Today is Thursday, September 16th. All is well.

Yesterday marked the first day of school for the children of Beslan, Russia. It would be hard to ever return to school after that.

On Tuesday I dropped my new computer off at Apex Computers in Malden to have them put it together. I feel like a little bit of a failure for not being able to do it myself, but I’m starting to suspect further damage to the motherboard. I spent a couple hours on Saturday trying to get the IDE drives to work and sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t without rhyme or reason. It could be that there’s a damaged component or it could be that I got the jumpers all wonky. Therefore I decided to let a professional put it together. They’re good people down at Apex and I always enjoy going there — especially now that their parking lot is paved. I tried desperately yesterday to avoid calling; I don’t want to be a pest. I don’t think I can do it today. I think I’m going to have to call to see if I can get the machine back tomorrow. When it comes back I’ll install Windows XP on it and start getting it back in to shape. I want to put a bunch of the software back on … but I have to confess that I can do without most of it.

I didn’t get the job I applied for at work. I am disappointed but not surprised. I thought the interviews went well and got confirmation of that this week. I talked with some of the interviewers and don’t think they were just being polite or kind when they said I was a good candidate. In the meantime, my old boss, who lost his title and became one of us seems to be cementing his position as team-lead. Its certainly not inappropriate that he get the team-lead spot. But I wanted a crack at it too. I don’t think he would follow my instructions and would probably leave in short order, but I am also having a hard time following his lead. Over the last few years he’s left most of the day-to-day issues for me to resolve and manage and its uncomfortable having him step on my toes.

I sent a letter to Gabriel’s new first grade teacher, Ms Santosuosso, asking for a speech therapy evaluation. I got word back in the form of a note in Gabriel’s backpack that she would be happy to meet with me on the issue and there would be a sign-up sheet for conferences at the upcoming “open house” event. Liz will go to that and sign me up to talk with her. Her letter was nice and polite. I know that first graders are routinely evaluated a few weeks in to the new school year so she could have dismissed my request easily by pointing me to the evaluation. I’m hopeful it will go well. What I’m really after with Gabe is getting him to pronounce and recognize his R’s. He’s not just picking up Boston’s regional variation in dropping the “R” — this is more than that. When he spells words phonetically it becomes clear that he’s not even aware that there’s a letter there. For instance Liz saw him spell “strawberries” like this: S-T-O-B-I-E-S. So I want his speech problem corrected quickly. Unfortunately Melrose is cutting corners in all areas of education and things like speech therapy are very difficult to get now. However, I’m determined to get this issue resolved and won’t be deterred. And its not like this problem goes across many speech issues — its REALLY just the one issue with the “R”.

Chloe starts full time Kindergarten today. She’s loving school and naturally had no separation troubles. Not only that she didn’t even say goodbye when she ran off to school! We ran in to her teacher on Sunday at the Victorian Fair downtown and chatted some. She’s the same teacher who taught Ben and Gabe. We like her a lot. She’s pretty excellent. She really cares in a very earnest way about her kids.

Ben is doing VERY well in everything I can throw at him. That is, he got all the spelling words correct and enjoyed the arithmetic we went over. I’m very proud of how well he’s doing. Gabriel is at a difficult time in his reading skills. Ben went through it too. Its that stage where he is sounding out the words but keeps stumbling over the rules and everything. Its frustrating for him as well as us. Still he keeps working at it with a determination I admire. He’ll get it.

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