Homecoming 2013

For homecoming this year, Sarah was going to go with a group of about 20 friends.  Well it turns out that two days before, one of the boys in the group she was going with decided to ask her to be his date.  That meant a last minute call to the florist for a boutonniere.

So I'm not going to go on and on about it, I'll just post a few photos and leave it at that.  

 

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Second Interview

I was trying to figure out how to get to my second interview on Friday when Kris suggested I take a vacation day.  That way I wouldn't need to rush around.  Plus, my parents were coming down to see Sarah cheer at homecoming, and I needed to get the grass cut.  So I thought that was probably the best idea.  

I had my interview scheduled at 11:00 AM and I figured I would be there for about an hour, since the last one lasted about 40 minutes.  Well things went pretty well.  I met with the director of engineering for about a half an hour.  Then he left for a minute, and when he came back I got a tour of the company.  I thought it was very interesting.  They make  surgical tubing by plastic injection molding.  It's something that is completely outside of my comfort zone, though I think it would just be a new challenge to master.  

So after about 40 minutes or so walking through the manufacturing floor, we went back to the conference room.  I thought I was going to meet with the VP I originally met with the week before but instead, I got to meet the president, and owner of the company. 

I think things went very well.  So we'll see what happens next.  The guy I interviewed with told me that I would be hearing from them early next week or so.  So maybe things are starting to look up. 

Another Interview

I had another interview today on the south side of Milwaukee.  It wasn't a bad place.  The company makes valves and solenoids.  It sounds pretty interesting and I think it would be something that would keep me busy.  It is a union shop and they went over their benefit package with me, which I thought was strange on a first interview.  But I have to say their benefits were pretty good.  

The downside was the drive.  It was only about a 19 mile drive, but the traffic was brutal.  I don't know if I would ever be able to make that drive every day.  I think I caught good traffic going there, it only took 40 minutes.  But the drive back home took me more than an hour.  I don't know if that would be worth it, especially if they didn't bump up my salary.  

But it was only a first interview so we'll see if they liked me enough to warrant a call back for a second interview.

Homecoming Week

This week is homecoming week at the MFHS.  This year Sarah started planning her wardrobe for the week on last Thursday.  I don't remember her being this fired up for homecoming last year.  This year she is taking it seriously, making sure she has all the right stuff to wear for the week.  One thing that they did do away with last year though was "class color" day.  I think someone complained that it would help seniors target freshmen for hazing if they were all wearing the same color.

This year it was replaced with class theme day.  I don't see the difference.  Instead of a single color classes are going to be wearing the same type of clothes.  Maybe next year they'll bring back class colors.  The last I heard, the sophomores were doing pretty well.  Sarah said that the seniors always win.  I told her when I was in HS I actually remember the sophomores winning spirit week one year, so you never know what will happen.

Call Back

I got some good news on Monday (I guess).  The plastics company that I interviewed at last week sent me a message that they want to know what my availability was this week for a second interview.  I would have never guessed I would have received a second interview there after how I thought I did on the original interview.  Kris said that she wonders about my evaluation skills because I came home saying that I totally blew that interview, and they obviously saw something that they liked or they wouldn't have called me back.

So now I need to figure out how to get there this week.  Today was obviously a no-go (I actually left work a little bit early today for a phone interview that I had scheduled at 4:00 PM).  Tomorrow won't work because I have another interview scheduled at 4:00 PM, which leaves Thursday or Friday.  Thursday is my late day at work because I am getting the girls off to school, and Friday is homecoming and I wanted to be home early to get ready to go to the football game (Sarah is cheering the first half of the game).  Maybe I can get out early on Friday.  At least I can get to work early on Friday if that is the case to make sure that I don't get behind at work and get my time in.

I haven't had to worry about scheduling interviews for some time, and the last time I did it was much easier because I had been laid off and didn't have to worry about making sure my current boss found out that I was interviewing for a different job.  I just went when it was convenient for the interviewer.  Now I have to try to juggle so many different things, and it is getting pretty hectic.

MFHS Open House

Last night we had the annual open house at the high school.  We didn't go last year because Sarah was having a fit about us going, so we decided to just skip it.  This year thought we decided we should go.  We had to take the girls to tumbling practice for cheer anyway, so we thought as long as we were there we'd go though things.  

It started with an address by the principal for about 15 minutes, and then we went though Sarah's schedule, hitting all of her classes.  We spent about 10 minutes in each of her classes and the whole thing only took two hours.  We didn't talk to any teachers directly, it was more like each teacher took their time to go over the class syllabus and address one or two questions if there were any.  Then it was on to the next class.  All of her teachers seem pretty good.  We'll have to see how things are going when it comes to conferences.  I don't think Sarah should have any problems. 

