fit it into the daily schedule.

This weekend, Kris is working and I will have a bunch of things to get done around the house. Hopefully I can finish off the list. One of the main things is to go get a Christmas tree. Last year, our tree broke when I was putting it together, a bunch of the holders for the branches broke. So at the end of the season, I just tossed it, so now we are treeless. It is going to be hard to find a tree that is big enough for all our ornaments and will hold all my lights. Last year's total was (I think) 1900? I should go look up my entry on putting the tree up last year and see what I said.

Trick or Treat

Ali had fun with her first excursion trick or treating by herself. In fact, when we got home she insisted on handing out the candy to all the other kids who came to the door.
Then after she finished eating her dinner and in between handing out candy, she decided to take an inventory of her loot:
We only lasted about an hour. We made it up and down three streets before Ali got too cold. Two years ago it was in the low 30's, then last year we decided to go to Disney for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween where it was in the upper 30's/low 40's, and last night it was in the upper 30's. Someone tell me when this global warming stuff is supposed to happen.

We'll find out shortly how Sarah's night went since she was going to a friends for trick or treating and a Halloween Party sleepover.

New Pumpkins

Well, the skull & crossbones and Frankie melted. that's the last time we get pumpkins from Basse's! So here are the replacement ones we carved yesterday:

This Year's Jack-O-Lanterns

I still have the pumpkins inside so that the punks in the neighborhood don't smash them before Halloween, but here are this year's Jack-O-Lanterns.

Jack Skellington (Mine)

Tiki Face (Ali's)

Funny Frankie (Sarah's)

Sarah found this template and thought it was cool.

Kris thought this one looked pretty scary.

Skull & crossbones. This one is starting to rot in the picture (note the sag in the bottom right) We have replaced it with a better one. Pictures to come Halloween night when it is on the porch.

Incredimail Blows

I am officially done with Incredimail. I have been having all kinds of problems with it on my laptop as well as on Kris computer. I actually ended up having to reinstall in on Kris's computer after I wiped out the hard drive and reinstalled everything. Well there was still nothing but problems, and good luck trying to get any support. Well Friday, Kris lost all of her mail and folders. I have no clue what happened to them, they just disappeared. There was nothing in the folder that kept all her mail and settings either. Luckily I had all her old mail folders stored yet from when I reinstalled Windows, but she lost anything from about the last week and a half to two weeks.

So I thought about it. Why am I using Incredimail anyway? Just for the notifiers. No one could see my stationery, and I didn't use any of the other clip art features or emoticons. So I finally just said screw it. Kris is now just using Outlook, and I have resigned myself to use Thunderbird (I try not to give Bill gates my money). Screw Incredimail, it's not worth it!

Sunday Was a Long Day

Sunday was a LONG day. I started out playing with the girls while Kris was working. We hadn't played the Wii in a while so we played a few rounds of Mario Kart. Then once we got going, I had a few tasks to get done. First, I wanted to get our light up pumpkins going.

We have (2) wire frame pumpkins that are strung with orange lights. One of them wasn't working, or rather was only half working. I took the frame apart and started checking lights. This is the bad thing about having these kinds of decorations. If these were Christmas lights, I's simply toiss them and then go spend $3.50 and get a new string. With the pumpkin, you need to have orange lights first of all, and second, they are attached to the wire frame, so you can't just get new lights. Well I started replacing lights with my spare Christmas ones. First I went along pulling lights and replacing them, one at a time. If it didn't work, the original light went back in and I moved to the next one. After going through the whole sting, I decided to pull all the lights and replace them all with white, just to see if the lights would work, and then i would go back and put the orange ones back in.

After spending an hour and a half, NONE of the lights worked. I replaced about 70 lights with ones from a white, Christmas string, but they still wouldn't light. So at 1:30 I gave up. I guess I'll be looking for something else to put in front of the house with the jack-o-lanterns.

Speaking of jack-o-lanterns, that was what we did from 1:30 until about 6:30. Scooping out pumpkin guts and figuring out what kind of faces we would be carving. I had to get two extra pumpkins, because the two we bought the week before were starting to rot. I carved them all (6 total) but if the (2) rotten ones don't make it to Halloween, we still have (4) good ones. The last of the bunch are soaking right now and when I take them out I'll put alight in them and take some pictures to post. I did Jack Skellington for mine this year, and I'm sort of jazzed to see what he'll actually look like with a light inside. I have to say this is one of my favorite things to do with the girls. So check back in a day or two for pictures of this year's pumpkins.

