Diaryuh.com

But it is the thought that counts. I haven’t had a bit of time to get more features built in to the blog here. Oh well. I will get to it I promise. As for now, know I am trying. Next up , if you want to see more of the Flickr pictures you will need to either EMAIL me or add me to your Flickr list of friends and I will reciprocate.

So I am now a project manager at work. Which is surprising. It is not exactly my skill set, but given my prior business experience and technological prowess, I think it is a very good fit. I’ll be excited to build a state of the art ITV/DLT learning center. After it is built I will have to market it and help develop curriculum all around the services. It will be a great bit of fun and a ton of hard work.

Beyond that, we had a great third birthday for J and we are waiting for cold weather. Which seems to be more elusive every year. Oh well .

Did you see C’s blog? Shemakescozyhats.vox.com …

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I could be talked into being a hater. But honestly, great news seems to always come from google. Sure, there have been a few snafus, a few poorly executed google-ventures. But overall they seem to be a pretty interesting company. Their recent announcement about EMR/EHR is very exciting to me. I think putting EMR’s in the hands of the consumer is the answer to many, many HIPA concerns. Then there is Grand Central, which promises to disband the Telco’s eternal strangle hold on our phones. And then ‘google-phone’ ? If it is what many think it is, we are all in for a wonderful technology shift.

Overall, though some say they have abandoned their original “don’t be evil’ mandate, I think they are still on track. In fact more so now than ever. Think it over, a corporation sets out to make money, and lots of it by origanizing something we all need organized, namely everything.

You go google.

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They say he looks like me.

 

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I mentioned a child on the way and a business as well. Well one is dead and the other isn’t. Good news! The child is not the one who died. (Man, what a grim turn of phrase that was…) The business did though. I am still trying to sort that out and come to a good conclusion on that topic - a one sentence description that will allow people to (still!) stop wearing that wincing ‘aw shucks’ look on their collective faces. I made my bed, I lay in it just fine, thanks! The business bombed out in the end after doing well for a while due to many a varying forces. From Walmart to house floods to simple hard work not being enough, it was what is was and no longer is. Kaput. Like William Hung, I have no regrets. I have a new job and a new career. And well, I GOT OUT OF TEACHING. A quick read back a few pages brings that all home quickly. whew.

Speaking of quickly, we just celebrated (today) the birthday of the aforementioned child. Three years old. Holeeefreakingcrap that went fast. So fast. I am a bit floored. J (as I will call him here in the world of google) is a great kid who I describe as “Engaged with his world.” He loves his world and all that is in it, except for cotton candy, which truth be told is sort of weird. He has a sibling now as well, L, as I will call him.

What else… so in a list since the last post…

1. Quit career

2. Open business

3. Have baby #1

4. House flood!

5. Business tanks

6. Sustain serious injury while at failing business

7. Four surgeries

8. Close business, write resume

9. Get new job

10. Get serious infection

11. Get new baby

12. Get new house

13. Arrive here, a bit older and bit chubbier but none the worse for wear

If you hear me complain I’d be really surprised. I am please with my life and the way it has worked out.

So , I hope to be writing some more as the weeks pass. Check back in soon.

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Well, it seems that now is as good a time as any to begin telling the story of what is going on in my life and why it all matters. At least it matters to me. There has been so many changes and new things going on that I have just let the blog die so it can begin to take shape as something new… that being what I am about to reveal. oh! so cryptic!
I have been teaching for about 10 years now, mainly elementary classrooms ranging from grade 3 to 6. I really did enjoy teaching for quite a while. However in the last four years or so, education as well as my attitude towards it, has taken a real bad turn. In fact, it is so bad, that the job is almost impossible on a day to day basis. I can lay a lot of fault on the No Child Left Behind law, I can lay a lot of fault on the local school district’s mistakes at the admin. level, but mainly, I just simply don’t want to teach THIS WAY anymore. Teaching to tests and treating children like cogs in the great machine is just not who I am as a teacher. Its a compromise I am no longer willing to make. But, I am getting ahead of myself…
Last year both my wife and I were told we were going to be moved from our then-current school. This is mainly because we were still recent hires and being the newest hires in our building, we were first to go. This wasn’t the first time this has happened. But, taking all things in stride, we cast our fate to the wind and took our transferres. I ended up in a nice school teaching grade 5, but my wife ended up in hallway grading papers and being a full-time lackey for a bunch of very difficult teachers. This posiiton for her, as a veteran teacher with skills beyond most, was a great insult. She was appointed dishonestly, and long story short, the district did nothing to ammend the situation to adhere to policy. The stupidity of the situation was staggering. As the months passed during the fall semester, my wife was realizing just how much she no longer wanted to teach. With so much dishonesty, mistreatment and personally insulting treatment, who could blame her? Not me.

