Rocker Guy Ramblings

2/13/12

2012-02-13T08:11:00.000-05:00

I was tempted to respond to this on the blog itself and decided against it. The CEO of my company has a blog where he talks about issues affecting healthcare. Here is the latest:

http://mvponhealthcare.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-hidden-cost-of-drug-co-pay-coupons/

Now, while I understand his position and was not aware that getting discount name brand drugs may cost the insurance company more, as a consumer, I must say I don't think educating people will work. I actually use the $4 copay card for Lipitor he describes. My healthcare plan says I pay $10 for generics. So since my rates already went up for this year (and will probably go up next year anyway), why would I pay more for a generic when I can get a name brand drug for less?

I call it the Wal-Mart mentality. The bottom line is always what does it cost me right now? It doesn't matter if jobs are shipped overseas or what the real cost of getting cheap stuff is. The price tag is lower. Isn't that what really matters?

Well, perhaps not. This is actually a difficult question. Relating this to what a person of faith would do, what is the moral impact here? As a Christian, do I have a moral obligation to support reducing the cost of healthcare and not padding Pfizer's profits? How can I rail against the Wal-Mart mentality (which I do) and then use the same justifiation myself? Food for thought.

2/7/12

2012-02-07T13:07:00.000-05:00

1 Cor 10:31 "So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God."

Sounds so easy to do, but in practice is do damn hard. The last few days have been filled disappointment and frustration. Christopher is still struggling to get assignments turned in and I'm at my wits end on how to help him. Besides praying for him, I don't know what more I can do. I keep bouncing between anger, despair, and hope. The result is a wild emotional roller coaster. On the one hand I know he's not consciously trying to do poorly. But I also don't see any effort on his part to work on his weaknesses. I worry about his future success in life if he has trouble with the most basic organizational skill of writing down assignments and when they're due.

In my head, I know I need to take a servant approach to helping him. But that's not so easy in practice when you get emails from 2 different teachers in two days. So we keep trying to move forward. I've given him the mantra of "write down everything". Perhaps if we start with something very simple, we can build on it.

2/3/12

2012-02-03T09:25:00.000-05:00

A new season will be starting in a few weeks. Ash Wednesday, Feb 22, will begin the season of Lent for 2012 which will culimnate in Easter. For Catholics, this is a time of renewal where we rededicate ourselves to the Lord. It's a somber time as we remember all the things Jesus went through to fullfill His mission. It's also a time to traditionally "give up" something.

However, I've given up that practice long ago. What the season really calls for is to do something that will help you grow spiritually and become closer to the Lord. Giving something up, or, more precisely, fasting from a practice (doesn't need to be food!) is a great method of building spiritual muscles by teaching us control over our bodies and our desires. Being able to deny the physical for the spiritual is an excellent way to become closer to God.

However, another good way to build those spiritual muscles is to do something specific to achieve this goal. Things like recommitment to daily prayer, making a concerted effort to help those less fortunate, etc are also great things to do for Lent. In recent years I've been doing something extra instead of giving something up. It's easy to say you won't eat chocolate for Lent but once Easter's over, you eat chocolate again and you haven't grown spiritually. However, if you do something extra, like say praying the Rosary, you will hopefully build some new habits that you can continue well after Easter and have really grow spiritually.

I'm actually looking forward to Lent. I have an idea of what I'll be doing this year. I tend not to announce what it will be as I beleive these things are more powerful if you don't make a big deal out of them. The Gospels say to pray in secret so that He who sees in secret will know what you're doing but the world will not. I'm a big believer in doing things for the right reasons and not for show. I beleive its the quiet person that lives their faith that is a more powerful example than the person who makes a big show of how pious they are.

1/30/12

2012-01-30T12:41:00.000-05:00

I had not intended to post anything about this, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it needed a response. While I won't post the link, a fellow blogger put a link up to an article claiming that right wing Christians spouting hate are "real" Christians since hate and intolerance are just what the Bible teaches. The author goes on to state any Christian that says different must let go of their Bible as their "religion" doesn't match up with their words.

What a bunch of crap. Religion and Christianity are not the problem. Jesus taught some pretty radical stuff, even for today. Jesus told us that instead of seeking revenge (eye for an eye) you must give the person who stikes you the other cheek and pray for those that persecute you. He also taught that you must love your God above all else and to love your neighbor as yourself. He taught us we must keep forgiving those that wrong us no matter how many times they do it.

These are central tenets of my "religion" and Christianity. Where in there is there room for hate? Will people take what they read in the Bible and use it to justify their own behaviors? Of course. Does that mean the Bible is at fault? Of course not. The author is doing what those he accuses do: use the Bible to justify their incorrect views. No religion will ever be perfect because people are the ones that make up the believers and people aren't perfect. We will always fall short. However, it's the stiving to live up to the example of Christ that makes the difference. And I challenge this author to find anyone that puts God and neighbor above themselves to be hateful.

1/29/12

2012-01-29T19:15:00.000-05:00

I had an awakening at Mass today. Not sure if it was the homily, the readings, or just the Holy Spirit, but I realized that I was allowing worldly things to affect my spiritual decisions. Specifically, in how I give. Mind you, I have no problem contributing to the financial health of our parish. I give weekly and don't think twice about it. However, we're given the option to distribute how our weekly contribution is used. We can choose to give to the parish in general, world need specifcially, or "Adopt a Student" specifically.

Additionally, I've had some issues with the leadership in our parish and how some of my friends have been treated. I do hold specific leaders responsible for failing to truly lead the congregation. I'm convinced that while some of these leaders may think they're doing what's best for the parish, they're really focusing on their wants and needs instead. I've also had some issues with how some things in the diocese are run. I've had a real problem with our annual Catholic Ministries Appeal and how if we don't raise the money to hit the Bishop gives, it comes out of our general fund, basically amounting to a tax on our parish to be part of the Diocese.

It occured to me today that I'd been holding my giving hostage to my ill feelings on these issues, give to World Need instead of the parish and giving not at all to the Catholic Ministries Appeal. I'm trying to make the Church (or parish) conform to my desires instead of using my treasure to benefit God and the community. While accusing others of being selfish, I too was acting selfishly, and perhaps a little childishly. Give me what I want or I won't give you any money. That is such a poor reason. So I've decided to simply give and not worry about the rest. I'll place my trust in God that my gifts will be used to benefit those that need it and further His work.

I've come to realize lately that there really are evil spirits in the world, and many of them are not the classic demons that "possess" you like in The Exorcist. These demons are more incidious, like anger, hate, stinginess, and selfishness. These kinds of demons and evil spirits are more incideous than your traditional demon because they're so subtle. They can get in the way of a true relationship with God by chipping away at need to give up your desires and focus on the desires of God instead. And I've come to realize that true peace and happiness only come from serving God and not ourselves. So I'm working hard to exorcise the demons in my life right now. Pray that the Lord helps me do so.

1/26/12

2012-01-26T13:25:00.000-05:00

Romans 13:14 "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh."

In order to focus more on spirituality, I've been trying to work on some of my bad habits. Let's face it, most of our bad habits are desires of the flesh. And many come out of selfishness. Which is the real thing I'm trying to remove from my life. Let's face it, we're human so we will act selfishly at times. But God calls us to put others first. It's the essence of steward leadership. The greatest of all is the servant of all. However, putting that into practice isn't always easy. So I pray for strength to rise above and control the desires of the flesh so as to focus on others.

1/25/12

2012-01-25T12:52:00.000-05:00

Romans 12:9-21 (emphasis mine)

"Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your estimation. Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, on your part, live at peace with all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengence is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' Rather, 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.' Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good."

1/24/12

2012-01-24T12:58:00.000-05:00

Jonah 3:8-9 "Man and beast shall be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; every man shall turn from his evil way and from the violence he has in hand. Who knows, God may relent and forgive and withhold his blazing wrath so that we shall not perish."

Jonah 4:4 "But the Lord asked, 'Have you reason to be angry?'"

Is is too much to ask to have a little control in your own household? For things to go the way you want them to? Apparently it is. And it's not something I should expect. Why do we get really upset about the dumbest little things? It's very easy to be selfish at home and forget we need to be servants everywhere we are, not just outside of our homes. Jonah is a very short book of the Old Testement, but those few words pack a LOT of power. Sometimes being a parent can be the most difficult job God gives you.

1/22/12

2012-01-22T17:07:00.000-05:00

Today's first reading was from Jonah. I found it very inspirational as I can relate a lot to Jonah right now. Jonah was a reluctant prophet. God asked him to preach to a people he hated. And he struggled to get over that hate. He also knew that if the Ninevites repented, God would forgive them and not destroy them. But Jonah wanted them destroyed.

Anger and frustration can get in the way of doing God's will. You don't have to hate someone (or a country) to have that happen. Letting go of all your wants, desires, expectations on others, and general being angry with the world cause things don't go the way you want them to in necessary to follow God. And it's hard as hell. Little things can bug the snot out of you and make you react like an asshole sometimes. But you keep trying to get better and keep going.

I'll be reading Jonah again, I think, to remind me of that. I beleive I can use that reminder right now.

1/19/12

2012-01-19T21:16:00.000-05:00

Like everything, praying gets easier the more you do it. I'm trying to build more good spiritual habits. Hard to tell if its paying off, but I FEEL better, at least most of the time. Some demons are harder to get rid of, but if you keep battling them, eventually you'll win. At least, that's the theory I'm going with.

1/18/12

2012-01-18T08:02:00.001-05:00

I began praying the Rosary on Monday night. It's something I haven't done often but seemed the right thing to do while I was away from home. It is a very meditative practice. I think I'll continue to do so, though perhaps not every day. With Lent coming up soon, that may be a good opportunity to begin some new habits.

A co-worker of Ellen's passed away yesterday after a battle with cancer. He was very young. He was lucky enough to see his new granddaughter, but that was it. Ellen and I are praying for his family as he was a good guy.

While coming back from dinner last night, my co-worker and I were approached by a woman giving us a big story about being in town for chemo and not having money or a car and not being able to afford cab fare to get home and could be spare a little money for some food or a bus ride and she's not a drug addict etc etc. I've heard this before. So I gave her a couple of dollars and my coworker gave her the leftovers from his meal. I didn't really beleive her story but it didn't really matter. Someone was in need and hopefully we provided them something. At a minimum she got some food and hopefully a few dollars to get a warm beverage. If her story was true, I hope she made it home ok or at least found someplace warm to stay.

1/15/12

2012-01-15T13:37:00.000-05:00

Today's readings were about being called by God to dicipleship. That theme and how I can serve have been on my mind a lot lately. They were very timely and helped me to continue to focus on ministry. After meeting with the band Friday, we all agree on the need to broaden our ministry and do more than just playing at Mass. I was relieved that we were all in agreement as I wasn't sure where some of the other band members were in their thinking. Now that we've agreed, the real work begins.

I continue to pray for the leadership at our parish. We pray for leaders each week but it was especially in my mind today. We need strong SERVANT leadership in our parish and I'm not sure we have it. During his homily, our priest stated we must be diciples using the example of our lives. That really resonated with me so I just need to keep leading by example.

1/13/12

2012-01-13T12:59:00.000-05:00

Romans 9:17 - For the scripture says to Pharaoh, "This is why I have raised you up, to show my power through you that my name may be proclaimed throughout the earth."

This verse really struck me today. With all my internal struggles on what my and the band's ministry should be, I think this is one of the answers. Why are we here? To show, through the example of our lives, that Jesus is Lord and that faith in Him and following His ways are the only path to life and happiness. The band meets tonight to talk about our future. Hopefully the Spirit will be with me to properly express my thoughts on our ministry.

Although I've read Romans many times, I beleive I finally understand what Paul was saying concerning the Jewish law and how one cannot be justified by it. It always seemed on the one hand he was saying the Law was divinely inspired and therefore from God, but on the other hand saying no one could be saved by following the Law. This seemed contradictory. However, I beleive Paul was saying that too many people were just following "the rules" and not living by faith. As if just following the rules was your ticket into heaven. I see a lot of that even today in the Catholic Church. Following the rules is far more important. However, following the rules based on a deep seated faith will save you. Because you follow the rules to please God, not to keep score. It makes much more sense now.

1/12/12

2012-01-12T23:05:00.000-05:00

Try as you might some days something small can ruin your day. The only thing to do is keep praying and try to sleep it off.

1/11/12

2012-01-11T21:20:00.000-05:00

I didn't get as many opportunities to pray today and when I finally got 10 minutes of uninterrupted time I realized how quickly frequent prayer has become necessary to my peace of mind and spirit. Our lives are so crazy finding that quiet time is getting more and more important. I pray for the strength to keep going and fulfilling all the responsibilities placed on me. The only way I can do it is to have the Lord help me carry it all.

1/10/12

2012-01-10T22:12:00.000-05:00

Today's readings were about dicipleship and following Jesus. That really resonated with me given my struggle to discern which direction my music ministry should take. However, I think today the answer broke through. I've been thinking on how to use music to evanalize and some great inspirations came to me. I met this evening with our music director and wanted to let him know I thought we were on the wrong track on some of the musical elements for our Masses. To my surprise, he agreed with me. We had very similar attitudes towards music ministry and liturgy.

I beleive I have a good idea now what the Lord is asking of me. I need to share my inspirations and ideas with the band and see what they think. I pray they see things the way I do. There's a lot of hurt and frustration within the band right now for many reasons. I think we need a vision and a purpose to bring us together and move us towards the next thing the Lord is asking of us. I'll continue to pray for guidance and that the Lord show us His will.

1/9/12

2012-01-09T20:37:00.000-05:00

Today is my lovely wife's birthday. While I am blessed in many ways, she's perhaps my biggest blessing. She has been the guiding light in my spiritual journey. Every place I go, she goes first and leads me to a deeper relationship with God. I certainly would not be the person I am today without her.

Words cannot express what she means to me. So I wish her the happiest of birthdays and thank her for being such an inspiration.

1/8/12

2012-01-08T15:31:00.000-05:00

Mass was a little weird today. The band played pretty well and we were comfortable working with the music director. However, there's still the underlying tension with the pastoral administrator. The "non-music" parts of the Mass were kind of painful. I had a brief chat with the music director and will speak to him more this week. Luckily, one of the other band members broached one of the subjects I wanted to talk to him about, namely how some of the things the parish is doing is seperating people from the Mass instead of bringing them more fully into it.

I continue to pray about that and for the leaders of our parish. I'm still working on creating new habits to improve my spiritual life. It's not always easy. It's finding the quiet time necessary for good prayer. But you keep at it.

1/7/12

2012-01-07T14:22:00.000-05:00

Today in my reflections I was thinking about leadership in the Church and parish. It ocurred to me that Christopher has a talent for leadership. I want to put the seed into his head that he should use this talent in some way as a vocation. I know it's tough for a 15 year old to discern their vocation, but it's not a bad time to start thinking about it. Or praying about it.

His grandmother always said he should be a priest. I'm trying to keep that door open to him and let him know it isn't a bad vocation, if that's his calling. The Church could use a priest like him. But that's a big decision. I simply want him open to that call should God be speaking to him in that way.

I was reminded to pray for those that have fallen away for their faith or not discovered it yet. Of my two siblings, I'm the only one that regularly attends Mass. I've begun praying for them to discover their faith and the blessings it provides. I continue to thank the Lord for all the blessings He's given me and for the wisdom and guidance to do His will and not mine. Which isn't easy. I'm also still praying for the leadership in our parish. There are many people in positions of authority but so few that really understand what it is to be a leader. And, more importantly, a servant leader.

1/6/12

2012-01-06T16:28:00.000-05:00

One of the 7 pillars Matthew Kelly mentions in his book is to pray the rosary. I've been reluctant to do so mostly because I've had a somewhat Protestant view of Mary. I understand Catholics don't worship Mary but I questioned why I needed someone to intercede with Jesus on my behalf (the same as praying to saints). I understood in my head why Catholics do it but not in my heart. Matthew Kelly goes into depth about why vernerating Mary and asking for her intercession is important.

The funny thing is, I've been kind of moving in that direction already. For whatever reason, my attitudes towards Mary have been on my mind as I pray and meditate. Perhaps the Spirit is drawing me closer to a deeper understanding of Mary and her role in our salvation. I completely get the thought that there's a special bond between mother and child only a mother can understand. Carrying a person inside of you for 9 months creates a unique bond. Mary had that bond with Jesus.

