Sunday, March 09, 2008
Winter warm
I will never again doubt the functionality of igloos. I'm sitting here in the middle of winter in Maine, our house is buried in snow, it's about 30° outside and I'm sweating with the window open. Thermodynamics and insulation being what they are, and all.
Can't sleep. I'm just flat Pokè-d out for the day. Both kids decided they wanted Pokèmon coloring books, so I printed a couple off. Ian had a bit of trouble (which I'll get into in a little bit) but Aidan worked particularly hard to stay out of trouble so she could watch the first Pokèmon movie this weekend. So I watched it with her last night. And this morning. And I'll probably have to watch it again tomorrow. LOL She cried at the same spot I did, when Ash got petrified and Picachu tried to wake him up. At first I thought she was shamming, but sure enough, she was really affected by it. She still thinks it's quite sad, but it didn't bother her as much the second time.
So now, I'm kicking back and watching a wicked old episode of Dr. Who
"The Invasion" with Patrick Troughton. A lot of these older ones (Hartnell and Troughton) have been lost and apparently at least the first installment of this one was damaged because the soundtrack was original but the video had been animated. With modern technology from the looks of it. The rest is the original live-action stuff. I owe a great debt of Geekish Gratitude to a dude named Anthony for my growing stock of Dr. Whos. Bless his heart, where ever and whoever he is. LOL
Ok, now to Ian's mess. This past week wasn't a good one for my dear boy. When I stopped to pick the kids up after school on Tuesday I was handed a Bus Slip that Ian had been given. Now I've never liked this bus driver from the time she took over so I was a bit skeptical when I saw it. When I asked Ian what happened he told me that W, the kid he sits next to on the bus and one of his oldest friends got annoyed with him because he was singing a song. He expressed this annoyance by slamming Ian's head into the window a few times and bending up his glasses. Needless to say I was
LIVID! I was on the phone to the bus barn before Ian even finished talking. The boss wasn't there but I talked to the driver herself. Turns out that she didn't give him a slip for that incident, but after she moved W, she put a girl, I, next to Ian. Ian has known here for years too, but he was so upset from the attack and he was feeling crowded so he butted his head at I. He didn't actually touch her, but for that he got a bus slip. W didn't get one until I chewed the bus driver out for letting him try and bash Ian's skull in. Then on Thursday, I got an email from Ms. E, his teacher. Seems that Ian's class has been making model mountains in class out of clay and chocolate chips. Sadly, Ian decided to nibble on the mountain range. She emailed me to ask if it would be alright if she let some of the kids tell Ian how they felt about that and whether he should have to give back some of his Ian Dollars that he earns toward the School Store for his work. I said sure to both, but asked if it could be a small group of kids and if one of the teachers could process it with him after to make sure he understood and was ok. Well, when they had their meeting it seems that the kids decided that since they were going to have to throw the models out anyway (the clay was cracking so they'll need to make them again) that Ian's apology was punishment enough, but he had to promise not to touch the new models when they made them unless he was helping to make them. The teacher asked if we though she should take the dollars anyway, but we decided that it would be a good lesson for him to learn about being part of a democratic process. They had their own tribunal and since they were the injured parties, we figured their ruling would stand. However, he didn't get to watch the Pokèmon movie with us. He gets to start over tomorrow and try and earn it for next weekend, though. Here's hoping for a much better week for the poor little guy.
Work was interesting. One of the case managers is leaving and she had an exit interview with the Director of the Company. One of the things the CM brought up was that if we had a Q/A person to do all the case related paperwork (service plans, quarterly reviews and whatnot) the CMs would have more time to actually do work and could carry larger caseloads. Now guess what the first words out of the Director's mouth were. I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. Yep "Is that something Kim can do?" I kid you not. My job description is a page and a half long. It has doubled since I started there and aside from cost of living I haven't gotten a raise in all that time. I think they don't keep track of how often they say "Let's just have Kim do it" because if they did they'd KNOW they've pretty close to reached critical mass with my time. GEEZ!
I put in a bid to do a website for a non-profit group for sign language interpreters. Things were going well until someone on the board's rabbi piped up and said he'd do it for free. I give up on ever making money at the web design thing. I've decided it's quite hopeless. Every idiot with a copy of Front Page or Dreamweaver thinks they can make a "professional-looking" web page. Honestly, the things I've seen people come up with just to save money are absolutely atrocious! And, to ad insult to injury, our church, for whom I have been single-handedly doing the website for the past 5+ years has decided they want to pay a UU design company to take it over. I have been fighting for the past 4+ years to redesign the thing and make it functional and interactive. Every year everyone says "That's a GREAT idea!" then nothing happens. Well this year it was happening! I had the new design, I was gathering content, working out functionality people were finally starting to get involved in the process. I had someone who had been wanting to get involved in the website for a couple years finally get on board and she was acting as the coordinator, collecting the information, interfacing with the committees, etc. Well, she got fed up with it after a while. Not that I blame her, it's a frustrating process. But because she got fed up and quit, they apparently assumed that that meant I was fed up and didn't want to do it anymore either. They then tell me that the web page is obviously too much for "volunteers" to do and it's time to bring in professionals. ::ahem:: I'M A PROFESSIONAL!!! PAY ME TO DO IT!!! I was THIS close to something I've been fighting for for so long and not only do they snatch it away from me, but then insult me by PAYING someone else to do what I've been doing for free and was still willing to do for free. I was in the church last Friday dropping off printer cartridges for their recycling program (they use them to help pay the utility bills, I have no idea how it works) and spoke with a couple ladies there. I basically mentioned that I was kind of bummed that I got fired from the website. Well the next day I start getting calls from the minister expressing her concern that I'm feeling badly about the website situation. I haven't answered or returned the messages. I'm not exactly sure what useful thing she could possibly have to say to me. They're not going to give it back to me and I have absolutely no desire to be mollified. Whateva...
Well, I'm starting to wind down. I need to take my meds then I'm going to watch Jamie climb up this elevator shaft in a kilt. Honestly, it's too funny! LOLOL
Peace out.
posted by Kimber
at 12:22 AM ::
~#~
(2) comments
2 Comments:
I'm glad to see that you work through things with the kids. I always got punished along with my brothers even when I followed the rules. Sigh, what semi-happy memories.
Wanna trade jobs? I have two people who are sniping at me. About a month ago, someone sent around and printed out and passed out an e-mail with strongly sexual overtones. (This is 2008, how stupid!) And, they think I was the one who brought it to managements attention. Because I am the only one in this company of over 100 people besides management who thinks that kind of thing doesn't belong in the workplace. Hmm, me thinks they are punishing themselves. I just smile, and go on my merry way, just waiting for the universe to get them.
Why don't you make an official proposal for the church website. You know, what you want to do, what they won't let you do, what you would charge, sample page, etc. Then write the nice minister a letter telling her how you feel, and then decide if dealing with them is worth the aggrivation. Just a suggestion.
I know if nothing else, writing stuff out makes you feel better. That is one thing in this happy universe that we both know for sure.
At the very least my parents did serve as excellent examples of how not to parent. LOL I've never understood how people expect children to learn personal responsibility if they aren't held personally responsible for their actions.
As far as the church goes, to quote Natalie Maines, I'm not ready to make nice yet. :D I may be at some point, we'll see.
StSquirrel, at
6:57 PM