Chasing My Tail

Well that is certainly what it feels like. I spent the weekend raking leaves. nad just when I get the front yard clean and go to start the backyard, the wind picks up and blows all the leaves from the neighbor's yard all over my freshly cleaned lawn. I went back and redid it, and it looked good for a day or so, but now with a little rain that we had today, it is back to a mess. this is the part of the autumn that I hate!

Babysitting

Today Kris is working and Alison is going on a field trip with her Brownie troop to the Waukesha Museum. The head leader for Ali's troop has a 4 year old and instead of taking her along, she is giving Sarah her first babysitting job. She got here at about 8:45 this morning and She is going to be taking care of Marina all day until 3:00 when they get back. I'm only going to be standing by to help if absolutely needed. Sarah is going to keep her entertained and feed her lunch all by herself. This will let me get some work done outside since the tree nearest the house has dropped about 95% of its leave this week and I need to get them raked and clean out the gutters. Let's hope we don't run into any major hurdles today.

Dance Team

Sarah had her first performance for her dance team last Tuesday. I had to get home from work early so we could make it over to North by 5:00. They did their routine at halftime of the 7th grade girls basketball game. Boy, now I know what my parents felt like having to sit through my games... BORING!!!! The halftime score was 9 to 4. But the bigger point is when did they start playing the games at 4:30 in the afternoon on a school day? I seem to remember volleyball games being played on school days, but never basketball.

They girls all did a really good job for only having a few practices in. Their routine lasted for about a minute or a minute and a half. But all things condsidered it was pretty good.

A Little Behind

I have been a little bit behind with what is happening. Last week Sarah finished her Junior Indians cheer season. It's hard to believe that it has been two months since she started. After the game, we had to run a few errands, which included going to get our pumpkins for Halloween this year. We're still looking for some good face templates, but we should have it narrowed down by tomorrow.

Haunted House Time

Anyone who knows me knows this is my favorite time of the year. I love Halloween. Carving pumpkins, trick or treating, haunted houses, etc. It's great!

This year I have offered to take Sarah (and presumably a friend or two) to a haunted house. I haven't been to a haunted house for about twelve years. I remember the last one Kris and I went to about 1999. We went with one of Kris's friends and her husband to the Rainbow Springs Haunted Hotel. It was really fun. I also remember it was my birthday and I was 30. They were selling beer and I went to get one while we waited and I got carded.

Anyway, this year I asked Sarah if she wanted to go and she said yes. Ali said she wanted to go too, but I think she is probably still too young. Besides, I'm looking for the scariest one I can find around here. The Hubertus House of Horrors is open, but very popular. That means tickets might be scarce. But we'll find one and post some pictures of the spooky fun.

Wasted Weekend

I spent the weekend trying to fix Kris's computer. Man what a time suck that was. For a while now Kris had been complaining about how slow her computer was running. I kept running virus scans and malware scans and nothing ever came up. Finally, her computer locked up on her completely on Thursday, and I had had enough. I decided it was time to wipe out the hard drive and start from scratch. So Friday night I was up 'til 11:30 transferring files off of her hard drive and reinstalled Windows. I was getting tired and couldn't locate the CD to install my wireless card so I just went to bed.

Well Saturday I reinstalling things when I forgot the cardinal rule, check what you are installing and disconnect from the internet when you are doing it. I picked up a virus/malware from one of the CDs I had (damn torrents!). Well after trying for 45 minutes to remove it and having no luck, I just wiped everything out again. I wasn' that far into reinstalling so I didn't lose much, only about 3 hours of my time.

This time I did it right, located the CD with the virus and tossed it. So now I am transferring files back. She still has a few files on Sarah's computer in the basement, but the majority of everything is back on her computer and running good (so far). I may have a few settings to correct yet, but I think I'm in good shape, and it only took the better part of a day! It's a good thing the Packers had a bye, although I should have been out cutting down plants and rakign leaves instead of sitting in front of the computer!

Gonna Be A Long Night

Kris called me today at work and said her computer started acting up. She was working on it reading some emails when it just started slugging along. She rebooted and ever since it just locks up. Obviously she picked up a virus or something someplace. The problem is that now I have to get it figured out. I ran the malware and anti-virus programs, and nothing. So I'm not sure what to do next, but I know I want to get it figured out before I go to bed. It's going to be a long night!

