'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.

More Fun With the Neighbors

One other thing I forgot to add about a week or two ago is that our neighbors next door decided to rip out one of their shrubs. They have a tall hedge along their back lot line and they had one shrub that was actually over the lot line on our property. I didn't really care, but they decided to rip it out. Once it was ripped out, this happened:

The post was rotten from all the standing water the guy has in his back yard (big rains, spring thaw, etc.) so that once the ground around it was disturbed, the thing just broke off like a match stick.

One thing that surprised me however was how quickly the guy replaced it. The post was only down for a couple of days before he got a new one in the ground. What's more, he actually replaced the fence boards as well as soon as the concrete (yes this time he used concrete to set the post) was dry. I was wondering how long the boards would just sit in his yard. Actually they are still there, piled up behind the garage, but the last time the boards sat in the backyard for weeks before he decided to replace them. Check out the previous post. There are still fence segments that he hasn't replaced. The boards rotted and fell off last year (2008) and he still hasn't put new ones back up. Just another reason to get a fence of our own up.

The Neighbor's Tree

Last Friday I come home from work and Sarah and Alison run to meet me as I am getting out of my car. They say, "Do you notice anything different?" Looking around, I say , "uh, no. Why?"

They proceed to make me look in the backyard an lo and behold, the neighbor took down his big tree. I don't know I I have an pictures of the backyard with his tree, though any pictures of my backyard would show them, but here is what it looks like without the tree:


Now, apart from having to look at their house (not really wild about that) we also have to deal with the sun coming in the back windows of the house early on the morning. I never realized how much it blocked the sunlight until it was gone. What a big difference.

Now we really need to get that fence up along the back lot line!

Scout Site

It's that time of year again. No, not back to school time, it's time for me to create and update Sarah and Alison's girl scout web sites. Yahoo screwed me with my domain so I had to change it slightly. This year we'll be at www.riversidegirlscouts.com instead of .net. I'll post when it is up and running sufficiently, but it shouldn't take me too long to transfer things over. Plus, I want to change a few of the graphics. I'm bored with the way it looks.

Supply Drop Off

After the Riverside Back to School Fair, we went over to North to get Sarah's supplies dropped off in her locker. The students were told initially that they were going to have to share lockers, but then at registration night the woman who gave Sarah her schedule and locker assignment said that not everyone was going to have a locker partner. When we got to her locker, we figured that there was no way that she could get a partner because her locker was so small.

So we got all her binders, notebooks, pencils, etc. set up in her locker we headed down the hall to one of Sarah's friend's lockers. Hers was bigger than Sarah's so we figured that those were the lockers that would have partners assigned to them. They were having fun showing each other their lockers and when Sarah headed back down to hers. Someone a couple of lockers down was putting stuff in their locker and Sarah found out that they did have a partner in her locker. So now we don't know for sure whether or not Sarah is going to be sharing hers. I don't know how two kids can get all their books, backpacks, jackets, etc. into one of those tiny lockers. Sarah wants to go back every day now while supply drop off is going on to check and see if anyone else has put things in her locker.

Back to School Fair

Alison is all registered for school. Thursday was the Back to School Fair at Riverside where we fill out all the medical forms, permission slips, etc. and Ali gets her school picture taken. It was sort of strange only registering one child this year. In fact a couple of the teachers happened to mention how it must feel weird only having one child at Riverside this year. We actually made it through the lines rather quickly considering that we went at the busiest time. The thing that took the longest was waiting in lie for Alison's picture. Afterward, the PTA was giving out ice cream sundaes, so we all had one before we headed out to North to get Sarah's locker organized.

Amber Alerts

We had an Amber alert today. Ali heard the one today because they broke into programming this afternoon to announce it. Ali is totally freaked out now. Between the ADT commercials that show some thug breaking down a door to rob a house and now with the abduction alerts she is afraid to be away from Kris and me at all. She wouldn't go to sleep tonight because she was so spooked by it.

I hope we can get this sorted out before school start or we might be having to make a couple of visits to the school counselor.

Back to School Fair

Tomorrow night is Alison's back to school fair. It'll be the same thing as what we went through with Sarah on Monday... Pictures, fees, and turning in all the paperwork for Ali. After that, we have to go back over to North to bring all of Sarah's supplies to load up her locker.... lots of binders and notebooks. And since I'll be working until about 5:00 it is going to be a lot of rushing since we only have until 7:00 to get it all done. Check back tomorrow to see if we made it.

Junior High Registration

Monday night was Sarah's registration night at North Jr. High. We had to go pay all of her fees and get her class schedule and locker assignment. I try to tell myself that its good that she is going to public school, because we could never afford to send her to private school. But when you figure in what we shell out in property taxes to the school district as well as the fees that we just paid it's almost a wash.

Sarah ended up in House 'C'. Don't ask me to explain it, but it is basically a method by which the school breaks up the classes into smaller groups. If I remember correctly, there are going to be something like 300 6th graders this year, so the "houses" are a sort of subdivsion.

Sarah has locker 2123, and she is right outside her homeroom door. All her classes are in the same hall except for one. So hopefully she'll be getting along well. Sarah also had a little trouble with her locker combination. I had to help her out with how to turn the dial. I hope she remembers how to do it come Sept. 1st.

School Shopping

It's that time of year again where we have to do all the shopping for new school clothes and supplies. We took the girls to the mall to use the gift cards they got for their birthdays. We spent at least an hour and a half in Justice and Aeropostle looking for, and trying on clothes. Well, not really "we", just the girls. They found some really good deals on some cute outfits. I'll have to look for some photos because I think that Kris took some pictures in their new outfits.