I continue to pray about it and ask the Lord for guidance and to show me His will on how to be closer to Him. I'm still not sure where he's leading me as far as the parish and the band goes, but I trust He'll take me to a place more blessed that I could have imagined as long as I trust in Him.

1/5/12

2012-01-05T21:56:00.000-05:00

One of my bandmates is fond of saying if you have a decision to make, pray about it for 3 days first. It's probably good advice for just about any situation. I've been praying for guidance on my music ministry and the direction of the band for a few days now (might be 3, might be 2). Today I had some possible insight to lead me in the right direction.

It's been germinating in my mind that my music ministry is not about me. I've always taken the stance that the music I play is not mine, but God's. Through the many ups and downs of playing music at my parish, I've consistently said that. Lately, some of the band is chaffing under the "rules" we live by when playing Mass at our parish. The most recent thing is playing a Mass with the choir. Normally, we play one Mass a month. The thing that riles some of the band is that instead of doing a second Mass that month with the choir and our regular Mass, we're "losing" our Mass.

It occured to me today that perhaps it really doesn't matter if we "lose" a Mass or not. Are we there for us or to touch the congregation through music? Perhaps God is giving us an opportunity to touch them in a different way. I've always said I'll take any opportunity to play music with any group. I don't understand why the band isn't seeing it this way. Perhaps God is asking me to lead the way and open up a new (or at least different) way to minister.

I need to pray about it more. I think it would be beneficial to speak with the head of music ministry to let him know my concerns. About our group and music ministry in general at our parish. It seems fewer people are being engaged by the music. We seem to be going in the wrong direction. More to pray about and discern.

1/4/12

2012-01-04T12:49:00.000-05:00

My thoughts are still on the situation at Church with the band and our music ministry. But while working out, I began to reflect on everything going on at our parish right now. How some people no longer feel welcome at our parish. How Mass seems to be seperating me from God instead of bringing me closer. How our parish leader seems to be divisive instead of unifying. The thought entered my mind that perhaps I should talk to him about it.

Then I opened my Bible at lunchtime to the beginning of Paul's letter to the Romans. It starts out with Paul's greeting to the Romans. His first statement was that he was a slave of Jesus, called upon to be an Apostle and set apart for the Gospel. That spoke to me for some reason. That and the line where Paul gives thanks for all of the people he's addressing. I prayed that Jesus reveals His will to me. Do my reflections from earlier and that reading go together? Is the reading an answer to my previous question?

I'll need to pray on it more in Church. It really is the only place suitable for that sort of prayer. I plan on stopping after work. It did occur to me that I need to start praying for those people in my life that don't bring me peace. It's easy to pray for those that you like. Not so easy to pray for those that you don't.

1/3/12

2012-01-03T21:01:00.000-05:00

I tried praying for 10 minutes at work today. I normally get in before everyone, about 6:45. While there weren't many people in the office, it still wasn't as peaceful as praying in church. I need to get there as often as I can. Ellen normally goes after work so I may try that as well. Today wouldn't have worked due to band rehearsal.

Speaking of the band, rehearsal was good and bad. The music and the company were great. However, we argued about playing a joint Mass with the choir. There's a lot of friction right now between the band and elements of the parish. And I feel its getting in the way. I need to continue to pray about that and hopefully convince my bandmates that we supposed to be doing this for the congregation, not ourselves.

1/2/12

2012-01-02T16:16:00.000-05:00

I got to pray at Church with Ellen today. We're trying to take at least 10 minutes every day for prayer, at Church whenever possible. It really is a great place for it as there are no distractions. It was a powerful experience kneeling together in silene in prayer.

I read the chapter in Rediscover Catholicism on the Mass. What really struck me was the statement that Mass is not about the priest, or music, or any of the other things people normally complain about when they talk about the Mass. It's about worshipping and receiving Jesus. I've had a lot of issues with the Mass (and the parish) lately. But am I making it about me and those things that don't matter? Is it important that the pastoral administrator wears an alb and is on the alter platform with the priest? Is it importatn that we chant prayers instead of say them? Is it important that the words of the prayer have changed?

I'll be the first to admit I've been getting less out of Mass lately. Was I getting complacent and comfortable? Was it just routine? I'll need to reflect on that further. There are some things about the new Roman Missal and our implementation of it that are distracting me from fully experiencing the Mass. I'm not sure what I can do about that, but I'm going to try and get rid of the distractions.

Day 1

2012-01-01T13:13:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everyone.

I'm not one for New Year's resolutions. If I think I need to make a change, I do so. I don't need January 1 to prompt me to do so. On my wife's advice, I've been reading Rediscover Catholicism by Matthew Kelly. It's a good read whether you're Catholic or not. He basically calls people to greater sprituality and a closer relationship with God. While I haven't finished the book yet, one of his 7 pillars of faith is prayer. He calls on people to pray just 10 minutes a day. Doesn't sound like much but it can be powerful.

There have been a lot of things weighing on my mind lately. I've been praying about them but I'm going to try and strengthen my prayer life. What Kelly has written reinforces what I've found in my own life. Giving your problems to God makes them much easier to solve.

I decided to start chronicling my thoughts here just to have a place to put them down. I've got three big things weighing on my right now. At the start of Advent a new translation of the Mass was instituted. And to be honest, I don't like it. I don't know if it's the translation itself or how our parish is doing it. But I feel like a spectator now instead of a participant. I don't know how much is because its different and how much is because I don't like all the chanting we're now doing. But what I'm struggling with is whether I'm making it all about me or all about God. I got very deep spiritual meaning out of the way we did it before. And now I don't. So I'm praying about that.

The second thing is my band. I'm questioning if we're fullfilling our ministry the right way. I'm dissatisfied with a few things, particularly how we're so limited in our music selections. We should be doing music that engages and uplifts the congregation. And we get great feedback whenever we play. Again, am I making this about me?

The third thing that weighs on my mind is the dynamic in our house and my relationship with the kids. Nobody ever said being a parent was easy. I did get a ride in today and my route took me past our parish. Kelly recommends praying in a church whenever possible so after my ride, I headed over for some quiet time. As I knelt before the Blessed Sacrament, I first thought to myself it would be hard to pray for 10 minutes. That can seem like an awefully long time when you're just kneeling quietly. I prayed for what I thought was about 5 minutes and decided to get up a sit for a while. I checked my watch and 12 minutes had gone by! I was astounded and amazed. Just goes to show, I suppose, that even time with the Lord goes by faster than you think it does.

I intend to keep trying and to praise God for all the little things as they happen. As a Christian, we supposed to put Christ at the center of our lives. It takes practice and dedication, both of which I think I can do.

What a relief

2011-12-21T08:09:00.000-05:00

Those of you who follow me on Facebook know that I've completed all the work for my MBA. The semester officially ends on Friday, 12/23, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm done. All assignments are turned in and I'm pretty sure I'll get A's in the two courses I took.

But that's not what the title of this post is about. You may also know that Ellen and I have been going through a lot of heartache with the older one with respect to how he's doing in school. He's been struggling with courses at the end of the day for years now. At the end of last school year we realized that the issue was his ADHD diagnosis and that we needed to do more to help him succeed. We've set up meetings with his counselor and have been in regular contact with his teachers. Despite all of that, he failed English in the 1st quarter and by early 2nd quarter had an even lower average. And he was dropping the ball in other courses he'd done well in.

Hand it to my lovely wife to do the reasearch. She'd read that there are other medications you can take along with the standard ADHD meds that might make a difference. So we set up an appointment with Christopher's pediatrician and discussed options. We could have upped the dose on his current meds (which we didn't want to do), try one of these other meds to go with it, or try a different med altogether. Christopher opted for trying the additional med.

What a difference that has made. He's been on it a couple of weeks and has not missed an assignment. His English teacher emailed me that he's now participating in class (which he hadn't been) and his grades since then are great. He's a lot happier that he's not struggling. While his English average for the quarter may not get to where it should be, he should pass and be set up to get good grades the rest of the year. We're keeping an eye on him to make sure things are still going well, but it's a big relief that we may have found the right med combination.

Hope everyone has a wonder Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, or whichever holiday you celebrate this time of year. I'm taking the rest of the year off from work starting Friday so I plan to relax and recharge for 2012.

EZ Come EZ Go

2011-11-09T18:14:00.000-05:00

It was official today. I did not make the cut for round 2 of the Queen Extravaganza. Not that I had expected to. It's not like if I won the thing I would quit my job to go on tour. And I did pick the easiest song of the 4 without any solos in it. And didn't push myself to play to the limits of my ability. And there were some VERY good guitarists out there.

So why am I still so disappointed? I guess I let myself live the fantasy for a few weeks and now the bubble burst. I have no illusions as to my abilities as a musician and what I do well (and not well). Playing Brian May material is a whole other level from where I am. I'm good at what I do. And I've become better as a guitarist and musician since joining Faith on Fire. Not to mention I recorded a pretty good CD where I played ALL the instruments. So I should have nothing to be ashamed of.

Except it would have been nice to be recognized by other musicians. To have a pro like Roger Taylor say "You're good enough" would have been really nice. Not needed, but nice. So I'll go back to my everyday life and look forward to starting on my next CD. Or, at least writing some new music. It's been too long so after Christmas, when ALL of my MBA work is done, I'm going to see if I can put together some new, kick ass tunes. And we'll go from there.

In the mean time, if you didn't get a chance to see my audition video, here it is! Enjoy!

Time may change me but I can't change time

2011-10-20T12:12:00.000-05:00

So many things have been going on lately, some positive, some less so. I'm pretty excited that I've entered Queen Extravaganza. While I don't think there's any way I can win the contest (or even be able to tour if I did) there's a slim chance I could make the round of 10. I say slim because there's some good musicians entereing. However, rehearsing for my audition made me realize what I thought were my limits as a guitarist really aren't. I was able to push myself to play things I didn't think I could. Which by itself is inspiring and worth the effort.

I've been on an emotional roller coaster with the older kid. He's still struggling with school and organization. He's doing better than last year but not where he needs to be. However, his teachers this year are great and very supportive. And (most days) he's open to being helped. I've managed to have a few actual, honest to goodness, dad to kid discussions with him that involved communication and not yelling. Other times however.... Ellen has to smack me now and then but I remind her I'm trying and ain't perfect either.

But the event that really made my heart heavy was news I'd received over the weekend. One of the members of my band had been distant lately and I was wondering what was up. So I bumped into our singer at church on Sunday and asked about rehearsal on Monday (our usual night). I also asked if there was something up with one of other band members. Her response was "you need to call him because you shouldn't hear it from me." Wow! Talk about ominous. And as I was walking out of church I saw his family together (wife, daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter) but not him. Now I'm really wondering what's up. Though a nagging suspision is in the back of my mind.

We normally rehearse at his house so I texted him and asked if we were rehearsing at his place the next day. I got a reply that we should make other arrangements and he'd email me later. So the email came about 11 pm. He and his wife separated two weeks prior. He and his wife of over 30 years. I was so dissappointed but the nagging feeling I was getting was that's what was going on. I got to talk to him the next night and the story was just heartbreaking. Everyone in the family is devastated. And it wasn't anything specific like another person came between them. The just couldn't live with each other any longer.

Stuff like that makes you question your own relationship, or at least how your spouse feels about the relationship. I know for myself there is no question of ever leaving my wife. The reasons are endless but it boils down to there's no one else I want to be with. We talked about it and she feels the same way. Or at least that we're at a stage in our relationship that we're very comfortable with each other and know we can work out any issues we have. Not that I ever really worried about our relationship but it's not something we always talk about.

So we've been doing the only thing we can and praying for our friends. It's a tough situation for them all around so hopefully it will work out for them.

Take a chill pill

2011-09-28T15:29:00.000-05:00

So I just got back yesterday evening from my final residency for my MBA. At three points during the program, you actually meet in person and attend some lectures and workshops. You do this for the course that is the capstone project of the program to get your degree. Which is the one I attended. It started out with great promise. I had to give a presentation of my previous work to date, which was easy. I met with the instructor one on one and he said the work I did last semester for my capstone project was bascially good to go as is. No revisions really needed. So far, so good. I got some good advice from my mentor on what to focus on for the final project. And it made sense with what I was doing. Still good.

The second day was supposed to be lectures to help students through the last pieces we need to put together for the paper (marketing strategy, financials, etc). I was looking forward to that so I could get a good idea of what I needed to do. What a bust. The whole thing was disogranized and geared towards public companies. Which is fine except I'm doing a project on a not for profit. VERY different dynamic. I ended up cutting out a little early because the professor that was reviewing financial infomration confused the shit out of me. It didn't help that he had an accent and kept talking in circles. I felt it was a waste of my time.

So I tried to relax on the drive home (about 3 hours) without much success. And I've been stressing over it a bit today. However, I got a good workout in today and started reviewing my material and the instructions we have on what we need to do. And I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Of the remaining work, I'm pretty confident on about a third of it. I'll need to review some papers I wrote for my marketing course. But my initial research seems to support my strategic problem definition which will drive the rest of the work. AND, I've got until November 6 to turn in the next big assignment. The first one is to review and edit the final paper from a course last semester. Except that both my instructor from last semester (also my mentor) and my instructor for this course both told me it looks great as is. So I'm leaving it alone and focusing on everything else I have to do. I actually have plenty of time and I think if I focus on one thing at a time, it won't be so daunting.

And I plan on emailing my instructor with every little question I have. If all goes well, by the middle of November I should be in great shape to finish up and HOPEFULLY won't have lost my mind (or my marriage) during the process. Wish me luck peeps! I SOOOOOOO want to finish this degree and graduate!

Humbled

2011-09-14T11:57:00.000-05:00

I'm not a person who's usually at a loss for words. However, something happened to me today that just floored me and nearly rendered me speechless. It certainly made my day.

As I've posted before, I will be starting a new position at work on Monday. I've been in my current position about 2 years now. One of the reasons I took this position is that my boss at the time was not satisfied with my performance in my old job. That person happens to be one of the senior managers in the department. Again, I beleive I posted about it at the time, but I felt that God had a reason for putting me in that position and making me take a step back so to speak.

So yesterday I'm chatting a little with this manager at our annual department picnic and I made a comment, in jest, about part of the manager's organization and I saw the person look at me like they weren't sure what I was trying to say. Reflecting on it last night I realized I might have insulted this person inadvertantly. A person I probably be working closely with in my new job. Given our past history, I thought the best thing to do was see the person today and apologize for any unintentional insuls.

The manager told me they didn't even remember the comment so not to worry. And THEN this person went on to say how pleased they were I'd been promoted and they'd strongly supported my getting the job. And that they were so pleased how much I'd been supporting the organization though all the changes we've been having lately. And that all of my experience in my different roles would be so helpful and that they knew I'd be successful. And it was meant SINCERELY. This is the kind of person that if they didn't have something nice to say, they wouldn't say anything.

All I could say was how much I really appreciated what they said and that it meant a lot. Because it did. I still can't believe we had the conversation. On my part, all I did was let go of the past and focus on doing a good job in the role I've had the last 2 years. And get back to doing what I know how to do well. The funny thing is that Ellen and I had a conversation about something like this just the other day. How that sometimes God puts struggles in your life to prepare you for something bigger and better that He wants you to do.

I'm convinced that this is the case. I've always tried to trust that God will take care of me and give me what I need. If this entire experience isn't a validation of that trust and faith, I don't know what is.

Kate Made Me Do This

2011-09-12T07:38:00.001-05:00

Don't normally doe these meme's but Kate posted this on her site and I liked it. And it's my blog so I'll do what I want. So there.

What are your middle names? Marie and Mario

How long have you been together? This makes me do hard math. 28 years. Married 22. If I'm wrong my wife will correct me

Who asked whom out? I asked her out.

How old are each of you? 45

Whose siblings do/did you see the most? Probably mine since her brother is a git and acts all antisocial and stuff.

Do you have any children together? She has 2 children that I'm pretty sure are mine as well. Anyway I own them now.

What about pets? A dog and a turtle.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? The years when the kids were very young and day care was eating up a HUGE part of our finances.

Did you go to the same school? Same high school and last 2 years of the same college. We graduated at the same time.

Are you from the same home town? Yup.

Who is the smartest? I got slightly better grades but she's pretty sharp as well. So I'd say my wife.

Who is more sensitive? Depends on what about.

Where do you eat out most as a couple? Any place that will allow our boys in the door. As JUST a couple?
When do we ever get to eat out as a couple?

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? All up and down the East coast in my Navy days. Longest haul was Orlando, FL to Saratoga Springs, NY.

