A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

It's Friday, hurrah! And a long weekend to boot. It's going to be an even longer weekend for our loved ones in Florida. The NC Grissoms wish you the best. If you end up driving north. Come on up to Durham! We would be glad to have you!

Team Israel had it's second practice yesterday evening. We were scheduled to have it at Pineywood Park, on the Soccer fields. We show up and a Charter School has apparently booked the field with Durham Parks and Rec. during this time slot for at least another week or two. Of course WE also are supposed to have it booked Every Thursday evening from 5-6. We ended up having a really good practice in a grassy knoll near the soccer fields. I have two assistant coaches and it looks like we will work well together. We divided the girls up into three small groups, one with each coach. Each coach worked on a different skill. This arrangment allows us to have a much more productive practice than trying to keep all the girls on task doing the same thing. At the end of each practice we have a scrimmage, to put the skills we work on into a game setting. Michelle had a good practice again. Nice energy and leading through example.

To follow up on a previous post, I was able to sell the desk that I purchased at auction. A friend of mine from work bought it and is quite pleased with the quality and price. So a good thing all around. Thanks Vinod for getting me out of the dog house.

I have been wearing my new pedometer. It works great. Yesterday I logged 8600+ steps. Not the 10,000 target but it's getting there. I have to make a special effort to get it above 5000 on any given day. I have been taking the long route to the bathroom or other destinations at work. I walk with Karen in the evenings when I can. With the results of my highly controlled scientific study I have supported my hypothesis that "Sitting at my desk at work then coming home sitting on the couch working does not facilitate a high step count." Further analysis, I am certain will show that such a one dimentional lifestyle does not facilitate healthy marital relationships either.

Bob is coming home this weekend. Karen is driving to Greenville this morning to pick him up after classes. He has to work Saturday and Sunday at the Apple store. Karen and I will drive him back Monday sometime. Jamie, his girlfriend will be coming home for the long weekend as well. So I don't imagine we will be seeing a whole lot of Bob outside the trip to and from. Bob moved into his new "roommateless" dorm room on Thursday. He is on a higher floor now so now he receives a stronger signal on his phone and can actually receive and make calls from inside his room.

I cannot address Bob's schooling because, well, he is in Greenville. But as for the rest of the kids, I am really impressed this year how they all are working hard and taking school seriously.
Michelle comes home, does her homework, comes to us for help when needed, after trying the problems herself first I might add. This year when she asks us to quiz her on her spelling words, she actually knows most, if not all of them. Last year I had the feeling this was the first time she ever heard of the words sometimes.

Kyle is planning ahead for big projects, he practices his drums every day, and though I have not looked in his backpack lately seems much more organized and on top of things this year. The grades he has reported to us are all A's or B's. He seems to enjoy being treated more like an adult in school. Unlike middle school.

Tyler especially is working hard. He is taking all Honors or AP courses with the exception of Spanish I think. He has a 100 average in Spanish and though I have not seen the grades for the other classes, he has also been working hard most every night doing reports ahead of time, making flash cards etc..

This is awesome! Keep it up Kids.

No great plans this weekend other than hopefully getting a round of Disc Golf in. And AGAIN, trying to get my hair cut and change the oil in the Stratus and Volvo. We bought new tires for the Van and had the 30K mile transmission service done this past week. $$$. They charged us $22 to replace a freaking tail light. Remind me next time to do it myself will ya?

We are still waiting to hear details on the layoff and reorganizations at Nortel. The company reported 3500 job cuts words wide. The latest rumor is 550 of those will be in RTP, where I work. We have MAYBE 2500 folks in the area so if this number is accurate, roughly 1 of every five folks will be directly affected. The cuts are supposed to be completed by Christmas break. Keep your fingers crossed.

Have a good weekend!