Sweet sound of Friday

Yesterday was the day from hell!!!!!

Too much to go into here on the blog but in short, I had to talk to 50 ticked off staff members about a grade book change that was not popular and how we were going to adapt to the change. I had 110 people in five different computer labs schedule to start at 12:15 and at 11:15 the system was not working. I had less than an hour to figure out the problem and fix it before everyone rolled in. If it wasn't working, I would have had to cancell training and I am not sure when we could have done it again. I was telling everyone not to worry, I would have it ready as they strolled off to lunch. Inside I was crapping in my pants and working like crazy to figure out the issue. (I did get it working and training went off without an issue.)

I feel a great sense of relief today. I don't have any meetings or training sessions. I just have the day to get my work caught up. Yesterday as I was going lab to lab and working with the staff, when I came back to my office, I had 35 emails, 7 voice mails, 6 missed calls on my cell phone and 3 voice mail messages on my cell. I haven't even listened to them yet. I was wiped out and will deal with all of that today.

Jess is babysitting this morning. Nancy's son asked her to babysit his kids from 7 to about 12:30 or 1 today. She has an impromptu volleyball practice (a whole drama in itself) this morning so we had to make arrangements from 8 -9:30.

Drew is having a good time on his camping trip. He caught a big catfish yestrday and went swimming in the lake.

I have to cut the grass tonight but the weather seems to be nice so that will be ok. I need to spend some time on the yard, but I have to work this weekend and put in a new reading system for the high school. I am sure it won't be as long of hours as last weekend so I may get a chance to work on the yard.

I hope the weather is good where you are.

I am sure there will be much more of the saga for Monday. Have a good weekend.

Get your blue suede shoes on, it's Elvis' birthday!

This is a Thursday like most. Trash day, golf day, blah, blah, blah. The only change is we have the teachers back and I am facilitating training for them all day..UGH!

The day will start with Nancy and I going in early and getting things setup. THEY will show up about 7:45, we will see how many are late, and the training starts at 8. It should last a couple hours and then this afternoon we are using five computer labs and the staff that was trained in the morning to train the rest of the staff. We will have 110 teachers in 5 labs across two buildings all getting trained at the same time.

Nancy and I will be roaming, lab to lab to make sure they are working ok and answering any questions they may have. It should be a treat.

Nancy and I then have training ourselves at 1 on custom report writing. It should only be an hour and not to difficult, I think I know how do it already so it is kind of a waste but you never know what little tidbits you can pickup that might make life a bit easier.

I golf tonight. Only two more weeks and that is done. I have been ready for it to be done for a month now so I am glad.

The weather is supposed to be good this evening, low humidity, so I have that to look forward to.

Friday is going to be a work day without meetings or nonsense, at least as far as I know of. Lots of work to do so it will be a good day to try to chip away at things.

I will post tomorrow and let you know how the day went. I am sure I will have an amusing story.

Stay cool!

Welcome Back Wednesday

Today is the day the teaching staff return to school. My day will be filled with meetings and prep for teacher training tomorrow.

I meet with my staff today and I will go over their work lists with them and my expectations for the week. There isn't much time to screw around so I want them on task.

Early this afternoon we have an "all staff" meeting. I have to setup some technology for that but it should be a piece of cake. I have a small presentation to give so that means I am stuck sitting throug the whole two hour meeting.

In the late afternoon I have to setup for the teacher training on Thursday. They have grade book training and I am the facilitator. This is mostly last minute stuff. Check firewall ports, make sure we can connect to the training site, give the teachers accounts, etc.

Thursday I will be facilitating the training all day. The "trainers" are 11 teacher we selected to learn the program from a trainer and they will train the rest of the staff. The "trainer" training is online so they sit at computers and we have a conference phone and the trainer walks us through the screens on the training site.

Drew leaves for his camping trip today. He mowed Nancy's lawn yesterday so he has a bit of spending money for the trip. He is a great kid when it comes to work. He goes and does it without complaint even when it is hot and humid. I am proud of him for this. He actually did do the cleaning yesterday. His mom told him to just clean the basement so he did the work. No grounding.