Who has the craziest ex? We've been together so long the exes don't count.

Who has the worst temper? Probably me. I tend to fume about stuff for a long time. She lets go of the anger much more quickly. But she NEVER forgets.

Who does the cooking? Depends. During the week probably Ellen, weekends, me. However, the boys cook as well.

Who is more social? Me.

Who is the neat-freak? Ellen, though neat-freak is probably a little strong. She likes everything in it's place and tries to keep it that way. I'm not so particular.
Who is more stubborn? Doesn't matter. Ellen always wins anyway. She's the WIFE. Duh.
Who hogs the bed? That would be me. And I steal all the covers. Hah!
Who wakes up earlier? Definately me.

Where was your first date? You expect me to remember that far back? Almost 30 years, remember?

Who has the bigger family? Her in the US. I have extended family in Italy.

Do you get flowers often? No.

How do you spend the holidays? We split between our families. It's a schedule worked out over the years.

Who is more jealous? Probably me, but we've been together so long what's to get jealous of? She's stuck with me now.
How long did it take to get serious? about 5 years. We were kids when we started dating.

Who eats more? Definately me. Big Italian appetite even if I don't endulge like that any more.

Who does/did the laundry? Ellen's the only one that can do it right. So I stay away.

Who’s better with the computer? Duh. I'm an IT professional.

Who drives when you are together? Mostly me. Though she drives sometimes too.

No tags. Post if you feel like it.

What happened to my church?

2011-09-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

One of the things bugging Ellen and I lately has been what has been going on in our church. That's the building (with a small "c") and not the Church (the Catholic organization with a big "c"). We have some issues with our Church as well but that's a post for another time. Ellen has been a part of our parish since she was baptized there. We took a 5 year hiatus while I was in the Navy but since I redicovered my faith only after we married, it's been a home for me as well as an adult. We've seen many changes, from pastors coming and going, to scandals, to additions to the building.

However, lately things have gone to a whole new level. We've always felt welcome at our parish and suddenly I'm not so sure. It started with the instituting of a lay pastoral administrator to run our parish instead of a priest as the pastor. Now, I'm not a prude or anything and don't really care if a priest or lay person runs the parish, as long as its run well. But funny things happened from the start. Like the pastoral administrator's need to continually explain who he is to the congregation, especially if there are visitors. This is a quirk we could probably put up with. Then there was the conversations I had over the last couple of years from a good friend that had "inside information". I got a funny vibe about it.

Then this year came the sudden exodus of the staff. First, one of my bandmates, who was the business manager, quit. I won't go into details but basically she couldn't take working for the pastoral administrator any longer. Then, our youth minister (also a friend) got unceremoniously fired. Then, shortly after that, the faith formation director, who only got hired last August, quit as well. So, three women quit. And guess who were hired to replace them? Three men. Coincidence? Sexism? Not saying it is, but it seems very odd.

And then lately there's been a focus on two things: rules and money. We used to stand during Communion. then we were told that a few of our committees had UNANIMOUSLY decided we should kneel (which is what most parishes do). Except that Ellen was on one of those committees and she had played devil's advocate and had NOT been in favor of kneeling. Also we hear a lot about events that raise funds for the parish but very little about ministries that can help the community. I'm reminded of what Jesus said about the Pharisees and the Saducees: "They honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me." That's how I feel about my church right now.

I've taken a few radical steps, for me at least. For example, I still stand during Communion. Most Sundays I'm the ONLY one standing. And, since we sit in the front row and our pastoral administrator likes to be on the alter platform (a story for another time) I KNOW he sees me. Also, our contribution envelopes have lines on them to designate where your donation goes. My weekly donation now goes 100% to world need and ZERO to the parish. Right now I'm voicing my displeasure with my money. And if this situation continues, I may have to vote with my feet. And if this pastoral administrator makes me find a new home, I'm going to be REALLY pissed.

Reflections on Marriage

2011-09-04T18:43:00.000-05:00

Ellen and I (and the boys) attended a wedding today for Ellen's god-daughter. It was a low budget affair on a Sunday afternoon and was actually quite a nice time. The bride's mother is one of Ellen's childhood friends. We don't see her often so it was nice to get together and enjoy good company.

I always like watching the new couple at weddings to see how they act together. Watching a young couple look at each other with that fresh love of beginning a life together is always rather cute and romantic. Call me an old softie, but that newlywed stage of marriage is quite a fun time. Ellen and I are WELL past that but it's nice to be reminded of it from time to time.

Weddings eventually get me thinking to how long Ellen and I have been married. We've been together for around 28 years and married for 22. That's a long time for any couple. And I like to think we're still happily married. At least I can say I'm still happy. I wonder what advice I'd give a young couple to the secret of a long and successful marriage. And looking back over these many years, I couldn't tell you what it is.

We've had our ups and downs (some probably chronicled here). Living with someone for almost 25 years and trying to raise 2 boys makes for an interesting life and constant battles of some sort. Being around anyone for too long a period of time can make you crazy. Certainly, in the last year or so, there have been many battles and struggles with the boys and things they have going on. Not to mention that our schedule (and our lives) essentially revolve around what they're doing. Sure, I take a little time for the band and Ellen gets in some down time with the girls, but overall we fit in our things in between theirs.

So what's that got to do with a long marriage? Well, when raising kids, it's so much easier when you have someone you can rely on and support you. Ellen and I have had many conversations about the kids and we often wonder how the hell single parents do it. We have a hard enough time with the two of us. I couldn't imagine doing this on my own.

And perhaps that's the secret. I couldn't imaging doing any of the things I've done over the last 22 years alone. Having her with me has made everything so much easier, even in the hard times. We don't do all of that newlywed kind of stuff any more. I remember being silly with each other and lots of displays of affection and what not. But those things aren't really necessary any longer. We enjoy just sitting out on the porch, reading or talking, or just watching the world go by (or one of us blogging while the other is reading, like right now).

For myself, I guess the secret to a long marriage is a word that came up in today's ceremony: commitment. I made a commitment to her 22 years ago and I have no intention on going back on that commitment. Part of that is our faith. We both believe it takes three for a successful marriage, the couple and God. And we've both put a lot of faith and trust in Him over these many years. But I guess the other thing is that I long ago realized (before we'd married) that other women just didn't interest me any longer. I'd seriously fallen for this woman and even after all this time, I still don't want to spend my time with anyone else. Sure, our love has changed over the years, but that's what's SUPPOSED to happen. There are still mornings where I wake up and look at her sleeping and think how blessed I am to have this beautiful woman lying next to me.

So maybe in the end, that's what it is. At the end of the day the secret to a long marriage is to pick a person you're going to love every day no matter what. And then do that. Either that or keep praying that the Lord bless you with a long marriage and to never stop loving your spouse.

Or maybe both.

Trust in the Lord

2011-08-25T11:56:00.001-05:00

That has been my mantra over the last 10 years or so. And every time I do, I'm blessed in more ways than I can count. For those of you that are in my Facebook friend list, you'll know that I was offered, and accepted, a new position at work. When I got the offer, I was floored. All I can say is my company (and my new boss) treated me really well.

I'd been concerned for some time about my future with my employer. I won't put to many details on a public forum, but the possibility existed that my role might be phased out at some point. I have this habit of working myself out of a job by making my team run really well. Which was happening. And I was unsure of the opportunites available to me. I happened to be talking to one of our HR recruiters about an other position I was interested in and she told me that while I wasn't qualified for the position I was interested in, I should look at this new position I have now. It's very different from what I've done previously since it's not a direct support position (like help desk). However, since I've been working on my MBA, I've known I would eventually want to break out of it and get into something more strategic.

So I did the smart thing. I spoke to my wife and I prayed about it. I've been doing a lot of praying over the last 8 months. I eventually came to the conclusion that I should take a chance. So I spoke to the hiring manager about my interest and he said he'd consider my. I applied, and the rest is history. Mind you, I think I need to do a LOT more praying to be successful in this new job and still meet all my responsibilities to my wife and kids. But I'll take it one day at a time.

Through much of this year, one song/prayer kept coming back to me that the band does. It's appropriate, I think, and sort of says it all. I've been on a bit of a crazy journey the last couple of years, professionally speaking anyway. I've always felt the Lord puts me where He needs me to be, even if I don't know why that is. Perhaps now I do. Here's the refrain of the song:

Lead me, Lord, lead me, Lord,
by the light of truth
to seek and to find the narrow way.
Be my way; be my truth;
be my life, my Lord,
and lead me, Lord, today.

End of another season

2011-08-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

Mountain bike racing season, that is. Last night I competed in the Farmall Hill Challenge once again. I must say I was a little (ok, a LOT) nervous about racing. This course is probably one of the toughest in the area. All ups and downs with steep hills and almost no time to recover (catch your breath or rest your legs). I raced it twice last year and once previously this year. I was unsure about the race after my performance in the first one a few weeks ago. I raced very poorly and was just exhausted physically from the minute I started.

So of course, I was wondering if the problem was me, if the course was too challenging for me, or what. Perhaps I'm more of a roadie than a mountain biker. However, what sealed the deal was when I got an email from Ellen saying her niece and niece's husband would be there. He was first in his class after 2 races. So, I figured, if THEY were going, I couldn't keep from racing. At a minimum it would give Ellen a chance to hang with her niece. So I went racing for my wife (I'll go with that).

One of the biggest problems I had with that course was climbing. Hills are pretty tough and the last race I really struggled getting up them. There's at least 3 BIG climbs and several smaller ones. Some are right after a downhill so if you're going fast enough your momentum will carry you up the next small one. But some you just need to power up. So before leaving work I decided to Google for some tips on hill climbing. Turns out I was doing it wrong.

On a road bike, you can get up out of the saddle (the seat, that is) and use your leg power to get up a hill. That's because your tires have grip ALL THE TIME on a road surface. On trails, you're struggling with grip the entire time since the surface is slick. And, as it turns out, if you stand up to try and power up a hill, you'll spin your back tire, lose all your grip and momentum, and end up walking up the hill. The solution? When climbing a hill, SIT BACK in the saddle, lower your body down towards the handle bars, and power up the hill. This puts MORE weight on the back tire, keeping your grip. And you know what? IT WORKS! I tried that out last night and got up all but the steepest hills. As a result, my time yesterday was about 7 to 8 minutes faster than last time.

What I really need to do now is start training for this race next year. What killed me the most last night was stamina. By lap 3 (of 3 laps) I was toast. Every muscle in my body was screaming at me. And the only way to train for a race like this is get on the trails and spend an hour or so riding up and down hills. I think I've finally conquered my fear of that course. I know it well now and was actually strategizing as I was riding as to what line I needed and where to rest a little to get ready for the next climb. Even the BIG downhill didn't terrify me like the first time I road it. The only other thing I'll need for next year is new pedals. I have "clipless" pedals that lock into the bottom of your riding shoes. The pedals I have now have the clips to lock in on one side only so I can also ride without the riding shoes. However, several times I had to get off the bike and was struggling to get the pedal lined up correctly to lock in again. While going up and down hills. Not too fun. So for next year I'm going to get the same pedals I have on my road bike that lock in on either site. This will let me clip back in MUCH quicker.

I think next mountain bike racing season will be MUCH better. I'll be done with my degree and actually have a LITTLE spare time. And the upgrades I've did to my bike last winter have turned it into a major racing machine. Now all I have to do is get in the right shape to take advantage of it.

Something to tide you over

2011-08-19T14:02:00.001-05:00

There's some stuff I'd like to post about, but its still in the "developmental" stage so it wouldn't be appropriate to say anything at this time. Hopefully, this will play itself out within the next week. More to come. In the meantime, please enjoy some music from a new artist I've discovered. Her name is Imelda May. I first heard here when I watched the Jeff Beck tribute to Les Paul. Here she is with Beck doing the Les Paul/Mary Ford tune Tiger Rag:

And here she is performing her onw song, Mayhem. You'll notice her band was Jeff Beck's backing band. Enjoy!

Faith on Fire Rocks!

2011-08-14T17:37:00.000-05:00

Here's a couple of videos by my band from our show at Church Rocks on Friday. You must excuse the video quality. I could have uploaded a high quality video but it would have literally taken hours to upload each video. So I went with file size over quality. However, the audio is great. Can you figure out which one in the band is me?

Still alive and kicking

2011-08-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

Haven't been here in a while but just haven't had much to say. Ok, I do have some things to say but just haven't been motivated to write it down yet. I was thinking this morning about stuff going on at our church and I will probably post about that soon, but I need some time to put all of my thoughts together first.

The big deal right now is that the band has a gig tonight and it should be LOADS of fun! We're playing the second annual Church Rocks event (organized by one of my band members). Four local Christian rock bands playing a free show in our church parking lot. Weather is BEAUTIFUL today so it should be a great event. What makes it even more special is that we added a horn section to help out on a couple of songs. Guess who is the saxaphonist for the horn section? Yep, that funny looking kid to the left. This is the first gig I've done with one of my kids and it's quite cool. He's also looking foward to it.

He asked if he could wear his cool "jazz" hat to the gig. I told him to knock himself out. Kid reminds me of someone I know. When I asked him what it was like to be playing with a real rock star in a real rock band, he replied "I'm already a rock star." I have no idea where he gets that from.

I am WHIPPED!

2011-08-02T20:30:00.000-05:00

Today I raced the Farmall Hill Challenge. It's a gruelling, no recovery 6 mile race (for beginners anyway) that really tests your skills on a mountain bike on a singletrack course. And today that course KICKED MY ASS. Not sure what was going on today since the last time I raced there last year I did pretty well and felt pretty good. Today, I was dying from the moment I came out of the gate. I was about half way through the first lap thinking "Fuck this, I'm going to DNF." But I made the turn to go to the second lap. Halfway through the second lap I was thinking "Fuck this, I'm going to DNF." But again I made the turn to go to the next lap. On lap 3 (the final one) I was thinking "Fuck this I'm going to finish."

And finish I did. Not a half bad time either, around 54 minutes. Considering I walked A LOT of the course, that's not a bad time. Not sure what was going on as hills I know I can take I just didn't have the energy or endurance for. Maybe it's because I haven't been riding as much this year or maybe it's just I was tired or something. But, man was it tiring.

On the plus side, I finally got to put my mountian bike upgrades through their paces. The front brake was sticking a little and not letting the wheel spin freely. My neice's husband (the bike shop guy) was there so I had him take a look. A quick adjustment later and all was well. And holy cow could I go fast! My bike is rolling better than ever! And the new disc brakes are the shit! There's this big ass hill near the end of the lap that goes into a sharp 90 degree right hand turn. It's kind of scary so I decided the best way to get down it was to just go flying down it instead of braking. Which means you need to get on the brakes HARD to make the right hand turn. No sweat. Brakes slowed me down wicked fast and I got around the turn each lap like a champ.

So my accomplishment today is that I finished the race without crashing, without killing myself, and without losing my dinner. All major accomplishments. Next race is next Tuesday but I'm not sure I'll have recovered in time for that one. Or I might just be crazy and do it. The course had intimidated me the last 2 times I raced it and there was some fear going into today. However, while riding today, the thing that was kicking my ass was not fear of the course, but my body. My legs and lungs just weren't up to the task today. But the rest of it? Challenging yes, need to be careful in some spots, yes, but scary? Not any more. Even that big hill that scared the piss out of me is only scary at the top. Once you're in the track and you let go of the brakes you go down it so fast you don't have time to be scared. You're more worried about making the turn right after it.

I'm going to rest all the tired muscles in my body now. Because almost all of them hurt.

Whew!

2011-07-21T14:20:00.000-05:00

Talk about crazy, I've been so busy at work, I haven't been able to keep up with many of my internet pals. And I spend so much time in front of my PC, I don't want to crack it open when I get home (well, except to bring up my Nook app and read an ebook). We implemented a new policy that disabled shared access to the company website. And though we communicated this change, it appears we didn't communicate it well enough. So my team is getting hammered with calls and requests for access. To give you an idea, we normally get 60 to 100 requests a week to process. We've processed close to 1000 in just 8 days. So my brain has been whipped by the time I get home.

Work has been interesting. There may be some changes coming for me in the near future, but nothing certain right now. It's one of those things I don't talk about much in public forums since you never know who's reading. And some things should remain private until they play themselves out. In any event, I'm busy which is good.

