Blogrilla

So, yes we’ve made it to Vermont.  We sure took our time getting here, though.  I took this morning to pack the car and that went well.  We left around 10am and stopped in Manchester for lunch.  We also made a pitstop at a really great cemetery in Barre, VT.  The timing was good - we were all ready for a break and it was something of a unique place.

Back in, like 1861 a boatload of Italian masons settled in Barre, VT which had some very large granite quarries.  Since then there’s been this great cemetery with a TON of incredible monuments.

We spent maybe an hour there and had a good visit.

We got a quick snack and a drink and got back on the road.

Overall it was a great ride up here.  We got here right on time around 5pm.

Ben and Gabe went straight to the teen center while me and Liz settled in.  Liz never feels settled until everything is unpacked and in its proper place.  I can see that.  I don’t suffer from the same malady, but I can understand from where the affliction comes.

We got a quick bite to eat before going to The Green - its the center of the resort where all manner of activities takes place.  There was an older, hairier version of Julie McCoy, the Cruise Director from The Love Boat who was running  games and dancing and singing.  Me and Chloe sang and danced along with the goofy characters of Mogul Mouse and his pals.  It was fun.  Gracie was getting tired and didn’t want to be convinced to dance.  She came around once they got out the water balloons, though!  So did Gabe.  Ben was, naturally, back at the teen center making friends.

So that worked out well.  We played until the skies opened up and it rained cats and dogs for ten minutes.

I understand that lousy weather may continue for the rest of the week.  We’ll see.  I have big plans for taking advantage of all kinds of dorky activities that I may not have done in the past.  I think may go canoeing down the Lamoille river at some point.  We’ll see.

Oh and a woodchuck, named Charles has taken up residence under our deck.  Chloe and Grace think he’s the most adorable little loaf ever.  He’s about the same size and shape as a loaf of whole wheat bread.  Cute dude. 

Now I’m tired.

The kids are tired.

zzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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Mostly, I hate performance evaluations.  The good news is that because I dread them so much I work hard to make sure they go right, so they’re nearly always quite good.  Its funny because my bosses always seem to rank me higher than I would myself but this stuff gives me ulcers.  I should have nothing to worry about but I always get my panties in a bunch over them.

My company is in the midst of changing how we do reviews and when they’re due so its all a mess right now.  I have deadlines coming up QUICK and all I can do is tend to bottom-of-the-barrel tasks to avoid doing my self-appraisal.  I wish there were a service that could whip up some goals for me.  I would pay money for that.

hmmm…. maybe there’s a business model in that…

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I’ve been very busy at work lately.  I have a lot of things going on and I keep jumping from one thing to another.  I haven’t jotted anything down here because at work I’ve been jumping from one thing to another so fast I can hardly keep track of what I am doing. 

At home… well, I have been pretty tired and unmotivated.  I’ve recently been consumed with playing a five year old video game called SimCity 4.  Its on sale everywhere for $20 and I’ve been having a good time at it.  I sometimes like to play the first-person shooters that get the adrenaline going, but strategy games can be relaxing too.  Still, after about a week I think I have about worn it out.

Yesterday the girls went to a birthday part for one of Grace’s friends.  The boy, Seth, has a younger sister named Celine.  She’s maybe 18 months old and is so active that the parents are beside themselves.  They just can’t keep up with her.  Which is one of the reasons they love Chloe.  Chloe will play with her and entertain her and they get along great.  I think she will have her first babysitting job as a Mother’s Helper over there this summer.

Ben took his bike across town to his buddy, Adam’s house where they played basketball and played video games (wii).  Sounds familiar.  I think I spent a lot of my own summers doing the same thing, but with a Commodore 64.

Gabriel amused himself at home and wound up going with Liz to the swimming pool to meet Ben later in the afternoon.

Today Chloe has a friend coming over and I think they are getting ready for our week of vacation coming up.  On Sunday we take off for Smuggler’s Notch.  I am really looking forward to it.  I always love relaxing up there.  Its a very soothing and restful place.  But they have a lot of activities going on too.

That’s it for now.

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It rained off and on all day yesterday, but some friends came over and offered to take the boys to Canobie Lake Park in NH for the day!  Aren’t they lucky?!  The boys were gone until about 6pm, when they finally came home long enough to get their things so they could go spend the night at their buddies’ house.  I think they must have had an AWESOME day.  I spoke to them only briefly - they had a lot going on and couldn’t stop for chit-chat - and they had only good things to say.

Chloe and Grace spent the day doing crafty-things.  I’m not sure what exactly - but I know I came to work this morning with a wide range of temper-paint art for my cube.  The boys’ friends are also friendly with the girls but they’re definitely secondary friends, which is why they didn’t go.  it must have been sad for them to have to stay home when their brothers went with friends to an amusement park while they had to stay home.  Liz said they didn’t complain at all.  Grace later confessed that she enjoyed doing all the craft-stuff and really had a pretty good day.

When the boys drove off for the second time Chloe didn’t say anything… she just moped a little.  She was really very good and didn’t ask or beg to go too.  She didn’t appear to begrudge the boys their good fortune.  But she clearly wanted to go too.