Finally

I know it has been almost three weeks since I posted anything but things have been hectic. Work laid off (3) office people. However, we still need to do the same amount of work, so my duties and responsibilities have been expanded. As a result I am hopping from the moment I get to work until the moment I leave. That's good I suppose, since I stay busy. But it also keeps me at work later. Once I get home and eat, help Sarah with her homework and read with Ali, it's in the neighborhood of 8:30 or 9:00 and I just want to go to bed.

Sarah is learning the harsh reality of middle school. Homework. I don't think she has had a day yet where she didn't have at least some homework. Most days she is bringing home more than one subject. So juggling that with Cheerleading, Student Council, Builder's Club, and now Dance Team (aka Pon-Pom Squad) she is exhausted.

Well that's about all I can take for tonight. I'm off to bed. Maybe I'll get around to more tomorrow.

Redistricting Meeting

Well, it looks as if Ali will for certain be going to a different school next year, the only question is going to be the exact boundaries of the redistrcting. They said that right now the map of the new districts is just a draft, but that the final version won't be much different, it will only vary by a couple of blocks here and there.

The one question I want to know is whether or not Alison will still be bussed. We live on the edge of the district right now and from what I have heard, the only reason she is bussed right now is because she has to cross a major roadway (Both Pilgrim Rd. and Appleton Ave.) to get to school. I believe the policy is that anyone who is within a (2) mile radius from school can be bussed, but it isn't mandated. We'd have to pay something like an extra $400 a year to have her get bussed. Now I don't know if that rule applies to all students, or just middle and high school students.

I wasn't able to ask the question because the meeting was dominated by Ben Franklin parents. They were all crying that their kids would be moved and they wanted them to stay at BF (the proposal has about 230 kids from BF being distributed to other schools). I had to laugh. These were the same parents who could have given a rip last spring when they were going to close our school (Riverside) and one other to merge into one large elementary school. The Superintendent (who I actually like very much) distributed questions from a previous information meeting the week before at Ben Franklin. In reading thru the questions I really hope they do redistrict just the way they are saying they will and move the kids from BF. The a-holes at BF were slamming RS, the students and staff saying they didn't want their kids going to a school that was as "troublesome" as Riverside. They also referenced state test scores. Apparently RS was something like the 75% while BF was 90% on that state testing scale. Well one reason could be that they stopped taking 220 kids and BF and sent them all to RS. Ben Franklin isn't a private school as much as they want to believe that it is, and if you don't like it there is always private school.

I have come to the realization that Ali is going to be moved, and that is fine. I'll miss the staff at Riverside, but there will be a lot of families moving from Riverside with us, so Ali will still have friends and I am sure we'll get used to Shady Lane.

Still Pulling A Paycheck

Well it looks like I'll at least be pulling a paycheck for a while longer. I guess that is one of the good things about being the head of my department. Our office has done a bit of restructuring and moving around responsibilities. I end up having to go into daily meetings at 8:00 to report on projects, problems, etc. as well as having to sit in on meetings with a consultant who is trying to help the company implement lean manufacturing philosophy. On top of that I have a few other new projects that my boss has tasked me with, so I suppose that means my job is safe for now. *phew*. I think I'll get things updated however, just in case.

School Board Meeting Tonight

On top of all the other things we have going on (Sarah has practice for her dance team tryout, and Alison has dance class) we have the “informational school board meeting” on the redistricting plans. It’s going to be a busy evening. Details of the meeting to be posted later tonight.

Bad News At Work

Things are slowing way down at work. This week our office had a meeting where the CFO laid out was happening with the company. About two weeks ago, we had to lay off about 10 people out in the shop in an attempt to cut costs. We are also cutting out our third shift and moving those people to second shift. There will only be a skeleton crew (2 or 3 machinists) working third shift. This is the first time in the 39 year history of the company that they have had to lay off employees, so it was a particularly hard ting to have to do.

After going over all of this, we still have to cut more, and that is going to entail layoffs in the office. We only have (18) office personnel so I don’t know how many people will get cut, but I do know that certain people are safe, such as the CFO, President, etc. Hopefully, being the head of the QA Dept. And the fact that I just got a couple of new assignments/projects yesterday, that means my job is safe for now. The reorganization/restructuring of responsibilities n the office will be happening next week, so I hope by next Friday I can still say I am collecting a paycheck. In any event, I believe it is time to make sure my resume is updated and start sending out some feelers for other opportunities that are more stable.

