As July turns in to August, I realize there isn’t much summer left and so much has happened since my last update. To answer everyone’s first question, the new job is going well. I am settling in to the new work-at-home lifestyle. Having the girls around is a nice treat. Just the few extra minutes a day I get to spend with them before Julie goes to college next year is a real pleasure. The education and experience level with the new company are starting to get to the point where I have increased confidence in my role. There are still a few situations where I feel like I have been pushed to the precipice and about to fall off the edge. As long as I can walk away from each one of those as a learning experience, I am happy.
Around the house, the big news is the storm that blew through a couple weeks ago. It took out a 20 foot tree in our back yard. No damage to our house or the neighbor’s from the tree, thank goodness. However, we did get some hail damage to the roof and siding. The insurance claims adjuster was here last week and settled our claim quickly and fairly. We went with one of the larger names in insurance for home and auto and we’re glad at times like this. The new roof should be on early this next week. Photos to follow.
Speaking of insurance, Julie now has her driver’s license and our insurance rates went up a bit. Now we have to look at getting her a car of her own. She can borrow mine for a while, but her school schedule will have her hopping across town for her college calc class a few times a week. Her birthday is this week so we are going to have to step up the car project a bit On the topic of college, she and Donna went to look at University of Minnesota last weekend and thought it was a bit big. In a few weeks they are going to look at Northern Michigan University (Donna’s and my school) and Michigan Tech. It is hard to believe she is going off to college soon.
I have also been working hard to get a number of things ready for the upcoming season of HDI local chapter meetings. Now that I am the chapter President, I want to make sure that the current and future officers know expectations better than I did when I came on board almost two years ago. Our chapter was missing several key documents and it turns out that the templates from HDI corporate are currently being revised. Thanks to the hard working team of officers on our local chapter, we have made some great progress during the summer without the added work of monthly meetings. Our website has been tuned up, we got a phone number for people to call with questions or information, and we even have business cards and other literature to hand out at the fall meeting. We just need to get our arms around our contact list and send out invitations to all those people to regenerate interest in the group.
Finally, I am eagerly looking forward to Dragon*Con in Atlanta GA on Labor Day weekend. This is a huge sci-fi convention that draws some pretty big names from many genres and media. Last year was my first year. My intent was to meet with my friend, podcasting co-host, and co-author, Kreg to check it out, but when we were asked to do a live show of Technorama, we couldn’t say no. We had a good time meeting lots of old friends and being introduced to some new as well. Once again, we are doing a live show and looking forward to a whole lot of fun. This year we even agreed to dress in costume. I won’t tell yet. You will have to wait for the pictures.
Leave a Reply