I tried to think of what I could do with them to make them feel special.  There are no good movies out right now.  So I decided to give them each $10 to spend at Claire’s.  Its an “accessory” store for girls and young (?) women, I guess.  I’m not really sure.  I know that it gives me hives to walk in that place.  There are a lot of hair-things, bracelets, rings, plastic jewelry and knicknacks for a girl’s bedroom.  I hate the place, but then - its not for me, is it?

The girls flipped their tiny lids and grabbed their shoes and were out the door in a flash.  Chloe said “Oh Daddy!  You’re allergic to Claire’s but you will still take us there?!  Thank you!”

I clearly picked the right place.  It wasn’t much money, but at a place that sells mostly plastic jewelry it went a long way.  I took them shopping with me at the mall and made them come to Best Buy with me and take a detour through Radio Shack and Dick’s Sporting Goods, but we wound up at the right place and they were ecstatic the whole time.

Chloe had a $20 gift card to the store left over from her birthday so she brought that and even gave Grace $5 so she could afford a $15 stuffed animal.  She’s a generous girl.  Grace gave her a great big hug and a kiss and I’ve never seen her more grateful.  See, Dad is kind of strict about that sort of thing - I don’t usually just “give” them money so the whole adventure was a big treat.

Chloe got some accessories that she plans on wearing to the Bon Jovi concert next month.

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The Stalled Server Room - The Daily WTF

An unbelievable story about how a company intentionally set up the only entrance to their computer server room through a toilet stall in ladies’ bathroom!  Insane.

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MAKE: Blog: Ghetto drive gives new meaning to homebrew

Very ghetto.

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I just went out during lunch to see if I could track down a geocache.  It was a very nice area right next to a lovely lake where people were fishing.  The old rails-to-trails path was in great shape with pine trees towering over the edge of it.  Overall it was really a very nice walk.

Until the skies opened up and giant bloated raindrops came down like mad.  I wished I had brought a camera… but considering I didn’t find the geocache, I guess I will have another shot at it!

So I got drenched and had to go back to work practically dripping wet.

Fortunately I managed to kill enough time that I was mostly dry by the time I got back.  Whew!

I also figured out that I may be in the market for a new GPS - on my current one the buttons are wearing out, the display is black-and-white and the screen has some kind of connection problem that wipes out the display unless you beat it like a red-headed stepchild.

No offense intended to all the red-headed stepchildren out there.

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Street-cred WITH geek-cred!

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Yesterday was the first day of vacation for the kids and I understand that they’re already bored.  Ben and Gabe met some friends at a nearby park and played Dungeons and Dragons for a couple of hours.  This doesn’t bother me.  At least they’re outside and being social.  D&D may be a geeky hobby but I still think there are good things about it and as long as a person doesn’t go too far down the rabbit hole its fine.

Chloe and Grace took the dogs for a walk and played in the backyard.

Today we have a couple of kids coming over for the day - I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I’m sure most of it will be outside.  The yard has never looked better.  The ajuga (green leafy ground-cover plant) that used to cover much of the yard is now a memory.  The grass has been fed and is looking dark green and shiny. 

The corn is coming up.  It looks like a whole row of corn didn’t come up, though.  I didn’t have very much corn to begin with and I hope the absence of the one row on the edge won’t ruin the crop.

The kids brought home GREAT report cards.  Well, all except for Ben - his report card gets mailed and hasn’t arrived yet.  He is confident that it will be his best ever, though.  Grace got a “perfect” report card!  She couldn’t have done any better and I’m tickled pink for her.  Yes, it was kindergarten and she really only had to get “proficient” for it to be as high as possible, but I still think its great.

Chloe brought home a report card that was nearly all A’s - a couple of B’s remained, but I’m happy with B’s too!  Her teacher gave her all manner of outstanding comments.  So she did exceptionally well too.  She also found out that she will have the same teacher for fourth grade that Gabe had.

Gabe’s report card didn’t have as many A’s as Chloe’s and included a C’, but it was still all A’s and B’s.  I think it was the very best report card he’s ever brought home.  He did an outstanding job and I told him so. 

They’re pretty great kids.

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I don’t do a lot of presentations.  I have always imagined that when the need came up I could whip something up in PowerPoint.  It looks pretty easy - the few times I’ve used it things came fairly intuitively.

But I was recently offered to attend an in-house class on how to give presentations.  At first I was puzzled and amused by the title of the class.  It seems like a pretty straight forward thing to do and I wasn’t sure I needed a WHOLE class on the topic.  But in a very general way I want people to see me as being a capable person, and specifically I want them to start thinking of me as a leader.  If people know I took a WHOLE class on how to give presentations this will lend me credibility and leadership-cred.  When I agreed to take the class I didn’t really think I would get anything out of it.

I was there all day yesterday and I have to say that I learned a lot that will improve the way I present all kinds of things.  That is, I may not give a lot of presentations to the board of directors or anything, but I talk a fair amount about the status of my projects and I lead some workshops from time to time.  And the class so far has done me a world of good.  The instructor filmed us and gave us suggestions for improvement and had the rest of the class (gently) critique us.  Its worked out well but I can see how someone with a thin skin might have a hard time with it.

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