North JH Open House

Tonight was the North Jr. High open house. We got to go and see Sarah's classrooms and hear the pitches from her teachers about class rules, grades, parent involvement expectations, etc. I wasn't wild about it, mainly because of the size of the school. I like her grade school. They had about 300 kids total. Sarah's 6th grade class has about 400 kids. But we did get to meet a lot of her friends. What a difference from her first day of Kindergarten. Kris and I were talking about how shy she was and how scared she was going to school. Tonight she was waving to girls and saying hi to everyone. What a littel social butterfly. So far she is enjoying school, let's hope it stays that way.

First Cold of the Year

Friday when Sarah got home from school she was complaining that her throat hurt, her nose was running her eyes were all watery and she just generally wasn't feeling well. I told her to go to bed early and get some rest if she wanted to cheer at her game on Saturday. Well Saturday she woke up while Kris was getting ready for work @ 5:30. an hour later she was throwing up, and her temperature was almost 101. No game for her. She stayed in bed all day Saturday and half of Sunday (Good thing because I didn't want her to miss any school). The bad thing is that by Tuesday, I had the same thing going... headache, sinus pressure, etc. The good thing is that I think I headed it off. I never spiked a fever or anything, just a lot of head cold stuff. NOw I'm down to just a nagging cough. Good thing it didn't turn out to be pig flu.

Redistricting

Last Friday Alison brought home a notice of an upcoming school board meeting having to do with redistricting. Kris was talking to the neighbor who told her that there was something in the Menomonee Falls News about kids from Riverside being moved. So we went to the school district website... nothing. then we searched the paper's website and there was a story about the school district voting to have a K4 center at one of the schools and in order to accommodate it, they would be redistricting. The story said 43 kids from Riverside would be moved to Shady Land School next year. Kris and I are mad! We lobby and fight to keep our school open and when we win, the school board turns around and says, yeah, by the way, the school will stay open but you won't be going there. There'll be another board meeting next week that we'll be going to to find out what is going to happen exactly, so stay tuned to see where Alison will go to school next year.

More Chipmunks

We caught our third chipmunk Thursday. Wednesday when we got home from letting the second one loose I thought I would reset the trap, almost as an afterthought. The last time we had chipmunks living under and around the house I only caught two. But I set it anyway. Thursday morning after Sarah left for school I thought I should just take a look at the trap quickly, and yep, it was tripped. Unfortunately, I had to get Ali to school, so it sat in the trap until I got home around 6:00. I sort of felt bad, but eh... it's a chipmunk right? I think I'll give it a few days before resetting it.

9/11 Eight Years Later

I am going to take a break from posting things only about our lives for just a minute. In my surfing around the worldwide interweb, I cam across a blog that had linked to a site started by Dale Challener Roe (or DC Roe) called Project 2,996. It is a network of bloggers who have decided to annually on 9/11 to remember one (or two) of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. I thought it was a great idea because the farther away we get from that day, the more people forget. Sure you hear about it on the news, or you hear people talk about it, or even see images of the WTC on fire, but unless you watched it and lived it while it was happening, I don’t think you can ever truly appreciate the impact it had on people’s lives. And while the victims will always have their immediate friends and family to remember them, I think that they need to be remembered by more than just their loved ones in order to realize the impact of what happened that day and to never forget why we fight terrorism.

I picked two people off of the list to remember, Sara Elizabeth Low and Richard D. “Richie” Allen. I chose Sarah Elizabeth Low because it is the my oldest daughter's name, Sarah Elisabeth. I still remember her watching the TV with us on 9/11/2001 and looking at me asking why those buildings were falling down. I thought that because of the name it would be a good choice, since I would always remember it. Second, Richie Allen was an NYC fire fighter. I have, over the years, developed a special appreciation for fire fighters. My father was a fire fighter for 25 years and it wasn’t really until 9/11 that I realized the extent of what he did for a living. Every day he went into work he was essentially putting his life on the line. He never knew when there was going to be a fire, never knew what the extent of that fire would be when he went on a call. Just like members of the armed forces, police and firefighters put their lives on the line with every call and do it willingly never knowing if the next run they go on will be the last run they go on. They are lifesavers, and true everyday heroes, and I'm proud to tell people that my father was a firefighter.

This is Sara Elizabeth Low.

Sara Elizabeth Low was a flight attendant and a resident of Boston, Massachusetts. She grew up in Batesville, Arkansas and graduated from Batesville High School in 1991. Sara was a track athlete in high school, and her team won a state title in 1989. In honor of her memory, Batesville has annually held the Sara Low Memorial 5K Run and Walk.

