Alison had her second cheer competition of the year today, well third really, but I don't count the Indian Invite since that was only an exhibition. Their second competition was cancelled after the varsity coach watched the tape of the Indian Invite performance, and December was spent redoing their routine. And their performance at State Jam ended up fourth out of four teams in their category. But I will say that it was still a whole lot better than their first performance.
This time they had three teams to compete against, and one of them was a team that had beat them at State. So we all figured they were going to be competing for second place. Their routine is fairly simple, and by that I mean not a high degree of difficulty, so they need to nail every move. And luckily, they had a very good performance with very few mistakes. So then it all came down to the third team. I thought they were pretty good, and very comparable to the Falls girls, so it was going to be close.
When it came time to announce the awards, and Menomonee Falls wasn't called when the third place team was announced, the girls all screamed. I think they knew they weren't going to place first, but with all the setbacks they have had this year, at least they can say that they finished a competition not in last place. The girls even all got medals for second place. So all in all it wasn't a bad day. You have to take the small victories when you get them.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Starting Over Again
For the third time in my life I find myself unemployed. What a drag! Everything was going fine Friday morning and my boss said our GM wanted us to come over to his office to talk. At first I thought it was going to be some sort of a management/production kind of meeting, maybe some sort of a trip to a customer. When we got over there, I was planning on going into the conference room, but the supervisor asked the receptionist if we were going upstairs to the conference room and she said, no you can just go in there (the HR office).
At first I wasn't sure why we would be going into the HR office, but then I thought, it was going to be good news. At our daily production review meetings, the receptionist (who is the acting HR officer since our HR manager had left last fall) had said something to the departmental supervisors about getting their appraisals in, meaning performance appraisals. I had been there not quite a year and a half and had never had a performance review/evaluation, nor a raise. When I was hired they had agreed to bump my pay after my probationary period was over as long as I was working out. At that time they said, "unfortunately due to the state of the company they couldn't offer me a raise at the time, but we would revisit it in a few months". OK, fine, right? Well I am thinking great, I am going to have a review and get the raise I was promised almost a year ago. Oh, and I was supposed to have my title upgraded to Quality Engineer. I was doing QE work and had the same responsibilities as a Quality Engineer, but it was explained to me that due to the coprorate structure, they were only "allowed" so many Engineer titles. The Quality Manager that hired me was going to be retiring, and when he did, the other QE would become the departmental manager, and I would be bumped up to get the Engineer title. So this is what I was thinking was going to be happening. I couldn't have been more wrong.
The GM walks in and says, "ah, it's never good being called into the HR office on a Friday". I thought he was making a joke until he said, "due to declining sales figures the company needs to make cutbacks to make up for the lost revenue, so unfortunately we'll be laying you off indefinitely". I think my jaw hit the floor. I was speechless. (I blame Obama for killing the mining industry). So then I spent the rest of the morning getting my desk packed up and making sure all the information on things was transferred to someone else or they knew where certain things were stored.
So now it is on to the next chapter. But I have to say, it's getting old. Hopefully it won't take long to find something else.
At first I wasn't sure why we would be going into the HR office, but then I thought, it was going to be good news. At our daily production review meetings, the receptionist (who is the acting HR officer since our HR manager had left last fall) had said something to the departmental supervisors about getting their appraisals in, meaning performance appraisals. I had been there not quite a year and a half and had never had a performance review/evaluation, nor a raise. When I was hired they had agreed to bump my pay after my probationary period was over as long as I was working out. At that time they said, "unfortunately due to the state of the company they couldn't offer me a raise at the time, but we would revisit it in a few months". OK, fine, right? Well I am thinking great, I am going to have a review and get the raise I was promised almost a year ago. Oh, and I was supposed to have my title upgraded to Quality Engineer. I was doing QE work and had the same responsibilities as a Quality Engineer, but it was explained to me that due to the coprorate structure, they were only "allowed" so many Engineer titles. The Quality Manager that hired me was going to be retiring, and when he did, the other QE would become the departmental manager, and I would be bumped up to get the Engineer title. So this is what I was thinking was going to be happening. I couldn't have been more wrong.
The GM walks in and says, "ah, it's never good being called into the HR office on a Friday". I thought he was making a joke until he said, "due to declining sales figures the company needs to make cutbacks to make up for the lost revenue, so unfortunately we'll be laying you off indefinitely". I think my jaw hit the floor. I was speechless. (I blame Obama for killing the mining industry). So then I spent the rest of the morning getting my desk packed up and making sure all the information on things was transferred to someone else or they knew where certain things were stored.
So now it is on to the next chapter. But I have to say, it's getting old. Hopefully it won't take long to find something else.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Possible Complication?
I got home from work today and Kris had a letter sitting by my laptop from Marquette that was addressed to Sarah. I opened it and it said that Sarah had been awarded the Pere Marquette Scholarship, $14,500 per year. So that takes care of about 40% of the annual tuition. Not that it will make all that much difference, but if when we file all the financial aid paperwork she ends up getting a decent amount of aid, maybe she'll decide that she wants to go to MU instead of UW-LaCrosse. But that is a big maybe. I'm not sure I am going to even say anything to her about it because she'll just freak out about having to make a decision. So if when all the FA comes in, the costs are similar, maybe I'll tell her, but otherwise, LaCrosse is still the choice.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Brrrr! It's Cold
For the most part, I like living in Wisconsin. There are a few times though where I ask myself, what the heck are we doing here. Well, this week is one of those times. Today when I left for work, it was -4° with a wind chill of -24°. It did get up to 7° for a high, but the wind chills all day were negative.