We had been desiring a family for so long. Some might recall that last year on the blog, there was some allusion to a family coming and then a real distinct sadness in that it didn’t happen. All through the fall and the difficulty with her transfere, my wife and I continued to try to have a family. As we passed the three year mark trying, it began to seem that maybe we should consider other ideas for our thirties. Between the dissatisfaction in teaching and the seemingly hopeless attempts at have a child, we were, in a word, discouraged.
Christmas break, a teacher’s dream, arrived. We had made plans to go skiing or travel somewhere but our apathy kept us grounded. Instead we stayd around the house and our small city. It was nice enough to be home, certainly, but it was my wife’s craft fair work that kept us distracted and happy. Every year she makes loads of crocheted hats and sells them at various craft fairs. She also sells them person to person and each year her waiting list grows quite long. Long enough that she sells every hat she creates. Getting ready for the fairs and making the hats is a great pleasure for her as well as for me since it gives us ’somthing else to do’. As Christmas break passed along, it came to her mind that somehow we might consider opening a yarn shop. Most of her yarns come from an online retail outfit and from a store located about one hour from here. Our town has no knitting/yarn shop. My response upon her suggestion was “yarn shop?”… I guess it never really ocured to me that there was such a thing. Or a need for such a thing.
However, somthing in the idea struck me as resonant. Its art, its community, its teaching, its just a nice idea… We began to explore the idea, calling shops in similar towns, meeting with the Small Business Assoc. and visiting shop in our state. As it turns out, these shops do very well and are quite popular. So we began then to put together a business plan and projections. As we continued our work we realized quite distinctly that this was finally, THE IDEA. There is no shop in our town of 60k people, no competition. We were going for it.
And go for it we have.
So now we have a space in our quaint downtown, we have our LLC formed, we have our stock in place to order. Paper work, tax forms, business plans, all finished. All as smoothe as can be. (knock on wood)
Unravel is going to open. It has a website you can visit. It is, in short, our baby.

Well, not exactly. Turns out,

this is our baby. Yep. After years of trying, we are going to have a kid. It is amazing. I am beside myself. We had talked early on about the shop, and how there would be stopping forces, and how having a child would not be one. But we also decided to hold off, to wait 1.5 years and then revist the child idea. But, she woke me up one morning. And I knew it. She said, ” Are you awake?” and I said, “You are pregnant.”

And she was, and she is. And I am amazed. Just amazed at how life works. I saw the heart beat yesterday and inside I screamed in joy. My mind flipped and hollered out to me… “you are someones father! “

So. I am not teaching next year. I will join my wife in the shop full-time. We will both be in a new job, in a new field. Opening a business togehter, with a baby. Everything will change. All at once.

And I can’t stop smiling.

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Too cool

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hi. realize that i do have master plan. i do. mainly it consists of making people think this site isnt worth visiting anymore so it can be revitalized in a different capacity, of which i am undecided.
anyhow.

if you care, and can tolerate my less than once a month posts, maybe somehow, someday, this will all get interesting again.

not likely.

but it might.

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From WSJ, Peggy Noonan, January 22.

When asked his opinion after viewing the weblog diaryuh.com, his holiness responded, “It sucks as it was. ” The Vatican has since refused further comment and denies the Pope viewed the weblog and said, “not only did he not view the site, he did not laugh either. ”

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Oh the Simpsons. It has been such a funny show for so long. What I have always enjoyed most , besides Homer in general, is the subtle wit infused within the show itself.

-Kent Brockman on the Olympics at Springfield: “Springfield is expecting an economic boom from the Olympics like the one Sarajevo experienced after the ‘84 Olympics .”

-Homer: “Good things don’t end in -eum; they end in -mania or -teria ”

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Revolve is a bible for teen-age girls because, “In focus groups, online polling, and one-on-one discussion, Transit Books has found that the number one reason teens don’t read the Bible is that it is “too big and freaky looking.” This fashion-magazine format for the New Testament is the perfect solution to that problem.” I wonder if Jesus has his midrift showing?

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