Sara died at the age of 28 in the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. She was one of nine flight attendants onboard. Sara and the rest of her flight crew, being on the first hijacked plane, could have no inkling of what lay in store, unlike on United Airlines Flight 93, where the crew and passengers learned of the earlier attacks and mounted a pre-emptive counterattack that stopped the hijackers from succeeding in their suicide mission. The last recorded information that we have about Sara Low is that on the highjacked American Airlines Flight 11, she gave to another flight attendant, Amy Sweeney, "her father's calling card, which allowed [Sweeney] . . . to pretend to be a passenger and use an AirFone to call Logan Airport and relay the vital information." Even a small act like that took presence of mind and some degree of courage in terrible circumstances that the vast majority of us will never face.

Despite having earned advanced degrees in banking and finance from the University of Arkansas, Sara E. Low was dedicated to her career with American Airlines. And the 29-year-old flight attendant was stationed along the eastern seaboard--a part of the nation she adored. For Sara Elizabeth Low, a career as a flight attendant was a birthright. Family vacations meant piling in the back of her father's small plane and heading from Batesville, Ark., to the Gulf Coast or Rocky Mountains. "Sara didn't think there was too much difference between being in the plane and being in a car," said her mother, Bobbie Low.

Poised, collected, yet prone to sudden streaks of silliness — a personality to calm even the most enraged traveler. And her job sated her wanderlust, her need for cosmopolitan glamor.

"She would call us from the different destinations and give us a hard time," said her older sister, Alyson, a teacher in Fayetteville, Ark. "In the summer she'd phone from San Francisco or Vancouver because she loved that she had to wear a sweater, rubbing it in about how hot and humid it is in Arkansas."

Yet one aspect of the itinerant life wore on Sara: in her first two years as a flight attendant she had about two dozen roommates. So at age 28 she had finally found a place of her own in the Beacon Hill area of Boston, the city from which she boarded Flight 11. "It had a fireplace and wooden floors," Alyson said. "Our mother went to Boston in the summer to help her clean it up, and it was going to be a real home."

"She absolutely loved the airlines and helping people," her father, Mike, said. Sara is survived by her parents, Mike and Bobbie Low of Batesville, and her sister, Alyson Low of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The second person I remember is Richard D. Allen, know to family and friends as "Richie".

Richie was 31 on Sept. 11, 2001. He was a life-long resident of Rockaway Beach. He became a victim of this tragedy as he heroically saved lives in the line of duty.

Richie loved the beach and worked Rockaway’s beaches as a lifeguard for many years and he treasured it. The beach was a peaceful place for Richie and brought him comfort; it was Richie’s Heaven on Earth. He loved the ocean, which is where he surfed, fished, swam and paddled.

Before becoming a fireman and when not lifeguarding on the beach in the summer, Richie spent his winters as a New York City Public School teacher. He quickly and easily gained the admiration and respect of his students as they could tell that he was not like their other teachers. To his students, Richie was someone they could relate to and they described him as “laid back” and “cool”.

People become firemen for many reasons. Richie’s family believes that he became a fireman because saving people and helping is what gave him life. During his short life, he saved many people; some he saved as a fireman, some he saved while lifeguarding and some he saved from themselves. His family believes that this is what God put him on this earth for. Once people met Richie, their lives were changed forever.

On September 11th, Richie was doing what he loved to do: he was helping others. Richie was a probationary New York City firefighter with Engine 4/Ladder 15 in Manhattan. While he was on the fire department for only a short time, he fulfilled a life-long dream. Prior to becoming a fireman, Richie held several other jobs with NYC, which he loved. He worked for the sanitation department, he was a teacher for the Board of Ed and spent his summers working as a lifeguard in Rockaway. All of Richie's jobs entailed serving the people of NYC and making a difference in other people's lives.

Richie is survived by his very proud and loving family, which includes his parents, Richie Sr. and Gail; two brothers, Luke and Mathew; three sisters, Maggie, Lynn, Judy and her husband Mark; close family relatives, Kathy, Charlie Sr., Charlie Jr. and Katie Marquardt, as well as many other dear friends and relatives.

Thanks to www.livingtribute.com, www.legacy.com, www.sep11memories.org, & gypsyscholarship.blogsot.com for the information on these victims.

Community Organizing

Wednesday night I watched President Obama address Congress and once it was done, I was in a sufficiently bad mood. So as I was putting Alison to bed, I got a call from MU soliciting donations. Now while I understand the need to hit up alumni for money, I really hate having them cold calling me asking to donate hundreds of dollars. If I had it, I am sure that I would give them something, but I don’t, especially now.