This has been a very mild winter this year, so I can't complain, especially since it has only been a couple of days of the brutal cold temps. But when we do get them, boy, I sure wish we lived a little farther south, like maybe Tennessee, or the mid Atlantic states, somewhere like Virginia or the Carolinas.
Luckily it is only supposed to last a couple of days and we'll be back up into the 20's by the end of the month.
This has been a very mild winter this year, so I can't complain, especially since it has only been a couple of days of the brutal cold temps. But when we do get them, boy, I sure wish we lived a little farther south, like maybe Tennessee, or the mid Atlantic states, somewhere like Virginia or the Carolinas.
Luckily it is only supposed to last a couple of days and we'll be back up into the 20's by the end of the month.
Friday, January 15, 2016
The Results Are All In
Sarah got all her answers to her college applications. We already knew she was accepted at UW-LaCrosse, which was her first choice, but she still wanted to know (and so did I) if she was good enough to get into her other choices. So she was accepted at my alma mater, Marquette, and she was wait-listed at UW Madison. She was a little bummed out about being wait listed, but I told her that it depends on a few things, like the school she was trying to get into as well as how many applicants they had. It also could make a difference being that she didn't turn in her application to UW until the final day of early application period. So had she decided to get off her butt and actually do the application and send it in September when I told her to, she may have been accepted.
At first she was stressing out because she thought that it was going to be a difficult choice since MU was a very close second to LaCrosse in the first place, plus she had seen some of the facilities there so she was a little more familiar with it. Plus, they have a program where, if you stay on track, you do get out in five years. At LaCrosse, once Sarah gets her BS, she'll have to be accepted into the graduate school there to get the degree she wants, and right now, it is a very small school. I looked up the acceptance rates at in 2013 (or was it 2014?) they accepted 19 students out of 300+ who applied. So I worry about that. But anyway, when I pointed out the Sarah the difference in tuition between LaCrosse and Marquette, she quickly decided that LaCrosse was probably the school for her.
So now we just have to work on getting all the other paperwork done, FAFSA, housing forms, meal plans, etc... I forgot how much I hated doing this paperwork stuff.
At first she was stressing out because she thought that it was going to be a difficult choice since MU was a very close second to LaCrosse in the first place, plus she had seen some of the facilities there so she was a little more familiar with it. Plus, they have a program where, if you stay on track, you do get out in five years. At LaCrosse, once Sarah gets her BS, she'll have to be accepted into the graduate school there to get the degree she wants, and right now, it is a very small school. I looked up the acceptance rates at in 2013 (or was it 2014?) they accepted 19 students out of 300+ who applied. So I worry about that. But anyway, when I pointed out the Sarah the difference in tuition between LaCrosse and Marquette, she quickly decided that LaCrosse was probably the school for her.
So now we just have to work on getting all the other paperwork done, FAFSA, housing forms, meal plans, etc... I forgot how much I hated doing this paperwork stuff.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Broke The Grill
The recent snow storm we had left us with a little problem, a broken grill. How did this happen you might ask. Well there was about 8-10 inches of heavy, wet snow on top of the lid. I had stopped putting covers on the grill a couple of years ago, because they always ended up ripping and having to be thrown out, so for the cost of them I figured I was just going to forget it and take my chances. For what I had spent on covers over the years, I think I could have probably bought a new grill.
So anyway, since I was clearing the snow off of the patio, I thought I would get the snow off of the grill as well. But instead of just brushing it off, I thought, I'll just open the lid and and the snow will just slide off behind the grill. I ran into a problem though. The temperature had dropped and now, instead of a wet snow, it had frozen to the grill lid. So when I lifted it up and let it go to have the snow slide off, it didn't. Instead there was about an extra 20 pounds (or more) of material on the lid and thus ended up breaking the cast iron around the hinge. Ooops.
So now I have to sit and wait for the weather to get better so that I can try and fix it. I don't want to have to buy a new grill, and I should be able to fix it, maybe with some JB Weld? But I will definitely be working at fixing it as soon as I can. I feel stupid for not just brushing the snow off in the first place.
So anyway, since I was clearing the snow off of the patio, I thought I would get the snow off of the grill as well. But instead of just brushing it off, I thought, I'll just open the lid and and the snow will just slide off behind the grill. I ran into a problem though. The temperature had dropped and now, instead of a wet snow, it had frozen to the grill lid. So when I lifted it up and let it go to have the snow slide off, it didn't. Instead there was about an extra 20 pounds (or more) of material on the lid and thus ended up breaking the cast iron around the hinge. Ooops.
So now I have to sit and wait for the weather to get better so that I can try and fix it. I don't want to have to buy a new grill, and I should be able to fix it, maybe with some JB Weld? But I will definitely be working at fixing it as soon as I can. I feel stupid for not just brushing the snow off in the first place.
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