We're picking up Christopher from scout camp tomorrow. I'm sure he'll be happy to be home after a few weeks away. He's in for a big surprise. Ellen literally ripped apart his room and organized EVERYTHING. Old stuff was either put away or trashed. Drawers cleaned out. Bed moved (that was scary, seeing what was hiding UNDER the bed). The place is immaculate right now. We need to work with him on organiztion (turns out executive functions like that are very difficult for people with ADHD and that explains a lot). She figured best to start out in the right, low distraction environment. She did a lot of work but got it done before he came home!

We've also got a wedding to attend this weekend. My cousin is getting married. She's been focusing on her career and education (literally since high school) and is finally done with it all. She graduated college in 3 years as a teacher, got her masters and just last month her PhD in education. She's the first Doctor in the family! But all that work took a bit of a toll on her social life. Now she's found a great guy and can concentrate on building a family of her own! The boys get to go to their first wedding reception so they're super excited. And they'll get to sit with their cousins (my sister's kids) so they'll have a grand old time away from the adults.

Lots more little things going on at home right now but we try to take them one day at a time. We'd be doing more outdoor type stuff if it wasn't 90 degrees every damn day, but we'll manage. On the plus side, I haven't mowed the lawn in 3 weeks. But riding in that kind of heat is brutal. Anyway, hope everyone has a good weekend. I'm going to.

Busy busy busy!

2011-07-15T11:17:00.000-05:00

Even though we been "childless" this week, there's still been plenty to do! However, it seems to go much more smoothly when there's no kids underfoot! Sunday we had a nice meal just the two of us. I can't remember the last time we had a quiet meal together at home where we could TALK to each other without either being interrupted or mediating an arguement. It was rather nice!

We both took Tuesday off from work. Ellen went to lunch with her sister-in-law and her neice and I ran around doing errands. It was a peaceful kind of day. I had originally planned on going mountain bike racing that day but by 5 pm it was still almost 90 degrees and wicked humid so I decided against it. Not worth that much sweating and pain. I've gotten some really nice rides in this week otherwise, though.

Wednesday we had originally planned on going on a ride but I got a message from a friend asking if we wanted to meet for dinner. One of our pals that lives in Canda among those crazy French Canadians in Montreal was in town so we got together instead. We had a LONG dinner at PF Chang's and then did some visiting at one of our friend's place afterwards. Overall quite the enjoyable evening. It turns out this circle of friends of ours from high school are all women, so I got to have a tasty meal surrounded by lovely ladies. Can't ask for more? The most amusing thing of the evening was when we were talking about books we were reading. Of the 4 ladies, 3 of them, including my wife were all reading Pride and Prejudice. They got a big laugh out of that.

I took today off from work as well to do some running around and generally enjoy not being at work. Nicholas comes back home tomorrow and while it's been nice without the kids, I'm sort of looking forward to them returning. I felt bad for Nicholas since he called me on my cell at work on Tuesday asking me to come up to scout camp for some event. It was hard to make out what he was saying since the signal up there is terrible and the cell he was using cut out 2 of every 3 words. He mentioned something about not knowing who to ask if he should do things and being picked on. So I told him I couldn't come up and that we'd discussed it was too many 4.5 hour trips for me to do this year with his brother up there. I also told him that I trust the scout leader's judgement and he can ask him whether he should be doing certain things. I then asked him if he was having fun and in a bright, chipper, upbeat voice he says "Oh yes!". The boy kills me. He even sent us a post card. Mind you, his brother, who has been there a week longer than him, hasn't bothered to send us anything. At least ONE of my kids is thoughtful.

I've been having trouble keeping up with my internet "stuff" since we're so crazy busy at work right now, it's cutting into my internet time. By the time I get home, who wants to be on the computer? I'll have to do something about reducing my workload so I can catch up on other things. For now I'm enjoying getting some reading done at home until school starts up again after labor day. Wish me luck peeps!

Did anyone notice?

2011-07-07T07:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I decided to do a little blog cleaning and figured I'd update my blog roll since many of the ones on it were no longer active. So I went to log into my Blogroll account (that's who I used to manage it) and saw a message that they'd stopped their service! There was a statement that my blogroll might be blank and sure enough it was! Did anyone even notice they'd gone by the wayside? Another casualty of social networking sites like Facebook, I suppose. No matter. I'm going to fill my left hand nav with pictures and other stuff I like. But it does appear bloggers are turning into dinosaurs on the internet. Remember when everyone had a blog and it was relevant? It wasn't that long ago. Boy, the "good old days" are no longer decades ago but only a few years now. Pretty soon, the "good old days" will be last year.

All or nothing

2011-07-05T08:44:00.001-05:00

I have to thank Kate for posting this on her blog. It was so good, I had to put it here as well.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following is an open letter to Dr. Laura penned by a east coast resident, which was posted on the Internet. It’s funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the other specific laws and how to follow them:

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness – Lev.15:19- 24. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination – Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? – Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted fan,

Jim

Weighing In

2011-06-29T08:03:00.000-05:00

I know I'm late to the game and I've purposely not commented much on this issue, but after reading a letter by the Bishops of New York State (you can read it if you like here), I thought I would simply weigh in my thoughts on the matter. Mind you, I'm not saying the Bishops are wrong. I think from the Catholic perspective and as members of the religous community, what they said makes complete sense. However, I think in some respects they're confusing symptoms with the cause.

Let's begin with the issue at hand, the recent legalization of "gay marriage" in New York State. To begin, I learned in college that it is not the role of the government to legislate morality. Essentially, it cannot. Some will argue (as was quoted by our parish priest) that laws must be rooted in morality or we become a society of rules only. I don't beleive that. Murder isn't illegal because it's immoral (though I believe that it is), it's illegal because no one has the right to deprive me of my life. My stance on gay marriage, at least as it concerns legality, is that this is an issue about legal rights, not about whether two people of the same sex getting married is moral. I can't tell you for sure if I think gay marriage is immoral or not. Truthfully, I can't bring myself to judge two people who love each other and wish to commit themselves to each other for the rest of their lives. I live by the standards of love your neighbor as yourself and judge not let you be judged. So I'm going to leave that one with God.

I do know that the church teaches any sex outside marriage is immoral and that marriage in the Church can only be between a man and a woman. I happen to believe that as well. I won't go into too much detail on the issue of sex outside of marriage but the Bishop's statement linked above does go into how marriage is being weakened by things like children out of wedlock, cohabitation, high divorce rate, etc. Again, I think this are symptoms of a much larger problem. We, as Catholics/Christians and as Americans seem to value marriage less these days. Perhaps it's because making that long term committment is hard. Ellen and I have had our share of struggles in our marriage. But I think part of the reason we're still together is our deep faith in God and commitment to each other and our kids. That's not to say that there aren't marriages that are bad for a couple and they shouldn't dissolve that union. But perhaps that couple should have taken more time, did more reflection, and thought more deeply about whether they SHOULD have gotten married. But that's a whole other conversation.

In reading the Bishop's comments I took away that I should have been against this law. But I don't buy into the concept that giving any couple the legal rights associated with what the State calls "marriage" somehow weakens what Catholics call "marriage". Marriage in the sense meant by Christians has already become weaakened by so many other things. If the Bishops, Catholics, and the clergy really want to strengthen marriage, let's go after the real causes of the decline of marriage. The divorce rate has been over 50% for a while now. This law is not going to affect that statistic. If you're going to complain about something, go and fix the real problem instead of pointing fingers and saying "see, THAT is going to ruin marriage as we know it". I hate to tell you, marriage as we know it has been on the rocks for a LONG time now.

Let's go racing!

2011-06-22T08:34:00.000-05:00

Last night I raced in the Fat Tire Tuesday series. It's a mountain bike race through a YMCA camp. Combination of single track and open fields. I like the course because it's got some technical parts but also lots of flat areas to recover after getting your ass kicked climbing hills. As a beginner I ran three laps, which worked out to just under 7.5 miles. Not a bad time, about 54 minutes. My time last year was 51 minutes but the course was a little different so it's hard to gage whether I did better or not.

One thing is for sure, that course kicked my ass. The back part of the course was a climb up a hill with a bunch of switchbacks. The hill was pretty sandy so you're trying to climb, turn 180 degrees, and try not to spin your tire on the turn and wipe out. There was another climb near the end of the course that was similar but with no switchbacks. Still, trying to climb AND turn in a sandy track is a bitch.

I did pretty good the first two laps, but by the third I was really wiped out and started running into things. The other thing that made the course a little difficult was trying to get out of the way of faster riders. The courteous thing to do is move over if someone faster is coming up behind you. However, there's not always a good spot to move over if your in a tight single track with trees all around. The problem is that once you lose some of your momentum and your tired, you start getting squirrly. For example, I tried slowing down to go around one side of a tree to let the rider behind me go around the other side. And slammed into the trunk of the tree with my left shoulder. On the final climb, I had to slow down a little bit and lost so much momentum I fell over like 3 times just trying to get going to climb the hill. Again, sandy terrain didn't help. However, I did finish the race!

Probably the best part of the race was having a cheering section. Ellen and the boys came along. Ellen's neice was there as well since her husband was racing also. So when I'd come through the area where they were hanging out, the would cheer and ring cowbells (that's what people do in cycling races). Nothing gets you pumping like having people rooting you on! I was dead tired after that but it was a good time. There's three more races but I don't know if I'll try all three. Perhaps one or two more. I havent' been riding as much this year as last year (damn weather!) so I may need to train better. However, there's a 15 mile charity road ride coming that I may do. I need to get more detail. The coolest thing about racing last night was there was a guy that did the course (at least 3 laps) on a UNICYCLE! No shit this guy had a mountain bike tire on the thing and ran through all the hills and everything else on it. THAT is a totally different kind of crazy but something I can respet. Here's some pics of the race:

Wrapping up another year

2011-06-16T07:04:00.000-05:00

The school year is quickly coming to an end. Christopher is finishing up finals this week and Nicholas has finals next week. We met with Christopher's counselor yesterday to start prepping for the fall. Our final scout meeting of the year was also last night where we had a campfire and retired flags. It's been an up and down school year. Glad it's pretty much over but the summer is just starting to ramp up. We now have to get Christopher ready for boy scout camp. He's a counselor in training this year and will be up in the Adirondak park for three weeks. Nicholas will be up there for one week with his troop so Ellen and I will get a week with no kids (yeah!). But there's much to do between now and then.

Beyond kid's activities, not much going on. The weather and our schedule has not been condusive to riding but I've been gettng out all I can. There are some mountain bike races the next couple of Tuesdays so hopefully I can get to at least one. Ellen wants to do some hiking and mellow riding so we MAY have some time for that. I'd also like to plan a day trip or two so we'll see how that works out. Right now a lot of things are making me feel like life is on hold. I'm doing a lot of waiting. And I'm not so good at waiting. But there's nothing else to do so you keep moving forward.

That's better

2011-06-06T11:47:00.000-05:00

I spoke to Christopher's guidance counselor for 10th grade today. My God what a difference. I explained to him my concerns and some of the things that happened this year. I hear him say "Oh my God" A LOT. As in he was in disbelief at the lack of attention to our concerns. He is more than happy to meet with us to brainstorm ideas for next year. And agreed we need to meet with Christopher's teachers in the fall. He even asked me what preferred order of classes I'd like for Christopher so his afternoon (where he struggles the most) might be easier for him. So we put Science, Social Studies, and Math in the morning instead of after lunch.

Holy cow what a difference! I'm a fairly intuitive person when it comes to judging others. I've learned to trust my gut on first impressions. And this counselor made a very good first impression on me. Mind you, I'm still taking a wait and see approach. Actions speak louder than words but so far I'm hearing the right things. We're going to meet with the new counselor next week (with Christopher there) to come up with a plan TOGETHER. which is how it should have been this year. I don't plan on dwelling on everything from this year except as a lessons learned experience, which is what I told the new counselor. I'm cautiously optimistic that we can put together something that works to help Christopher be successful the rest of his high school career. He'll have this counselor until graduation so if things work out in the beginning of the next school year, I'm confident we can get Christopher to where he needs to be by graduation.

Look out, man of action on the loose

2011-06-03T12:46:00.000-05:00

First of all, I'd like to say Happy Anniversary to my lovely wife of 22 years. Looking forward to many more together!

Ellen gave me an unintended anniversary gift today. Quick background, Christopher has been struggling in a couple of classes this year, the last two of the day. He didn't turn in assignments, got poor grades, etc. We tried to get assistance from the school guidance counselor but her solution was to tell Christopher to write all of his assignments in his agenda and see his teachers for help after school if he needed it. They should pay me her salary to give such useless advise. This week was a MAJOR blowout with him that had my stomach in knots for 2 days. I even had a sit down with him yesterday to try and figure out what was going on and what were we missing. He said nothing was going on and he "just needed to get organized."

Then Ellen sent me a link to THIS site. A read a couple of articles and had a "holy shit" moment. Several of the articles talked about how ADHD kids really struggle with organization and hate it and will fight you tooth and nail against it and will try and take care of everything themselves. Basically, it was Christopher. DAMN! All along I was thinking the problem was him but I got it only half right. It was him all right, but there was no problem! His lack of organization is how his brain works. And I'd forgotten that somehow along the way. I also realized I'd failed him in properly advocating for him at school. Since he was no longer getting specific services, I assumed he no longer needed help. WRONG!

So while working out at lunch, I had the brainstorm. I came up with a plan. You want to talk about relief and a weight coming off of my shoulders? I'm a person that needs to take action to solve a problem. This was killing me since there was a "problem" and I couldn't fix it. But now, there's something I can do. I called the school. I asked Christopher's current counselor (the useless one) who his counselor was going to be next year. Then she made the mistake of trying to talk to me about what I SHOULD be doing. BIG MISTAKE.

I let her have it. I told her how we'd come to her for assistance and her solution wasn't a solution at all. I told her that though the school SAYS they want to partner with parents, that the school had failed to do so. She had the audacity to ask me if we'd seen his doctor to adjust his medication as that would be a "first step". Which we'd done in November, BTW. And THEN she started going on about what the teachers COULD do to help parents stay informed as to what's going on! With one week to go in the school year she tells me this! I then told her it would have been nice to be given this information at our meeting 4 months ago. She was smart enough to recognize that I was frustrated with her. You think? I've talked to other parents (and other teachers in the district I know) and they all agree she's lousy at her job.

So I now have a call in to Christopher's 10th grade counselor. We WILL meet before the school year ends to discuss strategies for the summer and for next year. Then we WILL meet again at the start of the school year with all of his teachers so they understand MY expectations. I'm through being Mr. Nice Guy and making requests of his school. I won't even make demands. I will simply make statements and expect my child's needs to be met. Or I'm walking into that school and raising bloody hell.

Yes, I will be THAT parent. They've awoken the sleeping lion in me. They have no idea what they're in for.

One final battle

2011-05-31T20:52:00.000-05:00

There is one more skirmish to complete in my battle with one of my instructors from last semester. Today I FINALLY got my grade for the course. Because I didn't trust the teacher as far as I could throw here, I copied all of my grades and emails with grades to a Word document in case I needed them. Per the points laid out for each assignment, I earned a 95.8% in that course. You know what my final grade was? Ready? A MINUS! I got a 92% in another course and got an A! I'm not sure what planet this woman is on to think after all the freaking work I put into that course that I got anything but an A.

So I did what the school recommends. I emailed my advisor and let her know that I believed there was a mistake in my grade for that course. I attached my document with my grade calculation and am willing to fight tooth and nail for that A. Mind you, either grade will result in the same GPA (3.94 thank you very much) but it's the principle of the thing. I want the grade I earned.

In other news, we received a bit of a shock this weekend. The youth coordinator at our parish, someone that has become a friend and part of our "circle" was unceremoniously fired from her position. We were flabergasted. No warning, no nothing. She's holding up well but Ellen and I and some of our other friends are not happy. Like, not happy enough to contemplate going somewhere else. With that and some other things we've heard from another friend on staff that had enough and quit, I'm not sure I have faith in the ability of those charged with leading our parish to do so. It's very sad when humans make a mess of God's church. We're going to try and plan a proper farewell for our friend with just the families involved in youth ministry. I think they're going to be hard pressed to get teens involved next year after this. Parents will not be happy.

I've got more things in the works but alas still cannot say anything yet in public. I will reveal when the time is right, never fear.