Homecoming Prep

This year Sarah has made the decision not to go to homecoming with  date.  Instead, she is planning on going with a bunch of her friends.  In fact, the last count I heard from Sarah was 21 of her friends.  That number does, however, include a few couples who will be going with them.  I'm not sure why, if you you have a date, you would want to go with a huge group of people.  I could see double dating, or ever triple dating to go out to dinner, but with a group of 20+ people, that just seems excessive.  Then again, there are a lot of things that they are going to be happening that seem weird to me.  Kris told me things are different now as compared to when we would have gone to homecoming.  So I guess that makes me a geezer.

And now you might think that without a date we'd be getting off cheap.  Well you'd be wrong.  Sarah still needs to have a new dress (or rather needed since Kris found one a couple of weeks ago), which also means that she'll need shoes to match.  Kris found those too.  So I think she's all set.  The only thing I don't know is whether she needs a flower for her dress too.  I would say no, but then again I would have thought that without a date we wouldn't have needed to get a new dress either. 

Boys would have been so much easier.

Greener Pastures

There has been some re-organizing at work (again) in the last couple of monthsso I finally made the decision to actively start looking for something new.  I had a couple of interviews that were promising in the late spring and over the summer, but unfortunately, nothing came from it.  

So far I have had a couple of hits.  I had a phone interview last week, one just yesterday, and another one scheduled for next week.  I don't think the one on Tuesday went very well.  I got a bit flustered on one or two questions and I feel like my responses left something to be desired.  The woman I met with didn't even give me the opportunity to ask questions about the position or the company, so that can't be a good sign.  After I got home I thought of better answers for the questions, and a coupe of other things that I should have tried to work into the conversation.  Oh well.  I guess I just use it as a learning experience and move on.

It was a plastics company and would have been a completely new direction for me.  Not that I wouldn't have been up to the challenge, but I think that it would have been some long hours learning a totally new process and getting up to speed on an entirely new CAD system.  The plus side would have been it was close to home, a shorter drive than I have now.  It was also a very new, modern building, so the working environment would have been great.  And finally, it was a very innovative company, so I am certain that I wouldn't have been bored.  The down side would have been that after seeing all the other people working there, I think I would have been one of the oldest people there, if not the oldest.  That is just depressing.

Who knows, I may still get a call back for a second interview, but I am not going to be holding my breath.  As I said, I will just use it as a learning experience and do better at the next one.

Jr. Indian Cheer Season

We have had two weeks of Jr. Indian football now and Alison has yet to cheer a full game,  The first week we had a long delay in the game due to a pretty bad thunderstorm that came rolling through.  The kids had to wait for the lightning to pass.  We all ran to our cars to wait it out, and after 30 minutes, the girls were told that they didn't need to hang around until the game started back up.  The football team eventually played the game but they had to wait around for around two hours before they started back up.

Then last week, Alison was fighting a cold.  Sarah was sick at school on Friday and over the weekend, so I think that Alison caught a touch of what Sarah had.  Ali made it until halftime, but then we ended up leaving because she wasn't feeling well.  When we got home she laid down for a nap and rested the remainder of the day while Kris and I ran errands.

Hopefully this week we'll be able to make it the entire game.

Back To School

Summer is officially over today.  The girls went back to school this morning.  Only two more years of this for Sarah.  And just like the previous 11 years (at least for Sarah, it's only been 7 years for Alison) I took the girls' pictures in front of the house before they left.

Ali is going to be walking with one of her friends who lives one block over from us.  She walked over to our house this morning, though I think they'll be switching on a regular basis.

So Ali started middle school and apparently she had a really good day.  She found her way around to all her classes, and she has friends in every class.  So that works out pretty good.  And she really likes changing classes.  But it's early.  I hope she still feels the same way in October.

At the moment, Sarah isn't home yet, she's at still at cheer practice so I'll find out how her day went when she gets home.  If I remember, I'll report on her day too.

In the mean time, this is Ali and her friend Emma:

And just like every other year, Sarah and Brittany:

Not So Smart Smartphone

Last month when we got Alison her phone, I decided it was time for me to finally upgrade my phone.  So I got myself a smartphone, a Motorola Atrix to be exact.  It isn't bad, though it is taking a little time to get used to it.  and typing things on the touch screen has been an experience.  One of the main reasons I wanted one was so that I could finally stop hauling around my dayplanner with me to work, and I could keep all my work appointments in the phone.  

The problem that I discovered was that it didn't sync with the calendar on my computer (I use Thundebird/Lightning rather than Outlook).  I was able to find myself an app/program that would allow me to use my current calendar and contacts without having to upload everything to Google first, which is what I wanted.  However, it was only a three week trial.  Which was fine, I figured if I liked it I would just buy it.  

Well it turns out that the program is $30.  I am not about to pay $30 just to sync my calendar with my phone.  Does that make me stingy?  Well I uninstalled everything and tried to just go back to the old calendar program that came with the phone, but it turns out that it messed everything up.  It made double entries on some things, changed the color coding, mixed up the dates of thins themselves, and just pretty much made things unusable.  It took me half a day to go through and delete everything by hand, and now I will need to redo it all by hand, unless I can find something else that will sync my computer and phone calendar and address book. This smart phone isn't very smart right now.