So I watched this show called "Solitary 2.0" last night. Man what a sucky show to be on! They have 8 people isolated in small chambers and they basically do psychological experiments on them to make them break and push a button to leave. The last one left gets money, not sure how much. Last night they had to sit in a little box and stay there for 3 hours. They had to keep the time on their own and get out when they thought three hours were up. The one who exited the box closest to 3 hours did not have to do the next experiment.

Later in the show the computer broadcasted the sound of babies crying into their chambers for 2 hours. Augh! Oh! They didn't get to sleep for 40 hours and only had a breakfast bar for the one meal they were allowed.

More saga tomorrow.

Readers Digest Version of my week

There is a lot of stuff going on right now but it is just to much to go into any detail and quite frankly, I just don't have it in me today to type it all out. Here is the Readers Digest version:

• Tenants called yesterday. All five of them have to get rabies shots. It's gonna cost a lot and they are pissed. They say they have had 5 bats in the last year.
• I called pest control companies. The cheapest is $100 to take a look and over $1,000 for a solution.
• Work is a drag. People coming back and wanting things. Not enough time in the day to do all the work that is needed to be done. I am burning out.
• The house is a mess. Drew stayed overnight at a friends and said he would clean before he left. It didn't happen. I am not sure I have the energy to yell at him. He is just grounded.
• Jess is doing two-a-days for volleyball. She doesn't get home until after 8 pm.
• The heat and humidity suck the big one. I am tired of this weather and it isn't helping my disposition at all.
• We are going to lower the price of our house to try to sell it. At this point we are fine with taking a loss.
• I can't sleep at night. Toss and turn, insomnia. blah, blah, blah.
• My yard is a mess. I have weeds everywhere and I haven't been home enough to get it done. Even when I am home, I am too tired to do it. I am only cutting the grass. The rest is slipping away.

I do have a few things I am clining to get me through. I am looking forward to football season. It will be a welcome distraction. Even if I am at work on the weekends, I can put a game on. I also am looking forward to the fall when the weather will cool down and the humidity will go away. It looks like Thursday will be nice. Mid 80's and less humidity. I know eventually the work will get done, I just have to remember the old saying "How do you swallow and Elephant? One bite at a time.". I have a partner in pain so I am not going through this alone. Nancy is fighting the good fight at work with me and she is someone I can lean on a bit.

• I am a little dissapointed that my posts have been rather dreary of late. I apologize for this. I don't want pity, I am just telling it as it is. There are people in this world that have it far worse than me and I know that. I am sure the posts will become more entertaining as things here improve. Stick with me!

At least it's not Wednesday!

The weekend was pretty good. Nancy and I worked almost a full day on Satuday but it was very productive. We got a bunch of stuff done that needed to get done before the teachers come back on Wednesday. The work we did on Saturday will make the rest of this week go a bit smoother. Sunday, Jess and I played in a golf tournament. It was a parent/child tournament that is a fund raiser for the Make a Wish Foundation. One of the member has a son that battled cancer and ended up passing away shortly after he graduated. He battled it through the last couple years of HS.

Anyway, we played with Nancy and her family. It was fun, we golfed poorly but it really didn't matter. The weather was very hot and humid. I think I drank a gallon of water and peed once!

We are truly in the last days of summer break. The teacher all come back on Wednesday and the first day of school is the Wednesday after that. Drew gets one more trip of the summer. He leaves Wednesday with his Dawn's parents to go camping and fishing in Missouri. He seems pretty excited about it.

This has been a very busy summer as far as work goes. I am not going to plan much for next summer. I think we need a relaxing summer for a change and I am setting the goal of next summer being exactly that. Yesterday was my first day off in 4 weeks.

So I get a call from the people who are renting my house. He says they have bats in the house and one of them bit their daughter and she has to have rabies shots. He thought the bats came in through the chimney. They had the flue open! He said they shut it but then they saw two more bats. Three in all. All in the same night.

I felt bad but was unsure what he wanted me to do about it. I am sure the bats came in through the flue because it would be hard for three bats to make their way down from the attic to the lower level, two stories below. Anyway, I told him I would see if there is anyone who deals with this and has any recommendation. I don't think there is much I can do. We lived there three years and never had a bat. Not even one. I feel bad for the little girl but don't think there is much I can do. I have found them to be winers! I rented a house on first street that had a bat and I didn't call the landlord. They are a bit different.

Ok, off to start my Monday. The saga will continue tomorrow.