So much going on, so little to say

2011-05-27T13:58:00.000-05:00

There are so many things I could blog about. Unfortunately, most of them are work related and I can't share in a public forum. Suffice it to say there is a great deal of change on the horizon and it will be a challenge to manage that change. As before, any prayers you care to offer on my behalf as I go through this process are much appreciated. I don't fear change as its inevitable, but boy can it be stressful when you're going through it. I've had the song Lead Me Lord (you can listen to the song and read the lyrics here) going through my head for weeks. Its almost like a mantra to remind me to let go. But its not easy.

This being the Memorial Day weekend, you would think picnics and festivities are on my schedule, right? Wrong. Parades are on my schedule. Specifically, all the parades Christopher has to march in! He has a parade/field trip tomorrow and three, count 'em THREE, parades to march in Monday morning. It's literally a marathon to do one parade, quickly hop on a bus, go to the next, then hop back on the bus and go to the third. Throw in some other obligations this weekend and its packed again. The fun never stops at our place.

Beyond that, nothing much going on. I could rant about some political type stuff I've seen on TV, but it's not worth the energy right now. I'll keep everyone up to date on the work stuff as much as I can. Enjoy your holiday weekend!

2011-05-24T09:18:00.001-05:00

Testing my ability to post to my blog from my phone. Cause I need new ways to distract myself.

Life out of control

2011-05-15T18:39:00.000-05:00

Last week was totally out of control at our house. We were double or triple booked a few days with activities. There wasn't a day something wasn't on the schedule. For example, yesterday all four of us were literally in different places. I had one kid on a scout campout, another kid marching in a parade with the marching band, I was at church doing a thing with the band, and Ellen was getting her hair done. Even today we have stuff going on. Next week is just as bad. When did our lives get this out of hand?

Luckily, things MIGHT slow down by the end of June. Then again, maybe not. My summer semester started this week but I don't think it will be TOO crazy. Taking only one course is a welcome change. The only stressful thing will be that the papers we'll need to write have to be done in a week. But they're only 3 to 4 pages. Then summer off and finish up in the fall.

We've been wanting to get out of the house and do fun stuff like riding, hiking, or just plain being outside. But we've gotten like 3 sunny days in the last 2 weeks. And it's going to rain all this week as well. Makes it kind of hard to enjoy the outdoors. Anyway, the weather is bound to get better, right? Let's hope so.

I shouldn't have done it...

2011-05-10T06:43:00.001-05:00

But I did anyway. Remember my pain in the ass instructor? The one that made me crazy all semester long? Well, I got the grade back from my final paper. Never mind the fact that I had some MAJOR heartache about what the instructor REALLY wanted versus what the assignment stated. However, here is her feed back:

GRADE: 13.5/15

Comments: Comments: - This is an interesting paper that appears to be well-thought-through and well researched. The conceptualization is noteworthy and convincing. There are a number of concerns, however. The documentation is poor. Each piece of researched material needs to have a proper documentation. Each paragraph (each new idea sequence) should end with a citation. Sometimes it will be just a page number. The approach you used for parenthetical citations did not provide me with any way of checking your sources. In the analytical section, although not called that, you do a pretty good job. I would have liked inclusion of illustrations from your own background. All in all, the paper is a good product, but I wanted to mention these concerns because they will probably arise in some of your further writing. Grade B+

First of all, 13.5/15 is a 90%. Which is an A (which is what is on my grade report in the school application). Second, I followed a proper citation methodology. I was a little annoyed (even though I'm going to get an A for the course). So I couldn't help myself from sending off this parting shot in reply:

Phyllis,

Thanks for the feedback. I used the APA guidelines for my citations, which I've used for all of my research work so far at ESC. The citation style states:

In APA style, in-text citations are placed within sentences and paragraphs so that it is clear what information is being quoted or paraphrased and whose information is being cited.
Examples:
Works by a single author
The last name of the author and the year of publication are inserted in the text at the appropriate point.

from theory on bounded rationality (Simon, 1945)

If the name of the author or the date appear as part of the narrative, cite only missing information in parentheses.

Simon (1945) posited that

If you were looking for a different style of citation, it was not specifically stated in the guidlelines for the paper. Thanks again for your feedback.

Should I have done that? Perhaps not. But in the actual paper she wrote notes and stated it was insulting to the authors of the work I cited that I didn't use their full names. Excuse me but it's insulting to me to say I didn't properly cite their work when I did. Is it my fault Phyllis hasn't done her homework on other styles of citiation? Or that she didn't specify a citation style if that's what she wanted. So really I just helping to educate a person on other citation options, right? However, if I know Phyllis, she probably won't even read the course email as she did all communication with us through personal email. Either way, if my grade is not an A, I'm going to raise blooddy hell.

Should I feel guilty?

2011-05-06T12:05:00.000-05:00

I think I may have offended someone via Facebook. I'm not a HUGE fan of Facebook because much of what's out there is drivel. I use it mostly to keep up with family and friends I care about. Like most, when I first got my Facebook account I was accepting friend requests from pretty much anybody I knew. However, some of my Facebook friends were either posting things that only made sense to them or stuff I couldn't care less about.

Enter an old neighbor of mine. We grew up from each other a few doors down. She was 2 years older than I so we hung around a little when we were younger but basically after I graduated from high school (MANY years ago now) I don't think I ever spoke to her or saw her face to face once. She was one of those people posting all kinds of stuff on Facebook that just took up space to me so as part of a "housecleaning" I de-friended her (along with a bunch of other people). A few months later she must have realized I wasn't on her friend list and sent another friend request, which I ignored.

So yesterday she sends me a message wondering why I de-friended her. I didn't want to be rude and tell her the truth, which is I really don't KNOW her any more. We were merely neighbors from over 20 years ago and have not had an actual conversation (even on Facebook) in all that time. But I was polite and said it was nothing personal and that I was making my Facebook friend list smaller.

The response I got? "Whatever!". She "respects" my decision but thinks it's great remembering old friends. I didn't respond to that but truthfully, I don't have time for the friends I have now that I really want to spend time with. People I actually talk to on a regular basis. As for the "old" times, there really weren't that many to look so fondly back on. Get togethers with friends on New Year's Eve, perhaps. But I have much fonder memories of the people in my life now. So I think this person was offended that I didn't value those memories as much as she. I mean, we just weren't that close.

Was I a bad guy for not wanting to be someone's Facebook friend? Perhaps I should quote Audry Hepburn's character in Charade when Cary Grant is trying to befriend her. "I'm afraid I already know a great many people. Until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else."

What are we coming to

2011-05-02T08:29:00.000-05:00

I had thought to put this on Facebook, but somehow a quick note didn't seem right. So Osama bin Laden has met his end. Many people, including those calling themselves Christians, are "happy" and feel justice has been served. I cannot comment on whether or not justice has been served. I'll leave that to the Lord. I can say that I'm saddened at the loss of a life. Osama bin Laden was a bad person. No question. Ordering others killed due to religious or any other type of fanaticism is inexcusable. But I simply cannot rejoice or be glad in the death of another human being, no matter how bad the person is. His death does not make up for the death of all of those people in the trade center. NOTHING can make up for their deaths. So forgive me if I don't think today is a victorious day in American history. Osama bin Laden needed to be stopped. But I don't know if he needed to be dead.

Our Lord said love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Who, besides me, has the courage to say a prayer for Osama?

Prayers requested

2011-05-01T16:57:00.000-05:00

I hate to sound secretive, but I've got something going on that I can't make public as this site is open to everyone. What I would ask is that you please pray for a special intention for me. If such time arises as I can give details, I will. Thanks in advance.

Who's opinion really matters - Updated II

2011-04-27T12:24:00.007-05:00

The semester is winding down. It officially ends Friday but I'll be turning in my last 2 assignments tonight. I'm glad the one course with the terrible instructor is over and done with. I did get a chance to evaluate the course and it wasn't pretty. I've lost any respect for the instructor I might have had.

To give you an example, I had two "scholarly" papers to write. The first was the beginning section of what will be my final project for my degree. Here's what my instructor said after giving me 30/30 on the assignment: "Overall this paper is really excellent. I cannot see any revisions needed for SEL except maybe move the tows matrix right after the swot before the sbu." I think this paper is a typical example of my work.

For the "other" course, I had to write a supposed scholarly paper on a topic of my choice. I researched the topic and presented my argument in my usual third person style as that's what I think a scholarly paper should be. Here's what my instructor said of my introduction: "This is not a good intro, but will be easy to turn it around." The paper had the following comments after she hacked it: "Try to cut down on any repetition, but keep the “I” statements."

I read what she gave me and I thought it was terrible. I definately would not submit work like that. However, getting a good grade is more important than fighting over content so I updated my paper. Again, many thanks to Jammie for reviewing my work and correcting my grammar. She's my guardian angel when it comes to writing. But even she was confused by what my instructor was looking for. Truthfully, however, if I calcualte my grade correctly I need to get better than a 67% on this paper to get an A in the course. I can't imagine my grade would be THAT bad. My research section is very solid. And if the grade isn't what I think I deserve, look out.

My next course doesn't start until May 9 so I've got some down time from school. Besides filling it up with all of the appointments due to kids activities and church/band, I'm doing some recreational reading. I've read Wicked (which I really liked) and am reading the sequal, Son of a Witch. It's nice not to be sweating an assignment for a little bit.

Update - So I went to submit one of my two final papers tonight. This particular assignment was a choice between two topics. I emailed the instructor at the end of February on the topic I was going to do because I had questions on it. I got a response with answers to my questions so I went ahead and wrot the paper to complete before going on vacation. I didn't look at that assignment again until today. And the topic I wrote about was GONE. A DIFFERENT topic replaced it (an easier one BTW). You want to talk about panic? The semester ends FRIDAY and there's no way I can do a good job on a paper in that short period of time.

I've emailed the instructor and am awaiting a response on what to do. There was no notification anywhere that the assignment had changed. I think I should be able to turn in the assignment I did since I had no way of knowing it changed. Why would I check it if I thought the topic I picked was valid? The link was to get the assignment and turn it in. I did get some quick references and sketched out an outline in case I have to write something last minute. But I think it's grossly unfair to do something like that without telling the class. I'm getting penalized for doing work ahead of time. That's total bullshit. If I don't like the answer I get I may contact my advisor on this one. We shall see.

Updated update: My instructor emailed me that she would accept the assignment I did so no additional work needed. Yay! Good thing too since I put about 20 hours into writing something like 27 pages. Wish I'd have known early that I could have done a 5 to 7 page assignment instead.

Vacation Wrap Up

2011-04-24T19:17:00.004-05:00

Wednesday of our vacation was spent at the National Aquarium. It was pretty neat. There were lots of cool fish and sharks. There was also an exhibit of Australia with a waterfall and everything. Later that evening we met my Navy buddy for dinner. Excellent meal from the Cheesecake Factory and then we hung out at his place for a while. Thursday was Fort McHenry. We'd seen the real flag from the War of 1812 that the Star Spangled Banner was written about so it was cool to visit the fort. They had the original poem written by Francis Scott Key on display. We had some time left over so we visited the B and O Railroad Museum. That was a blast. Friday was the drive home. It's nice to been able to relax this weekend but back to the normal grind tomorrow. Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Day 2 - Baseball!

2011-04-20T07:58:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was our "baseball" day. We took a tour of Oriole Park at Camden Yards and saw the Orioles CRUSH the Twins 11-0. We also found some time to tour the Baltimore Cathedral, the oldest Catholic Church in the US. Today we're going to see the National Aquarium and having dinner with my Navy buddy. Here's a couple of pics!

Day 1 in Baltimore

2011-04-18T17:42:00.005-05:00

Here's a couple of picutres from today. We went to Annapolis, toured the US Naval Academy, and had lunch at the Officer's Club with one of my Navy buddies that teaches there. Tomorrow: Baseball! Orioles versus the Twins.

Talking me off the edge

2011-04-14T19:25:00.002-05:00

So I was going to wait until yesterday (Wednesday) to get a response from Christopher's teacher on my email and then it was going to get ugly. I had my next email crafted and ready to send to the teacher and the assistant principal. I was ready to go in guns blazing and the consequences be damned. The sleeping tiger was awakened and it was hungry for fresh meat.

And then Ellen talked me off the edge. She told me that before I get mean for the sake of getting mean, I send a email explicitly stating I want an acknowledgement to my first email and that we would get weekly updates. So I told her fine and wrote a new draft that basically said "Didn't hear from you and I'd like a response indicating you understand what we're looking for." She rewrote what I wrote and I edited what she wrote and off the email went. Just to the teacher, no one copied in. The tiger sat down to wait. I fully expected to get to send a scathing email tonight.

Imagine my surprise when I got a response today! Not only a response, but a really helpful one! The teacher thanked me for emailing and filled me in on Christopher's progress this week. I was told Christopher was doing much better and that if he didn't turn in the lab due today I'd get an email. I was told no new was good new on that assignment. I was also told I'd get an update at the end of the week after break.

Damn! I was SOOOO ready to go ballistic! Luckily, this is why I have Ellen in my life. We ran into a similar issue with Nicholas when he was in elementary school. I didn't particularly like the response I got from the school principal about Nicholas so I was ready to go in there and let him have it. But Ellen suggested we talk to someone at the school we trusted who let us know she thought Nicholas would be fine and not to worry. I get that Italian blood going and I won't be satisfied until I wreak some destruction. Ellen pulls me back and makes sure I mind by P's and Q's and that we're very clear before going on the warpath. And she's usually right.

We got both boys' grades today via our parent portal website and both did pretty good. We need stay on top of Christopher's work to make sure he finishes strong. But hopefully we've motivated him enough. Or else. I got more to tell at a later date. We're leaving for Baltimore on vacation on Sunday so I'll be busy packing and getting ready from now until then. But when I get back I BETTER get my first update from the teacher. And I'm sure a gentle reminder email will trigger any loss of memory from a week off.

Preparing to do Battle

2011-04-11T18:57:00.003-05:00

Today I did something I wish I could have done sooner. I've begun battle with one of Christopher's teachers. He's been struggling in one of his classes. Some of the issue is of his own making. Last quarter he didn't turn in 10 assignments and got zeros. However, we contacted the teacher to try and do something about it.

Here's how it went: Ellen email the teacher. A week went by with no response. She emailed the teacher again and this time copied in the guidance counselor. Instant response! But a STUPID response. The teacher's comment on Christpher not understanding material was confusion that a student could have difficulty since the teacher has worked with 6 consultants over the years to put together the lesson plan to make it effective. I read between the lines to hear "I'm such a good teacher no one could POSSIBLY have trouble in my class".

I then went to "Take Your Parent to School Day" with Christopher and saw this teacher in action first hand. First of all, the teacher did not say anything to me or acknowledge the conversations we'd had. Second, the teacher spoke to the 9th graders like they were 4th graders. I was not amused. So the teacher told Christopher he could make up half the assignments he missed. He got a few turned in but needed the teacher's help on the last couple. He set up an appointment for the last day of the marking period but the teacher told him they'd help "unless I have a conference". Not wanting Christopher to wait until the last day and then have something come up, I emailed the teacher to let them know Christopher would be trying to get with them earlier in the week. Here's the response: " I set friday as a deadline for those with circumstances that need more time. I have through this friday before the book really closes. I am not collecting any more work form this marking period. We have a good enough representation."

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? We have access to a web site that shows the kids' grades. All the zeros are still there. I beleive this teach flat out lied to my kid. We'll see how the quarterly grade goes but I'm not happy. So today, I sent a nice email to the teacher stating I'm expecting them to email me weekly with updates and immediately if an assignmemt is not turn in. While I said please, there was nothing in the tone of my email that implied it was an option. It was a command prefaced by a please. This teacher has until Wednesday to acknowledge my email or the next one includes the guidance counselor. If I don't get an update, then the next will include the pricipal.

If this teacher thinks I'm an asshole after this first round, just wait. I have no problem marching down to that school and dictating what services they will provide to me and my child. I don't give a rat's ass about their policies or desire to teach the kids to be independent or prep them for college or whatever lame ass excuse they want to give. If I want progres reports from the school, the will damn well give them to me. Yes, people, I'm THAT parent. The one everyone whispers about while staring with eyes wide. Make no mistake, these teachers work for me. My taxes go to pay their salary. Their reason for being is to provide a service to me and my kids. And they will provide me with what I need or else.

I told Christopher that he HAS to do his part and turn in everything so I can back him up. But if this teacher wants to go to war with me, they're going DOWN.

What's new?