But along those lines, I have to wonder why i ever go along. It is nice to see the girls picking out their new clothes, but really, I am not much help in offering suggestions or finding matching outfits. I generally end up pacing back and forth in the stores between the racks while Kris helps them look. It's a pretty boring trip for me, but then again, that's what happens when you're the only man in the house.

Days Off

Well it is almost the end of the summer so I took a couple of days off last week to do something with Kris and the girls. Thursday we ended up driving out to Holy Hill. We have driven past it several times and Alison has always wondered what the church was like so we told her we'd take her. We didn't climb the towers but we did go up to the church and stood on the observation decks and looked out over the surrounding landscape. It was a bit hazy but still some spectacular views. Then we took he inside and let he see the church. Kris and I had only been inside once before so it was a good reminder for us too. The stained glass windows were just beautiful.

After we were done looking around the church we took Ali to the gift shop. We wanted to get her a guardian angel charm or something to help with her worrying and anxiety over the upcoming school year. We found a nice charm for her to put on a chain as well as coin she can keep in her pocket.

Afterward we drove up to West Bend to let her see where my grandfather is buried. I haven't been up to his grave for a couple of years, so it was nice to go visit. I got to be nostalgic telling the girls all about my grandparents' house and how I used to go visit all the time. I don't know how much they really cared but they saw the plaque on the headstone that my grandfather was in the army and I think that impressed them.

Physical Results

Since I am 40 now, Kris convinced me that it was probably a good idea to actually go get a physical. I don't think I have had a full physical exam for, oh, about 20 years or so. Not since I was in college playing rugby. Well, I got my results all my blood tests last week, and I ended up being healthy as a horse... for the most part. My cholesterol was on the high side but still within the normal range. The final bill came in over the weekend, and I have to say I remember now why I never had a physical. I didn't need to spend the money to find out that I'm healthy.

Girls’ Birthdays

My babies had their birthdays this past weekend. Alison turned 7 on Friday and Sarah turned 11 on Sunday. We had sort of an impromptu party for Ali at Family Fun land in Germantown. She took three friend s with and they spent a couple of hours running around the play room and bounce house and playing games. It wasn’t bad overall. I would liken it to a smaller version of Chuck E Cheese. There weren’t as many games to play, and they it was cleaner and the clientele was nicer (we took the girls to Chuck E. Cheese a couple of years ago for their birthdays).

Saturday was the family party and it was sort of a bust. Kris spent two to three days preparing and we found out a couple of days prior that someone we invited wasn’t coming because of an accident, then on Saturday we found out my brother wasn’t coming, Kris’s friend canceled as well the day of the party, and Kris’s parents spent all of 45 minutes so we had tons of dip, and cake, and soda left over. Next year I think we’ll just skip it.

Sunday we took the girls to the mall to use the gift cards that they got. Boy, do I feel like a third wheel when going clothes shopping! Kris is helping the girls find stuff and I just sort of walk around looking lost and carry the things that they pick out. The girls were actually able to find some very cute clothes and at some good deals.

We spent the night going over Sarah’s school list and making sure we had everything off of the supply list. Since Sarah is going into middle school this year she has much more to get as far as notebooks and binders. It was then that we realized that Alison and Sarah will never be in school together again. When Ali goes to middle school, Sarah will be a freshman, and when Sarah is a senior, Ali will be in 8th grade. In a way it is sort of sad.

Work Summary

One of the reasons posting have been scarce is because I have been pretty busy at work lately and have been too tired at the end of the day to finally post anything.

Here is what has been happening at work:
One of our biggest customers (actually our biggest) has been pounding us lately on our quality. This was the reason we got summoned down to Atlanta last December. Well there is one particular “family” of product/part that we make in particular that they have been having trouble with. It doesn’t help that the people (the end users) that are complaining are one of the biggest users for our customer.

Well we had one particular order that failed their inspection not once, but twice. It turns out that we did in fact overlook something that was in error. As a result, the company President had to make a trip down to Atlanta last week in an attempt to mend fences. The problem is that the fence had already been knocked down. We essentially lost this particular part line, and they are threatening to pull all our other work, which is a total of about $2 million.

For now we have a chance to fix things, especially since most of the strikes against us go back at least a year. But if anything else pops up, the entire business is going to be moved elsewhere. Who knows, they may just be biding their time and are planning on replacing us as a supplier anyway. If that happens people are going to be whacked, and who knows who it will be. It could be the plant manager, it could be the VP, it could be me. Who knows? For now we just keep plugging ahead and making sure that we do what we can. I'll make sure that we conform to what we need to and if someone doesn't like it, too bad. That's all I can do and hope that nothing that has been out in the field for some time pops up to bite us.

Some Updates

Again, it has been some time since I posted anything, so here is a brief rundown of what has happened since the last time I entered anything.

First, I survived "dad's Day" and girl scout camp with Ali. I was happy to be there with her and I think she had a lot of fun with me there. She was really excited to show me all of the things around their camp.


Plus, Sarah got to raise the flag on the day I was there:



Then afterward I got a summer cold. Man do those just suck. My throat was on fire for a week. Luckily it was mainly a head cold, so it didn't really sideline me.

We bought Sarah a cell phone the last week of July. She now has an LG neon. We ended up having to expand our plan to include text messaging. Sarah loves it. She likes being able to send messages to her friends, though I thought that was what email was for? But with her being in Jr. High this year we figured it was best to be able to get in touch with her at all of her functions as well as a safety tool with her walking to school now.

Then there was all the fireworks at work the last three or four weeks. That's a long story so I'll have to cover that in a completely different entry.