So now I am in a doubly bad mood. No sooner have I hung up with MU than the doorbell rings, and it is some 20 year old kid from a “Community Organizing” group called Wisconsin Citizen Action. Think of it as Wisconsin’s version of ACORN. He starts trying to get me to sign his petition for health care reform and as I have had people from this group stop at my house before for other things, I knew he was going to ask me for money. Big mistake. So I stopped him about 15 seconds into his pitch and told him to just stop. While I agree that the health care system needs to be fixed, I am not about to give the government a blank check. I told him I am totally not on board with this plan the Dems are pushing as it is the first step toward a complete take over. And make no mistake, as soon as they get their foot in the door so to speak, it is only going to be a short time until they have their meat hooks in everything. Remember, Obama didn’t want to run a car company, but yet the government still owns OMC (Obama Motor Corp., formerly GM). But back to the story...

The kid has been trained well because he isn’t taking no for an answer. I got the pitch of “since you agree health care needs to be reformed, why not speak up with 100,000 other people so your voice is louder?” Well junior, it’s because you don’t speak for me. If your group believed the same thing I do, I’d be fine with it. But just because I want to see improvements in the health care system doesn’t mean I want the government to take it over, which is what you and your lib friends want. Putting my name on your petition would imply that I want to have the Government run the show. Sorry, I don’t. I am in touch with my Congressman (Sensenbrenner) and make my positions known to him. That is who counts. He is the one voting for me, not your fringe, kook group. I then tell him that I am completely 180 degrees from the point of view of everything Wisconsin Citizen Action is and does, trying to push a left wing agenda. So he asks me why. I proceed to tell him of my previous run ins with Wisconsin Citizen Action. I had some greenie kook trying to get me to sign a petition to stop the Crandon mine about 7 or 8 years ago, something I had no problems with going in. Then I had a run in with someone trying to get me to support a ban on handguns and concealed carry laws. Again, an issue where I amon the opposite side. So I told him, every time you people come around you are pushing these left wing, nanny state causes. Sorry, count me out.

That finally did him in and he left my porch. I could have been much more rude, and engaged him point by point, but I was in no mood and Ali needed to be tucked in, so i just let it go. Man, I am really worried about the direction this country is heading.

Parent Meeting and New Dance Claass

Tuesday night we had a lot going on. Sarah had cheer practice and Alison's teacher held her "parent orientation" meeting. Since Ali is in the multi-age class Kris and I already know her teacher and we're pretty familiar with how she runs her classroom, but we thought we should go anyway and we could meet some of the parents from some of the new kids in the class. There is one girl (a first grader) who Alison was friends with in pre-school so we were happy that she would have at least one new friend that she was familiar with. Most of her friends from last year were a year older so they have all moved on.

After the meeting with her teacher we had to make the choice between going to the first PTA meeting of the year or to wait with her outside her dance class. We chose dance. Since she had issues over the summer with her dance class, we pulled her out of the studio she was at (We actually also had some concerns about the costs as well with the classes and her costumes and tickets for her recital so we didn’t have much of a problem taking her out). Ali loves to dance though and we wanted to make sure that she kept up with at least the basic skills, so we registered her thru the Falls Rec Dept. So after her first class, at least it seems as if she likes it.

I’m not too sure what she’ll learn, and Kris and I are sort of questioning things since Ali came home and showed us what she learned. We looked at each other and thought the same thing.... That doesn’t look like any dance move I’ve ever seen. Hopefully since it was the first class and they spent half the class introducing people, getting to know everyone, and going over the rules and requirements for the class it was just something fun that they were doing. Ali did say that next week they’ll be doing more work. At the very least she did make a new friend and there are two other girls from Riverside in her class so hopefully it will help her be more comfortable.

Chipmunks

Last week on Wednesday before we left for Kris’ uncle’s funeral, we were standing out front with Ali waiting for her school bus. All of a sudden, a little chipmunk comes cruising across the front yard and ducks in a hole behind our front porch. Then five minutes later it comes darting out and across the driveway into the neighbor’s yard an under their porch. Then over the weekend while I was working on the driveway we saw the chipmunk running back and forth between our yard and the neighbor’s. So Monday afternoon I finally pulled the trap out and we went to get some peanuts to bait it. I had the trap for only about an hour when it tripped. Unfortunately I forget to lock the doors, so the chipmunk got away. I fixed the doors and reset it, and again, it was only set for about an hour when I checked it and there was a chipmunk inside.