2011-04-05T06:41:00.003-05:00

I recall at some point in the past saying I'd post more. Ah, the best of intentions. In any event, just thought I give some updates on stuff. School is wrapping up for the semester. I've got all of my major papers written and all that is left is some editing and group discussions. Glad to get that stuff out of the way. Many thanks to Jammie for proof reading one of my papers. I emailed her on Sunday afternoon (my time) and had it before I went to bed. Have I mentioned how much she rocks? You're the best!

I'm getting biking fever. Mountain bike races are coming up in June and there's some great events this year I'm thinking of attending, including a great mountain biking/camping thing in September the whole family can attend. I also worked with some Scouts last night on their Cycling merit badge and that made me want to ride all the more. Too bad it's wet and cold right now. Oh well, going to start interval training today to get ready for racing.

We're going to Baltimore this year during April break for vacation. I'm excited since we've never been. Also, one of my Navy buddies teaches at the Academy in Annapolis so I'm looking forward to seeing him. It's been at least 10 years since I've seen the guy. That looks to be a good time.

April is a crazy month for us since there's like a million birthdays in our family this month (including mine, Christopher's, Ellen's SIL and niece). Plus, the school year is beginning to wind down a little so there's planning for the summer as well as all kinds of school activities going on right now. Needless to say it's a little hectic in Casa de Franco. If I'm lucky I can keep Ellen from going insane but I'm not holding out hope. But perhaps a little "vacation" for her in a quiet room would do wonders for her. Or perhaps she'll just whack me with a frying pan and feel better. No real news on the work front.

Things are the same so I've stopped worrying about it. No point in getting spun up about what might be. If and when something changes, then I'll figure it out. In the meantime, I'll just keep on taking care of my people and my customers.

Not the mama

2011-03-30T21:25:00.005-05:00

I would love to post about Christopher's teacher. Those of you that are on Facebook may have seen my comment. However, if I do that I'll get really spun up. So I'll talk about work instead. My boss was in town this week so last night we went out to dinner for an "off site" meeting where we could speak freely.

And speak freely we did. Besides talking about kids and other normal things, we talked about work. And specifically my future. Not that anything he said was a surprise, but I was very appreciative of his candor. The status of my team has been in question. Over time we've gotten very good so now call volume is way down. I have 6 people reporting to me and realistically we need only 4. Also, he's supposed to have a meeting with the VP of Operations (outside of the IT department) that is most likely to discuss if our function should be moved to that department. And if that happens, my job is in question.

While my boss expressed full confidence in my abilities, if my current position is eliminated there's no guartentee he has a place for me. Also, he was very clear (by coming out and saying it) that I need to get away from his boss, our director. My boss' boss is the kind of person that once you're in their doghouse, you don't get out. And I got in her doghouse a long time ago. So there's no future in that organization. Further, there's no open positions in the IT department that I either care to do or am qualifed to do. We do a very poor job of grooming managers. Other organizations will put a manager in a new role to learn and develop. Not us. So even though I think I could be successful in any job I'm given, they won't give me the chance.

I've also looked at a couple of roles outside the IT department. One of the roles would have been awesome, but I don't have a marketing background so HR won't forward my resume to the hiring manager. Again, why not let me talk to the hiring manager and let that person make the decision? There was another position that I new I was qualified for, but it was a pay grade lower than mine. I spoke to one of my HR contacts about it since my current pay still fell in the pay range of this other job. But I found out that company policy is that if you take a job at a lower pay grade, you gotta take a pay cut no matter what. So that made that decision very easy.

So what does this all mean? It means I'm in my current job come hell or high water. It means the Lord is telling me to relax and trust Him. He's leading me down a road. In a reflection I heard Monday evening at a service the band played for, a Sister of Mercy said following God is sometimes like caving. You have a light on your head and all you can see is right what's in front of you. You have to trust God to get you to where you're going safely. And that's where I'm at. I trust God will get me to where I need to go safely.

I did happen to see a position online with another company that I would love. It's running the operations of a Catholic non-profit organization. I don't have all of the qualifications they stated, but I'm confident I can learn anything I need to know. I submitted my resume but I'm not getting my hopes up. But, as I just said, I go where God leads me. If that's where I'm to be, then it'll happen. If not, then the right thing will come along. But I'm beginning to suspect my future lies with another company. Which is too bad because I really do want to make the company I'm in better. But it's beginning to feel like they don't want or don't value my talents. Which would be their loss.

Ramblings

2011-03-22T21:40:00.002-05:00

This being Lent, I'm trying to do something extra instead of giving something up, so I've been trying to read a chapter of Scripture a night. It's been a rather introspective time. My PIMA course has only one good thing going for it, it introduced me to the concept of servant leadership. My final paper for the course will be about it and I plan on reading more on my own time over the summer. But that kind of ties into other things praying on my mind (or perhaps making my mind pray).

Tonight we went to a pennance service. And you're supposed to name a root sin to a priest for absolution. Now, I won't say what that was, but what I was really thinkging that's been getting in my way and preventing spiritual and perhaps personal growth is fear. Fear of uncertainty. Fear of losing my job. Fear of losing the things that are important to me. Fear for my kids' future. Sometimes it seems like I fill as many minutes of my day as I can with "stuff" so as not to think about it. My boss has indicated the future is uncertain and that he wouldn't be surprised if my team and/or my job got phased out. And if that happens he has no idea what that would mean for me.

However, everything I've been reading in Scripture and hearing a Mass is telling me the same thing: don't worry and have faith in the Lord. He cares for the birds and the plants and He'll take care of you. He knows what you need before you even ask, so don't worry. Combined with my thoughts on how to serve in order to lead it's been on my mind a lot in the times I find quiet moments. I've always tried to trust and let the Lord take care of things for me. So far I haven't been disappointed. But there's days it's hard. It would be so much easier just to stay in bed and hide under the covers. But I get up anyway and just keep going. That seems like all I can do right now, just keep going.

Monkey off my back

2011-03-13T20:02:00.002-05:00

I finally got a big monkey off my back. One of the courses I've been taking required me to sumamarize and react to each of the 34 chapters in the textbook. It was tedious, mostly dull, and not very enlightening. I say "was" because today I finished the assignment. Four weeks ahead of time. Thank God. I have to say that was the WORST assignment I've ever done. As an amusing side note, my instructor gave me the results of my 3rd submission (there will be six total) and advised me to shorten it all up. I got that feedback when I had six more chapters to go. Too little, too late.

This now leaves me free to focus on the three papers I'm trying to write by April 15. The most important one, the first part of my capstone project for my degree, is about 1/3 complete. I've just started the second and need to do the research for and write the third. I'm pretty sure I can have them all done by the end of the month leaving me 2 weeks to proofread. I'm most concerned about the capstone project one. I really want that to be good. The second one I began I'm not so concerned about. It's an odd kind of assignment. A list of 25 "resources" and a description of them. One of the instructions stated the assignment should reflect I've been in the class. However, I'm only jumping into the class the last 4 weeks so I wasn't really in the class. However, as long as I pass, I'm good. The last paper is for my FAVE class above that I've just completed doing summaries. I'm actually kicking ass in the class, much as I hate the course and the instructor. Truthfully, I think I'll do OK on the paper but I'm also not really concerned about that grade either. I'm positive I can get at least a B. The only reason to get an A is to maximize my reimbursement from the company.

Truthfully, except for the one course I care about, I'm in the mode of just getting these courses done. The short course I'm taking is required and the other is an elective. So I just want to get them done and get the credit. I'm also looking forward to getting my weekends back. After this semester, the work I have left is a lot less. One course over the summer. Basically one course in the fall. Can't wait to finish up.

Finger in the dike

2011-03-08T22:47:00.002-05:00

That's how I feel lately. Like the kid who has his finger in the dike and if I take it out, the flood will come. There's just too many things going on between work, home, school, scouts, you name it. I just a few minutes ago put down the school work (that's 10:40 pm). I finally began writing one of the 3 papers due this semester. Research is mostly done on 2 but one I just have a rough outline. And I'm trying to get it all done by April 15. On an amusing note my one instructor (for the course I'm hating) is telling me that my "summaries" are too long and detailed and I should consider paring them down. I'm thinking that my summaries are about as minimal as I can make them without being completely shitty. I think they're only fair as it is. What does it say when the graduate work I think is B material is A+ material according to the instructor?

I could spend a lot of time giving details of all the crazy stuff that's going on right now. But I'm just too damn tired. There are times I just want to curl up in a ball and not get up. But I get up. Got to keep going. Where I'm going I don't know but I'll tell you when I get there.

Not to be

2011-02-28T21:56:00.002-05:00

Well, I submitted my resume for a position at work that could have been interesting and a combination of existing skills along with MBA skills I'm learning. It would have been outside the IT department, which isn't really a problem, but interfaced with IT. I knew it was a longshot when I applied but I was hoping to at least get an interview and get a chance to talk up my skills. Alas, it was not to be. They were solid on a requirement of 5 years marketing experience, which I can't make up no way no how. Ah well. I have my 2010 performance review on Friday and I think that will tell me a lot about how my organizaiton values me (or doesn't). I'm confident my boss tried to give me the best score he could, but the process is less about score on your review than fitting you into the correct "bucket" to figure out what your raise will be. We have this stupid "forced ranking" system that's supposed to be a pay for performance setup but what it really turns out to be is what senior management thinks of you. Who knows, I might get surprised, but I suspect that I'll be ranked lower than I think I should be. However, as long as I get a raise, I'll be marginally satisfied.

Had last week off with the boys and the wife. It should have been a relaxing week, but turned out to be stressful in a different kind of way. We booked a vacation to Baltimore during the April recess. Which should be a blast. However, I have 3 MAJOR assignments for school due right around that time (just after we get back). That means if I'm to enjoy that vacation, I need to get pretty much everything done before we leave, or 2 weeks early. So that means I spent last week going crazy trying to get ahead. And not enjoying it terribly much. We did do a fun thing and visited the Corning Museum of Glass in, where else, but Corning, NY! You would think a museum all about making glass would be dull, but it was totally cool! There was even a live demonstration of glass blowing! And if you wanted to pony up $25 you could even blow your own glass ornament. Not to mention all the other cool stuff. It was a welcome break from all the other things that had been weighing on my mind last week. I could probably do a whole post on that, but it would probably be more stressful to write about it.

Lastly, it appears I'm going to get to meet another of my blog pals! JennyJinx of Fabulously Jinxed is heading my way in the beginning of June so we're arranging for a meet. I'm looking forward to getting a chance to speak to this lovely young lady in the flesh after years of corresponding on the web. I have yet to meet all of my fave bloggers though I've spoken with many on the phone. Perhaps one of these days I'll have to go on a blog road trip. Perhaps for my 50th birthday. That could be fun.

As soon as I download the pics from CMOG from the SD card to my network I'll post a couple. Ellen is becoming quite the shutterbug with her new camera and we got LOTS of pictures.

Week off

2011-02-20T20:45:00.002-05:00

This week is break week for the boys so I've got the whole week off and the wife is only working Monday. No set plans but we want to do a day trip one day. Beyond that, it's a catch up week. I'm trying to get ahead on things so we can have a nice vacation durign April break. Not that I wouldn't go anyway, but it will be nice to have all my major assignments done.

Beyond that, things are pretty much the same. I feel like Dorrie in Finding Nemo. I'm just going to keep on swimming and hopefully I'll get to where I'm supposed to go.

Its the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

2011-02-15T21:55:00.003-05:00

Now that I'm on a roll with school, I'll probably have time occasionally to come here and put ink to screen and lay down my thoughts. So I told the story of how my professor pissed me off all to hell. Now its time to tell the OTHER story I mentioned about my career. Such as it is.

I had a one on one meeting with my boss. I'll say up front that I like working for him. He let's me do my job, he's there if I need him, and he's straight with me. No hidden agendas, no backstabbing, no cover your ass type of stuff. If he has a problem with you, he'll say so, probably rather bluntly. I can respect that as I know where I stand.

We've broached the conversation a few times over the last 6 months of "what I want to be when I grow up". He is interested in helping achieve my career goals and willing to give whatever assistance he can. The reason he's brought this up is that he's hearing rumblings of a possible department reorganization this year. And the bottom line is he has no idea what that means for me.

Here's the deal. Since taking over my current team full time, I've got them kicking ass and taking names. We CRUSHED all of our metrics for 2010. Call volume is down as our systems are better. Lots of impovements have gone in. Which means I'm now overstaffed. And my boss could use the resources elsewhere. I've already told him these things as I've been doing this long enough to know that if senior management really looked at my numbers they'd see the same thing. And that's something I'd rather get in front of than be dictated. So I've suggested to my boss that we really should take a new look at how the teams in our department work together and see how we can gain efficiencies with the staff on hand. It's the smart (and responsible) thing to do.

HOWEVER, his point to me is that assuming we do something like that, senior management may decide they don't need a supervisor to manage the 4 people it would take to handle the calls my team takes. And he has absolutely no idea what they would do with me or my position. He flat out told me that opportunities for me in the IT department are limited. We both agreed that my director (his boss) basically is unwilling to hear that my performance is far better than she thinks it is. I would probably have zero chance of her advocating for me. Given the other teams in the department, there's only one group I'd fit in well with. And the one possible opening they had is under review.

So what does this mean? He didn't know. On the plus side, this is all speculative and probably would come together for several months at least if this year. However, what he basically told me was that if I can find another position either in the department, in the company, or outside the company, it might be a good idea to jump and take it. You want to take about shaking me up? Not that I was very surprised by either the conversation or the fact that a couple of people in senior management have written me off. It's a sad part of my reality.

So, I did the only thing I could do after stressing about it for a little. I've been praying and just giving it all to God. This has happened to me so many times before in so many ways and the first time I trusted in God to take care of me it all worked out great. And has worked out great since then. So, I'm keeping my eyes open. I've updated my resume, I'm keeping an eye out for possible opportunities, and I'm reaching out to my network of professional friends. The Lord will show me the right thing when He's ready. It does sadden me that very few people at a high level in the organziation seem to value my work. Because I bet if they asked the people that I work with, my staff, my peers, my business partners, and my customers, I bet they'd get an eye opener. Perhaps I don't conform to their vison of what the organization needs in a leader. Perhaps I don't always follow processes exactly. Perhaps, worst of all, I have the audacity to have a vision of what this department should be. I don't know what it is. But I'm getting the feeling that perhaps its time to move on. Which kind of stinks because I actually like working where I work and really do care enough to want to make it a better place. You would think a person like that would be valued in this organization. Apparently, that isn't the case.

A simple question of Math

2011-02-14T22:12:00.002-05:00

So, more detail on the last post. The work thing will be next time, as I'm processing a great deal on that.

Soooo...Here's the deal. One of my courses has "journal" assignments instead of actual "papers". What is a journal assignment you ask? We'll basically this. The textbook for the course is made up of 34 chapters of essays and articles on leadership in nonprofit and public organizations. Which, by the way, is the name of the course. Ok, fine. Our "journal" assignments are to write a summary and reaction for EVERY chapter in the book.

The summary is just that. A synopsis of the important points in the chapter. The "reaction" is my thoughts on the chapter, preferable with some real world examples from my experience thrown in. Sounds pretty easy, right? Expept it takes about 2 pages to summarize a chapter (single spaced) and 2 pages to "react". And some of my real reactions is "who freaking cares?". Some of the topics are interesting and thought provoking. Others are "here are 10 steps to a better organization". And they're no brainer types of lists like, "know your mission, figure out were you need to improve, improve, measure, repeat". Duh. I need a graduate course to tell me that?

In any event, these assignments are due every two weeks. The semester started on 1/18 and the first assignment was due 1/30. The schedule gave dates and said for that date (each 2 weeks apart) "journal assignment due". I specifically emailed the instructor and said essentially "So I can summarize and react to half the readings for the module (should have mentioned the semester is broken into 3 five week modules) every two weeks, correct?" The response I got was "yes, that's right."

Cool. So, on 1/30, I turned in summaries and reactions to the first 5 chapters since our reading assignment for the module was chapters 1 to 10. I get the grade and feedback from the instructor by the end of the week, around 2/4. Besides some general comments, the instructor puts at the end, and I quote, "I am presuming that the other chapters will be coming later?" I was thinking to myself when I read it, "duh, we emailed back and forth that you'd get half every two weeks. Of course the rest will be later."

So, next assignment is due 2/13. I did pretty good and got cracking on it reasonably early. Had it done and ready to proof read by 2/9. I figure I'm in good shape. THEN comes the email. Instructor basically says, "In response to a fellow student's concern I want to apologize for not making the schedule clear but yes assigments are due every two weeks so chapters 11 to 23 are due on 2/13. I'll have an updated schedule out to everyone soon."

