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Vacation

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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Presentations

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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