Since I am not allowed to kill any rodents, we put the trap in the back of the car, piled in, and drove to let it loose along the Bugline Trail.

When we got home I thought I had better reset the trap because where there is one chipmunk, there are usually more. When I got home from work yesterday I was informed that there was another chipmunk inside and had been there since at least 8:00 AM. Once again, we drove over to the Bugline to let it loose.

I have taken a day off since we didn’t get home until dark last night, but I will be resetting it shortly to see what else I end up catching. Maybe I should have used it earlier in the year to catch some of the rabbits that were living in Kris’s flowers this summer.

Proud of Myself

Since I finished the driveway Sunday night, I actually had free time yesterday. I spent it doing little “to do” items around the house. I fixed a shade in Alison’s room since the drawstring had broken. I have only been meaning to do it since May. I also bought an electronic timer switch for the lights on the garage. We had just some electric eye timers screwed into the fixtures but it was driving me nuts because one light was more in the shade of the house and was coming on sooner than the other one. And consequently, one was staying on later. After a lot of searching I found a timer switch that I could wire in and control both lights at the same time. Anyone who knows me knows that electrical wiring is the one thing I absolutely hate! I consider myself pretty mechanically inclined and able to figure things out pretty easily, but one thing I have never quite managed has been electrical wiring, so I was hoping that I could rewire the switches without causing an electrical fire. The problem is that the switches were all wired in series and with the jumble of wires in the switch box I couldn’t find which wire was the hot one. I really need to get myself a multimeter.

After about a half an hour I had it wired in, but only one light was working. After some thinking and trial and error, I figured out that I had the wire for one of the lights connected to the hot wire, and one not. What a pain. I finally figured it out and got the timer set, and everything is working fine (crossed fingers). Hopefully I won’t end up coming home one day to the garage on fire.

More Bad News

I found out through some of the guys in the shop that we are cutting jobs/laying off at work. I don’t get informed of personnel decisions for some reason, but what I learned is that the third shift may be completely eliminated and the guys from third shift moved to second shift. Then there will be selective layoffs of shop employees. In fact they have already begun. Last week when I came in early, there were only (3) guys from third shift working, the rest of the building was empty. Things are getting slow right now, and I don’t know if it is the crummy economy finally catching up with us, or if GE has cut back because of the problems we have been having with their parts. I hope it is the former rather than the latter, but either way, it might not be a bad time to make sure my resume is updated. After all, if I do come across something that would require me working fewer hours for the same amount of money, I’d be all over it!

It Must Be Fall

I know that autumn is near when I end up having to reseal the driveway, which is what I spent all day Saturday and Sunday doing. What a way to waste a beautiful weekend (about the best weekend of the year BTW, good thing it happened before school started.... Oh wait. Nevermind).

Once I got home from work, Saturday was spent patching the huge cracks in the blacktop in an effort to make the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle known as my driveway stick together for another year. Actually, after the bobcats and dump trucks that moved up and down the driveway last year while replacing the garage, I don’t believe it stayed together as well as it has.

Once I finished patching Sunday morning, I spent the afternoon putting down (2) coats of sealer. Man, did my back ache with all the stooping over and reaching trying to spread the tar evenly. What I wouldn’t give for a body about 10 years younger, either that or some heavy duty ibuprofen.

Working OT

After Jr. Indians night, I ended up going into work Saturday morning to make up some hours that I had to take off during the week for our various activities as well as trying to get a couple of things done that I wasn’t able to during the week. I was planning in only working for a few hours so I could get home in time to get the driveway done. Well I ended up working almost a full 8 hours helping to get the parts that are going to Hong Kong next week complete and inspected. So the good news is that it looks like we finally have nailed these, all the dimensions/features fall within drawing tolerance. The bad news is that it took getting the parts pulled from us in order to get serious about making them right.

Jr. Indians Night

Friday night was Jr. Indians night at the Falls HS football game. At half time the 5th thru 8th grade Falls football teams were announced as well as the 5th thru 8th grade Jr. Indians cheer squads. The cheerleaders were supposed to have performed a cheer and dance routine. Their cheer went very well, however when it came time for their dance routine, they ran into a production snag. The CD that they were supposed to perform to wouldn’t work, so they did their routine with the high school cheerleaders counting out the time for them. It went pretty good, but the music would have been better.

Sarah had a fun time. We let her pretty much hang out with the rest of her friends from cheer most of the night, but that sort of lead to a little bit of attitude toward Kris & me. As a result, she lost her cell phone for the weekend.