What the fuck! I had BARELY finished the first 10 chapters and NOW, FOUR DAYS before an assignment is due you tell me I have to do a shitload of work? Is that what that stupid comment meant at the end of my last assignment? So I quick post what I got and email the instructor that I'm sorry I didn't get the whole first 10 chapters submitted by the first date, but I posted the rest and I'll get at least half of the next 13 chapters posted by Sunday and get you the rest as soon as I can.

Then I thought about it for a while and decided to send THIS email:

"I’ve submitted the rest of the chapters for the first set of readings. While I submitted through Angel, I thought I would attach here as well. You’ve already graded chapters 1 to 5 of my work so here are 6 to 10. I look forward to seeing the modified schedule as in a previous email you sent me you indicated that the expectation was to post half of the chapter summaries every two weeks. By that measure and given the semester started on Jan 18, it would seem that Chapters 1 to 5 was due on Jan 30, 6 through 10 on Feb 13, 11 through 16 due Feb 27, etc. Hopefully the new schedule will clear things up.

As I emailed previously, I will get as many of chapters 11 to 23 to you by end of the day Sunday but since I only began Chapter 11 yesterday, I don’t know that I can do quality work on twelve chapters in three days. Please let me know if it is acceptable to get the completed assignment to you by the end of next week. I’m pretty sure I can complete by then.

Thanks again for the clarifications on due dates. They’re much appreciated."

As it turns out, I WAS RIGHT. The instructor sent a few more email within the next few hours apologizing for all the confusion and then sent a schedule with specific chapters due every two weeks. She made everyone in the class CRAZY over NOTHING. This is the same instructor that for whatever reason actually lives in North Carolina and can't use course email because she's having some sort of "technical" difficulty and corresponds by personal email. This course is an ELECTIVE for God's sake. It shouldn't be causing this much stress and this much work. Worse, it's one of the few courses I've gotten very little out of. Other than one concept on servant leadership, it's pretty clear to me this course will be a waste of my time. Or, a requirement that must be born. Normally I don't do end of course evaluations, but this will be an exception. This instructor is so unorganized its not even funny. That, and this whole "journal" thing is tedious and not of much value as far as I'm concerned. I'd have preferred to write a pair of 10 to 15 page papers on two of the main concepts in the book. At least then I could pick and chose references and thoughts. Summarizing a book is more high school than graduate work. On the plus side, one of my other courses used a similar format but I tested out of the modules with those assignments so I don't have to do this stupidity for two courses.

On the plus side, I'm now ahead of the game with these silly summaries. Considering we're looking to go away for April break and that its the second last week of the semester so I have a TON of things due, I'm trying to get as much done ahead as possible. Sorry for the long post, but dammit that instructor pissed me off all to hell over nothing.

Not a good day

2011-02-10T15:15:00.002-05:00

So, in the interest of a short 5 minute post, today has not been a terribly "up" day. Without getting into too much detail:

Spoke to my boss yesterday and he indicated avenues of advancement for me in the department are slim. There may be opportunities in the company outside of IT. AND, there are rumors of reorganization in the department. If that happens my future would be unclear.

Got an email today from one of my course instructors saying "Oops, I screwed up and work you thought was due a month from now is due Sunday. Sorry." Took all of my strenght not to flame the woman. Vented to Ellen and came down off the ledge. However, if a reasonaable extension is not granted to catch up with this new, HIGHLY accelerated assignment schedule, I'm blowing her in to my mentor. You can't simply decide 4 weeks in to the semester that all of the assigment dates have changed. I think the original course schedule was quite clear and that the instructor is the one with the problem.

Perhaps I'll give you guys details later. However, I expect to be VERY busy typing a great deal of tedious information for a certain instructor for the next several days.

Making progress

2011-02-07T22:00:00.002-05:00

I know, I committed to blogging more and I barely do. With so much energy going into family and school, I don't have as much time. But I do what I can.

We got the 2nd quarter report cards today for the boys. Nicholas has great grades, as usual. He's been excelling academically and we're very proud of him. Now we need to make sure he doesn't get too big an ego. Wish us luck with that.

Christopher's grades have improved. He struggled in a couple of classes through Christmas, but we think he finally sees how important being organized and turnign in homework is. However, we still can't seem to teach him common sense. Today I got a text from Ellen asking about his glasses. Today was his eye exam and he was wearing glasses from a few years ago with an old prescription. She asked me if we'd gotten him new glasses recently which I thought we had. We both figured they were probably hiding in his room somewhere. Of course, after we got home he finally admits he lost them at school a couple of weeks ago. He put them down during wrestling practice and forgot to get them. And hasn't bother to ask ANYONE at school if they might have been turned in. This along with him losing head gear, swimming trunks, and Lord knows what else. If he was worried about his glasses during practice, I don't know why he didn't just tell the coach to excuse him while he put them in his locker. That didn't even occur to him.

Oh well. If he doesn't find them, he's out the replacement cost. We've taken the position that if he loses something we purchase for him we're not purchasing it again. It can come out of his cash. I guess you win some and you lose some. Grades up but forgetfullness not down.

New phone tribulations

2011-02-04T09:58:00.002-05:00

For those that follow me on Facebook, you'll have noticed that I (and Ellen) have gotten new Windows 7 smartphones. Let me say up front that we both LOOOOOVE these new phones. We're totally connected now and can easily contact each other. Both kids now have a phone (with the expectation that they BETTER pick up if we call them).

However, these new phones were not without their drama. We were on pre-paid plans with T-Mobile. I stuck with them because they had the best rates for their plans. At least $20 a month less than everyone else on comperable plans. So we asked them to port our existing numbers over to the new phones. Should have been easy, right? The rep at the store said 24 hours for sure, probably just a couple of hours.

That was Saturday. By Monday, nothing, so I called. THAT'S when the drama started. The first person I talked to didn't seem to know how to help me. So they got me to tech support. Who couldn't help me because my PIN did not match their records. And they couldn't change my PIN. I had to call from my mobile phone or call their 800 number. Except the SIM in my phone was for a temporary number they gave me and you can't change your PIN via the 800 number unless you know the old one. So I called customer service again, who transferred me back into the queue. I talked to a BUNCH more people, getting more pissed the more people I talked to. I FINALLY got someone to tell me that I needed to put my OLD SIM in the phone as that was where the number resided and it would get updated. Which is NOT what the rep told me. So I swapped SIMS and was then able to change my PIN. Which resulted in another call to tech support to find out the request to port the number never got entered. AHHHH! So I FINALLY got confirmation numbers after about an hour and a half of calling people.

So later that day, I called to see if I could expidite the process, I went round and round with the person just to get basic information. As it turns out, he FINALLY told me they were having technical issues and that it would be 48 to 72 hours before the number transferred. I asked about 6 or 7 times if I needed to swap out my SIMS to use my old number and this person couldn't seem to understand what I was asking. If I ask "So will the notification text that tells me this is complete go to my old phone number or to the temporary one you gave me? And when I get it will I have to put my old SIM in my phone?" The person I spoke to couldn't seem to understand me. So to be on the safe side, since I was travelling, I took an old phone with me with my old SIM in it.

The result, on my way home Wednesday, I got a couple of texts on my new phone with the SIM associated with my "temporary" number saying the requests were complete. When I called home on my new phone, the caller ID popped up with my old phone number. So, basically what I SHOULD have been told right at the beginning was that the order to switch my number didn't go through, here's the confirmation numbers to get it done, it will take 48 to 72 hours, and I didn't need to do anything.

I got every kind of story but that. From a guy who works in customer service, I wasn't happy about what I got. However, now that it's all right, I still LOOOOOVE my phone.

Lots of little things going on

2011-02-02T13:42:00.003-05:00

Trying to find time to post is becoming difficult with all the stuff going on right now. Lots of little things. I decided to go from pre-paid phones to a family plan and now Ellen and I have kick ass smart phones. Both boys now have their own phones and Nicholas has been sending me the cutest text messages.

I had to travel to headquarters for a meeting for the first time in about a year. The good, I had some excellent face time with the right people and demonstrate some of my abilities. Also got to chat with some peers I haven't hung out with in a while. We had a blast over dinner and drinks last night. On the minus side, I had to travel in what was being billed as a "storm of potentially historic proportions". I'm not home yet (blogging from the train) but from what I'm gathering the storm is a dud. There's been almost no snow most of my trip so far.

Wrestling season is done (yay!). Now we can get Christopher focused on some other things and work on his grades. 2nd quarter ended so we'll see if he improved. Nicholas will be starting even MORE advanced classes. He's definately the studious one of the two (but not necessarily the smarter of the two). Christopher did get a 91 on his jazz solo despite the fact his instructor didn't adequately prepare him for it. He thought he totally tanked it but did very well.

Pretty much the last couple of weeks has been non-stop doing stuff from the minute I get up until the minute I got to bed. Looking forward to a time when that MIGHT slow down. Not counting on it though.

Letting it go

2011-01-27T20:26:00.003-05:00

Yesterday the new service desk manager at our organziation was announced. This was the position I'd applied for and later withdrew my application. The person "groomed" for the position was given the job. I hold no bitterness towards this person. They're a good supervisor and I think they'll be very good at it. But it's been hard this week not to feel bitter about my organization.

There are times I feel left behind as a supervisor. Certainly in my direct department, that makes 2 people (one that used to work for me) that have advanced above me. The thing that sticks in my head was the phrase "groomed". I get the feeling sometimes that parts of my chain of command have written me off and stuck me in a corner out of the way. My boss certainly intimated my opportunities in my department may be limited and it's always wise to keep an eye on what's out there. Not to say anyone's pushing me out the door, but I think the expectation is that some people think I've advanced as much as I can, whether because they don't think there's a place for me or they think I'm not capable.

That last bit is what really burns me. Because I KNOW there are a couple of senior leaders that don't think I have what it takes to be successful at the next level. I'll be the first to admit I made some mistakes in the past and should have done better when I had the role. However, when the feedback you get from your director is that you're not doing a good job and "I don't know how to tell you to fix it", it makes it difficult to succeed. And when that same director asks you boss why he's telling them all the time about your successes, that sends a loud signal.

However, I try not to let it get me down. I really like what I do. I'm knowledgable, respected by the people I want to be respected by, and I think my staff believes I'm a good leader. At least one of them has thanked me for mentoring them. So I'll keep on going. But I'm convinced in order to move up in my organization I'm going to need to make a sideways move into a different group. Or, for all I know, things will get shaken up in my group. We have an opening for a supervisor and bringing in new blood is always a good time to shake things up. Who knows.

All I can do is keep getting better at what I do. And that I do very well.

It's in the genes

2011-01-25T22:32:00.002-05:00

Nicholas attended solofest last week. That's a twice a year event where musicians in the school districts in our county play solos for a judge to see how well they do. If they care to, they can compete for a spot in the all county band. Solos have different levels, the higher the level, the more difficult the solo. The difficulty of the solo goes into the calculation of whether or not you make all county band.

Nicholas did a level 5 solo (pretty tough for a 7th grader) and got a 97 out of 100! This not only qualified him to make the all county 7th/8th grade band, he is first chair! For the second time in a row! Meaning he's the best in the county among 7th and 8th graders at his instrument (the euphonium). Not too shabby for a budding mucisian! I found out from a music teacher friend of mine an 8th grader did the same solo as him and scored a couple points less and didn't even MAKE the all county band!

The funniest part was when I asked Nicholas how he thought he did after the solo, he said "Pretty good but not as good as last year. I messed up some stuff." He's SUCH a musician! We always think we suck. This I know from experience. Ellen and I are looking forward to seeing him again play in all county band. It will be his 3rd time. Christopher is doing a jazz solo later this week but we're not holding out for him to make all county jazz band. He plays sax and the competition is so fierce, nothing short of perfect will make it. We know some VERY talented sax players in Nicholas' band and they didn't even have a chance. But we're hoping he can get a good score!

Colder than a witch's tit

2011-01-23T15:50:00.002-05:00

Hope my pals in the northeast are enjoying the deep freeze. It's not too terribly cold here, only about 13 degrees. But cold enough, dammit. We had some fun this weekend. Unfortunately, one of our favorite toy store/train store is closing. The owner is having trouble competing with electronic games and he figures 19 years is enough in one business. But, that allowed us to get some good stuff at a discount. Ellen wants to try model rocketry as a hobby so we got her a rocket, launch pad, and all the other accesories. Now we're waiting for spring to launch it! I always loved rockets as a kid so I was more than happy to encourage her.

As a quick update on some previous posts, of course, Ellen was right about not obsessing about school. I did some work today on one of my papers and realized that it's not as hard as it looked and I should have no problem meeting the deadling as long as I pace myself. I really need to stop sweating this stuff.

Finally, just an amusing anecdote to my post title. My late mother in law (who was never shy about a little colorful language now and then or stirring the pot) was always fond of saying it was "colder than a witch's tit) in this kind of weather. Perhaps it's the guy in me, but I'm fond of that particular phrase. So, the other day my pal Lois posted on Facebook the question which is colder, a witch's tit or a well digger's ass. Now, I hadn't heard of that second phrase so I asked Ellen, mentioning the FB post. She stated she'd had a lively discussion at work about that very topic! Small world, is it not?

Perspective

2011-01-20T22:03:00.002-05:00

I must give thanks to my lovely wife for keeping me grounded. The new semester started this week (on Tuesday). You may suspect that I get a LITTLE obsessive when it comes to school work. Such as having a paper due on 2/7 and starting to think I'm behind and there's no way to do all the research in time and on and on.

Ellen, on the other hand, was good enough to remind me I have over 2 weeks to get it done. And it's not like I haven't done anything like it before. That course builds on all the work I've done so far. And nearly every paper I submitted that I thought was not bad got a really good grade.

So I'm trying to pace myself and get some work done every night and so far I'm doing well! I've got a outline under way which I should have done some time next week. Which should still give me plenty of time to gather resources and actually write the thing. My other course is not too demanding right now so I'll just keep plugging way.

Wives have a great way of smacking their husbands upside the head (figuratively if not literally). Thank the Lord for such a wonderful lady.

Words of Wisdom

2011-01-18T20:42:00.002-05:00

I was picking up Nicholas from his youth group tonight and overheard the coordinator say the following:

"Sometimes Jesus asks us to be last so other can be first."

Talk about powerful. After all the stuff going on and questions I had about career and home, that's pretty much the answer I was looking for. I've been reading and thinking a lot about the concept of "servant leadership". I think sometimes the best thing to do is just take care of your people and Jesus will take care of you.

Leadership 101

2011-01-16T19:18:00.002-05:00

I've been reading a lot about leadership lately for the courses I'm taking this semester. Probably the best things I've taken away from my MBA courses so far are those that make me think about how to be a better manager and leader. I've been thinking about vision along with this reading. I feel the need to emphasize customer service more with my team. I've got a few team members that seem (to me at least) to find our customers "bothersome". The complain about going above and beyond for them and seem to think the organization should take a "you missed the deadline too bad" kind of approach. I don't see it that way. My challenge now is to try and instill in them the passion I have for what we do. I think a couple of my employees are showing up just for a paycheck. And while I wouldn't fire someone just for that, my feeling is that if they don't want to come in every day with the attitude to do the most they can to help the customers, perhaps they should find a job they enjoy.

We'll see how it goes, but my boss is behind me so perhaps I can turn it around and make our organization just a little better.

Lead me Lord

2011-01-14T21:36:00.002-05:00

For those of you that see my Facebook posts, you may know that last week I submitted my resume for a promotion at work. One of my collegues left the company and her position opened up. I thought it might be a good move for me as it would still be managing first line support teams. Well, today I had one of my periodic 1 on 1 meetings with my boss (who this position also reports to). As was expected, one of the supervisors on the team also submitted their resume for the job. She reported to my co-worker that left. My boss basically told me that he'd be happy to interview me for the postion, but that if it came down to chosing between her and I, she'd get the job. So I've decided to withdraw my application.

Now, before you get all indignant and outraged (which I appreciate), truthfully I was relieved. Odd as it sounds, when I applied for the job, I wasn't sure it was the best thing to do. There would be significantly more travel involved with that position. Further, I was concerned that I would be further removed from the customer. As it turns out, I actually enjoy interfacing directly with our customers as well as my business partners.

I really do enjoy what I do. I've been really successful in this role. I get to "get my hands dirty". I've always believed the Lord will lead me where I need to go. When I first learned this position would open up, my first thought was whether this was an opportunity the Lord was presenting or if I was already in the right place. I believe that prayer was answered today.

Truthfully, I'm content where I am right now. Balance between work and home is good. I have the time to devote to Ellen and the kids (and school). And there's nothing wrong with being content. Would I like to do more? Sure. But not at a cost to my personal life. Also, I'm not totally sure that I didn't apply for this position to prove to some people at work that I could do it. I know there are some people, some in senior positions, that don't think I'm capable of being a "manager" as our oganization defines it. I certainly don't agree with them on what a "manager" is. But that isn't the right reason to take a job. I don't have anything to prove to myself.

If the Lord needs me to be somewhere else, He'll provide my the opportunity. He always has in the past. In the meantime, I'll keep doing what I'm doing and enjoy it.

Off the Record

2011-01-12T21:49:00.002-05:00

I had to have a conversation today with one of my employees. It was a "coaching" kind of meeting to discuss a customer complaint. During the converstion, the employee asked to say some things "off the record". While I certainly didn't mind the openness, can you really tell your supervisor something that is "off the record"?

Just a thought.

Pushing my Buttons

2011-01-11T20:13:00.002-05:00

I could go on a lengthy rant, but for the sake of my blood pressure and those around me I won't. I'll go on a short rant. I believe I've posted before some of the issues I have with the Catholic Church lately. Not the people mind you, but the hierarchical Church structure/administration. The last couple of days has really made me shake my head at them.

Our regular assisting priest is on sabbatical to deal with some personal issues so we've had a "substitute" priest. The first one was a very nice retired priest. However, the active priest that baptized Nicholas when he was our associate priest was available so now he is our priest until the regular one returns from sabbatical. He USED to be the pastor of his own church until he was basically fired. I won't go into all the reasons, but it was pure politics. He has a deep love of the poor and was trying to help out an inner city parish that sorely needed it. And he got no support whatsoever. Top that off with a post from a local blogger that Ellen found talking smack about our parish and how we were so fucked up because we have a pastoral administrator and a staff person that believes women should be priests and I was off baby.

Over the years I've come to suspect that our Church in Rome has become a bunch of Pharisees. Jesus spoke well of them when he said the worship with their lips but their hearts are far from the Lord and that they place large burdens on their flock they won't themselves shoulder. Lately it seems the Catholic Church is all about RULES. We have a rule for this, a rule for that, and you can only be a REAL Catholic if you follow all the RULES. Our Church is going to Hell because we haven't been following the RULES.

The Catholic Church is going to hell in a handbasket because we are forgetting about what Jesus asked us to do. Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, help the poor, visit the sick and the prisoner. Instead of doing that, we're re-writing how the Mass should be said. We're arguing about who should be a priest. We're debating points of theology that don't really make a difference. Love the Lord as yourself and love your neighbor as yourself.

I go to Mass every week to worship and give back to God (when I play, that is). It's about spending some time with the Lord. Truthfully, the words and forms we utilize aren't that important. At Mass, the only thing that matters to me is receiving the Body of Christ. I swear, if there was another Christian faith that actually believed in Transubstantiation, I'd be outta here. Anyway, as I've told others, you can't fix something from the outside so I'll keep going and hopefully convince some people that it isn't about the Rules. It's about Jesus, stupid.

Happy Birthday to my Lady!

2011-01-09T19:06:00.003-05:00

Today is Ellen's birthday. To celebrate, I took her to see Bugs Bunny at the Symphony last night. Our philharmonic orchestra played the music for Bugs Bunny (and other) cartoons while they played them on a big screen. It was 2 hours of fun and music! The experience was awesome and I highly recommend seeing it if you can.

Today after church we went to our favorite BBQ joint with the kids for lunch. The food was yummy as usual and we had plenty left over to take home. The boys and I also got her some new charms for her bracelet. Overall I think she's had a good birthday and she certain had a lot of fun. So Happy Birthday to my lovely wife. Here's a couple of then and now pictures:

Bad Science

2011-01-06T12:46:00.002-05:00

Don't know if you heard about this but there was a doctor that published research that linked autism to measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines. Something about trace amounts of mercury or some such nonsense. Well this physician has been totally debunked, defrocked, and now people want his head for defauding people. (Here's a link to the story)

I've come to realize that too many people hear a story and then take it as gospel without doing more research or getting more facts. I saw a story on TV where one family didn't vaccinate their kid and he ended up in the hospital, all due to the fear cause by this very bad science.

However, the worst part was some woman still defending the study. She claimed it "saved her family!" And just how did it save her family? She didn't say, but I'm guessing her reasoning is that she didn't get her kids vaccinated and they were not diagnosed with autism. Right?

NOOOOOOO!

It does NOT follow that just because you didn't get your kid vaccinated and they didn't develop ANY given condition that the vaccine causes that condition! There are too many variables involved! That's like saying I wore my helmet riding and I didn't get hit by a car therefore wearing helmets prevents you from getting run over. Never mind that the reason I didn't get run over might have something to do with the Screaming Yellow jacket I'm wearing, the fact I use a mirror on my bike, that I only ride in daylight, or just that I was damn lucky.

To make it even more personal, both my kids got vaccinated for measles, mumps, and rubella. One was diagnosed on the autism spectrum and the other wasn't. So did the vaccine cause autism or not? People can be really stupid.

What a revolting development

2011-01-04T23:01:00.002-05:00

I received an email last Friday from my MBA chair that one of the classes I'd registered for was cancelled. I was disappointed on many levels. First of all, it looked like a good course (it was an elective). It was on change management and that's been a big theme at work. Second, I had planned on reading all the textbooks for my courses prior to the semester starting. Of course, I'd read the books for that course FIRST. I'm on the last of my original textbooks so I'd have been done by Sunday for sure. Now I had to order a new textbook and have to return the ones I don't need (and pay return shipping). Finally, I had submitted and been approved for reimbursement for that course so now I had to resubmit the paperwork.

Basically a lot of hassles and a lost week of getting ahead in school. It was rather the annoyance. However, classes actually start on 1/18 so I should be able to do all the reading by then. However, courses go live online on 1/11 and I had wanted to be done reading by then so I could dive in WAY ahead of time. Oh well. I'll still be pretty far ahead of the game. Who knows, I may even be able to get a paper written before the semester officially starts. Am I being TOO motivated?

What a day

2011-01-03T22:04:00.002-05:00

I knew today would be rough at work, being I'd been out a week and we expected a lot of calls today with all kinds of new programs going in after the first of the year.

But DAMN!

Pretty much all I did today was handle team email and call back a few customers. And that took up my ENTIRE day. By 4 pm, my brain hurt. Literally.

However, being home was gold. All I did was hang out and do some reading for school. We watched Mony Python and the Holy Grail, which is still stupidly funny. I want me a Holy Hand Grenade. So tonight I get some rest and go back tomorrow to do battle once more.

Happy New Year

2011-01-02T18:44:00.002-05:00

Can you believe another year has gone by? Where the hell did 2010 go? I'm still having trouble with the fact it's January.

I had a nice week off, but tomorrow it's back to the normal routine. In a way, it's probably a good thing. I OD'd on holiday eating and desserts and such. Also, yesterday was a REALLY long (if fun) day. We went to my mom's for "dinner" (meaning a big meal at 2 pm), had to run out of there early to get to Church to set up and play for Mass at 5 pm, then we ran to a friend's house to hang with them and a high school buddy that's home for the holiday. She works in Canada and only comes home a couple of times a year.

All in all that was the highlight of the day. We had a great time hanging out. Our friend has 2 girls that are the same ages as the boys so they had a blast hanging out together. As an amusing side note, Christopher had to wash his hair and look good before we went out there. He said it was because he was looking grungy but Ellen and I think it's because he was going to be hanging out with a very cute young lady.

Today has been a relaxing day just getting a few things done and watching some football. I've got a lot of work waiting for me when I get in tomorrow after being off for a week so it's nice to relax before diving back in. I've got one annoying school thing that happened on Friday but I'll relate that at a later time after it resolves itself.

Hope everyone had a Happy New Year and that 2011 is full of blessings.

The Miles keep rolling

2010-12-29T19:05:00.002-05:00

I took a look at my bike computers. I got the first one last Christmas. Since that time, I've racked up over 800 miles on my two bikes. And I got a ride in today and probably will again tomorrow so I had some good mileage in the last 12 months. We'll see how 2011 goes.

We have no big plans for New Year's Eve this year. We have a movie to watch. We'll put together some good snacks. Maybe go downtown to see fireworks. Probably go see a CSI exhibit at the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Saturday will be a little crazy. We're going to my mom's for "dinner" (the Italian tradition of having a large meal at about 2 pm). And I need to be at church early to set up to play Mass at 5. But that leaves Sunday with no obligations so over all it should be good.

Enjoying the week off from work. So far the most fun thing we did was go sledding yesterday. We got the boys new sleds for Christmas so we had to try them out. What a blast that is. The hill was pretty slick so the sledding was fast. Got some great action shots.

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year and a successfull 2011.

Breaking the Rules

2010-12-26T17:42:00.002-05:00

For Christmas this year I got cold weather riding gear. I got long riding pants and shoe covers to keep my footies warm. I have a rule that I'll only ride if it's warmer than 30 degrees outside. Well, since I had some new gear, of course I had to go riding today. And the temp was 25 degress. Truthfully, I was only a little chilly. Overall I stayed pretty warm. However, I did get reminded why I set the 30 degree rule. It was a bit brisk riding today.

I've also been in a cooking mood today. It probably had to do with making up for a bad start to the day. Christopher and I where planning on going to church early today since he was supposed to have wrestling practice at noon and our usual Mass ends at 11:30. So when I got in my car to head out, I found out my battery was stone cold dead. Not a good way to start the day. Luckily, when I got home I managed to jump start it with Ellen's car. So I let the battery charge while she was at church. And decided she needed something good to come home to. So I made blueberry muffins.

And since it's a Sunday and I wasn't planning on going anywhere and it's cold outside (as I very plainly know), I decided lasagne was appropriate. Meaning I had to make the sauce from scratch. I was planning on grocery shopping today anyway so I got everything I needed and got the sauce going when I got home. Went for a ride while the sauce was cooking. And then got the lasagne in the oven. It is now "resting" waiting for us to devour. I actually enjoy cooking when I have the time and it's been a good end to the day after all of the excitment this morning.

Getting ready to recharge

2010-12-23T12:46:00.003-05:00

After today, I'm done with work for the year. I normally take the week between Christmas and New Year's off since the boys are home from school. It's usually my time to recharge from the work year before diving in to the next one.

And I think 2011 is going to be a crazy year. I'm working to complete my MBA by the end of the year. I'm pretty sure there's going to be some big changes in my department next year. There's a possible opportunity for me now but no matter what I do I'm pretty sure my job will be different by this time next year. Of course, there's always new things with the boys to make the year exciting. So I'm pretty sure catching my breath will be necessary.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and that Santa brings you everything you need, if not everything you want. And may you enjoy the peace of the Lord through the season and the new year.

Change is the only constant

2010-12-21T22:10:00.002-05:00

So many things going on right now. All the last minute Christmas stuff (wrapping, family things, etc) is making us crazy. Both boys have something going on at the same time tomorrow. Christopher can't seem to get his act together with school or sports. Opportunites at work are both exciting and terrifying. The stress is making all of us a little crazy.

Short but sweet

2010-12-20T22:16:00.002-05:00

It's been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster around here the last couple of days. That is all.

Other side of the story

2010-12-17T09:16:00.002-05:00

In one of my courses this semester, Managerial Decision Making, we talked a lot about how to "debias" your thinking and take a more reasoned view before making decisions. There were a few biases to watch out for, one being the "confirmation" bias, meaning you look for information that supports a decision you've already made as opposed to gathering information before making a decision. We also talked a lot about listening to opposing views.

With that in mind, I recommend you check out the blog below. I will admit up front that it is biased from the perspective of the healthcare company (namely mine). However, you hear a lot these days about "evil" healthcare companies raising your rates. Before you decide that the insurance companies are to blame, gather more facts, get information from both sides, and then make a decision for yourself instead of letting media sound bites shape your opinion for you. Even if you don't agree with the position in the blog (and I don't agree with them all), it should provide you good food for thought. And not enough people in this country do that: think for themselves. Enjoy.

Health Care Perspectives

Small blessings

2010-12-16T21:26:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it's the little things in life that make you happy:

I won't have to get up early tommorow to clean the driveway as the snow has stopped for a few days.
I figured out what else to get Ellen for Christmas since one of the gifts I ordered won't make it on time.
We made Cranberry Walnut Orange bread tonight to give as gifts to my band members. We had enough batter to make a half loaf and it was tasty!
I'm pretty much done with school for the semester with the exception of editing the work of others in my group. Which is easy. I like slashing...I mean editing other's work.

So I'm going to kick back and veg in front of the TV. Hope you all find some pleasure in the little things too.

Two great movies that go great together

2010-12-14T20:21:00.002-05:00

My pal Nanner put this on Facebook and I loved it! Two of my favorite movies are Star Wars and The Princess Bride. This is a great mash up of the two of them. Enjoy!

In the home stretch

2010-12-12T21:35:00.001-05:00

This week begins my final push for the semester. I've got the work complete for one course and just need to read it one more time and turn in next weekend. In the other course, we have online presetations tomorrow and Tuesday followed by a group assignment due on the 20th. Then I'm done with courses for the year. Of course, I'm going to spend the break reading all the material for next semester to get a jump on it. Next semester is going to be the greatest amound of work for me but after that it's all down hill. One course summer semester (8 weeks long) and one course plus the last module of another course next fall to finish off the degree. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Hopefully it's not a train coming at me.

And the winner is...!

2010-12-11T20:06:00.001-05:00

Today Christopher finally made weight and was able to wrestle with the JV team at his school. He's at the bottom end of the lowest weight class so we've been trying to fatten him up a little. He had 6 matches today and only lost 1! And he pinned one of his opponents! First time for that. Ellen was disappointed she wasn't there to see it. We would have stayed to watch the tournament, but with tomorrow's weather looking nasty we had to get some Christmas shopping in today. Shouldn't have bothered, we did almost all of it online instead.

Christopher's performance put him in second place today. Last year he was usually getting beat every tournament so it's nice to seem him wrestling better. And he had a lot of fun, which is good. I like the wrestlers. For all of their competitiveness on the mat, they really do show a lot of sportsmanship towards each other. It's good to see some sports are more about competing than just winning.

On one amusing note, Ellen was looking at pictures of another tournament online and found one of a couple of wrestlers with their butts in the air. She commented on how she didn't want to see 116 pound class butts like that. I mentioned there was a certain butt in the 112 pound class I don't mind seeing. Christopher immediately went "Dad! That's gross!" To which I replied, "Did I embarass you? Perhaps I should give Mom a big kiss?" He then said "Ew! Old love!" I'm not sure if I should have taken offense, but I laughed my ass off instead. Maybe if we had more "old love" the world would be a better place.

Back on my game

2010-12-08T21:21:00.002-05:00

I had a 1 on 1 with my boss today. He was very kind and mentioned several times what a good job he thought I was doing. He stated he doesn't say it enough but wanted to make sure I knew how much he appreciated my hard work. Normally, I don't need that kind of patting on the back, but given some of the struggles I've had at work over the last 12 to 18 months, it was good to hear.

He gave me the best possible compliment you could give me. He told me that he's quite pleased that he can give me assignments and he KNOWS I'll get them done. He doesn't have to check up on me or hound me for whatever he needs. That's the way I like to roll. Tell me what you want done, when you want it done by, and get out of my way to let me do it. It's nice to feel like I'm valued and that I can perform at work at the level I think I can. I really had my confidence shaken for a while and now I've got it back, if a little more cautious in that confidence than previously.

The last couple of days has been crazy with end of the year stuff going on. It's given me the opportunity to do something I really enjoy. Showing my staff their boss can handle the customer better than they can. I've been getting all of the customers that my staff can't handle for whatever reason; person is irate, my agent can't get them to follow directions, they can't figure out what to do to help them, etc. They transfer the call to me and I get the issue resolved in no time flat, with a smile in my voice, and as much patience as is needed to fix the problem. Call it a small vanity, but I pride myself on being able to walk my talk. If I don't get frustrated with a "high maintenance" customer, why should they? It all starts with customer service baby.