Crummy Week

What a crummy week we (I) have. Kris's uncle died on Sunday, so we have the funeral tomorrow (Wednesday). I was supposed to have today off but I had to cancel my vacation day because we have some important stuff happening at work this week. We have an order for GE that HAS to ship out by the end of the week. We all pretty much feel that the future of our relationship with GE rests on these (4) particular parts. They are going to Hong Kong and HAVE to be on site for an outage on 9/13, which means that we have to have them shipped overnight by Tuesday, 9/8. We had some work to do finishing them yet and they were supposed to go out today to a third party inspection house for verifying but we were/are behind and only (2) went today, the other two are going out tomorrow. I need to be there to see that everything goes off smoothly, so I really can't afford to be gone for half the day tomorrow.

So as a compromise, I am going in at 3:30 tomorrow morning so i can be home by about 8:00, then we'll go to the funeral (wake starts at 9:15, funeral mass at 11:00). After the mass I have to go with Kris to a luncheon, and then when that is over I go back to work. Hopefully I'll be home by 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. Then it looks like another long day on Thursday, and Friday is Jr. Indians night at the High School. I was hoping to get the driveway sealed on Saturday, but now who knows? I really need about two more days this week to get everything done!

Hawk vs. Squirrel

We got to see a rare treat this morning. As we were getting ready to go outside and take the traditional first day of school picture, Alison points out the kitchen window and asks me "Is that a hawk?". I ask where and she points to the top of their playset. I look out the window just in time to see it swoop down after a squirrel running across the grass. The squirrel manages to make it the tree behind the house (the one closest to the house) and the hawk starts going in circles around the tree as the squirrel is running for its life tryin gto keep the tree between itself and the hawk.

After three times around, Kris opened the back door and scared off the hawk. Funny that she would save the squirrel, the one that is always digging up her flowers. I was actually hoping to see the hawk swoop down and fly away with the squirrel in its talons. That would have been cool.

First Day of School

Sarah started Jr. High today! She has to leave the house by about 7:10 to get to school. Class starts at 7:35. Today she dragged her butt out of bed just past 6:00 and had to be rushed out the door since her friends called at 7:05 and said they were ready to go. Then we had a little tantrum (she didn't get much sleep the night before) when I told her I was taking her picture before she left.

Not a great picture (note the bags under her eyes), but we have taken a photo of Sarah (and Alison) on the first day of school since the day she started Kindergarten.

Apparently she had a really good day. She has lots of people that she knows in her classes either from Sunday School, Scouts, Cheerleading, or Riverside, so she is really comfortable getting around. Hopefully the good mood lasts.


Alison's first day went pretty well also.


She has been worried about school all summer but she had a really good time today. I even got treated to a new song she learned in music class today when I got home. Just like Sarah, we are hoping that things continue like they did today.

'09 Cheer Season

The 2009 Jr. Indians cheer season has officially begun. Saturday was Sarah's first game. The team won 26-6, and the girls cheered them on.


Note that the girls are all wearing their sweatpants and jackets. Why, on August 29th, would you see the girls wearing their sweats? Well because it only got up to 62 degrees yesterday. And when you toss in the 20 mph winds, it felt like about 50. In fact, Kris and Ali broke out their winter coats.

Didn't all the global warming alarmists telling us we supposed to have palm trees in our front yards by now? Well I am pleading with you, please drive your cars! Pump more CO2 into the air to warm us up, PLEASE!!!!

Sad News

We got a call from Kris's mom today. Her uncle passed away this afternoon. He was diagnosed with lung cancer about a year or so ago. He went through chemo, but it didn't help much. Actually, if I recall correctly, the doctors gave him something like three or four months to live back when they diagnosed him, so just lasting as long as he had was amazing. We took Kris's mom over to see him yesterday because Kris's aunt called and said they thought this was going to be it. At least they all got to say their final farewells.

It looks like the funeral is most likely going to be on Wednesday, though we don't know for sure. They weren't members of any specific parish, even though they were devout Catholics and attended mass weekly at a church very close to where they lived. We're not sure what will happen if they don't have a funeral mass for him. We do know that he is going to be cremated and Kris's cousin is going to take his ashes back home to Spain and scatter them there on a mountain he loved.

We don't know yet if we are going to take the girls out of school to go to the funeral. I don't think they really need to go, but I don't want to be scorned by Kris's family because we didn't take the girls with. We'll have to play it by ear and see what happens later in the week.