Abby finished first grade very strong this year. She’s improved her reading and math skills so much, I just wanted to take a moment to say how proud we are of her.
Now the fun part: Summer. Unfortunately, it’s starting out on a sour note. Because of an accounting exam next week (mine), we’re not going to be able to go to see my folks for the week. Which makes me feel even worse because my dad passed out about a week ago and had to be hospitalized for a few days. He had a quadruple bypass a few years ago and the concern was that the incident was because of his heart. It turns out he passed a gallstone and will have to have surgery next week.
The surgery’s not supposed to be too serious, and he expects to be back on his feet quickly. We’re only going to be able to drive up one day and return the next to drop off Abby — she usually spends a week with my parents to start off the summer.
In the meantime, Susan’s been fighting off her version of an upper respitory infection. Her’s are much more serious than mine because she has asthma. It started last Thursday and she’s still weak and coughing.
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about work. I hope to have a couple of surprises there in the next few days.
Speaking of work, take a look at the new site design and send in your feedback.
I participated in some of the site design meetings that got us to this point, but they — the designers — were well down the road of the design when I entered the discussions. They’re a talented crew, a bit overworked, but good hearts.
I’ve seen some of the comments from people critiquing the site. I agree with some and others it’s obvious they haven’t really explored the site. The guys who built this have been working on it for a long, long time. They’ve had to fit it in and around other work responsibilities, including work for paying customers and non-paying alike. They will do their best to tweak the design to appeal to most of the commentors, both external and internal. But what you’ll see is pretty much what you’ll get.
I was privy to a lot of the discussion as to why things were done a certain way. Much of it had to do with utility for both news and advertising. If you want news, somebody’s got to pay for it.
I usually try to stay away from comments about work here, just brief mentions from time to time. I’m going to try to continue honoring that here. But you might hear more from me from someplace else very soon.
It’s late again — seems I can’t get upstairs before midnight these days — and I need to be moving toward bed. Work and class await tomorrow.
But I just wanted to get a post up.
Oh, and I had a pretty satisfying experience today. One of our neighbors stopped by and asked if we could get her a paper from Saturday because she had a letter to the editor (actually a counterpoint column). I hadn’t read it, so before I passed the paper on to her, I read what she wrote.
We’d talked before about her job search. I hadn’t heard much since that conversation a few months ago. I’m very happy she was able to find employment, even if it is at a considerably lower salary. She’s a sweet lady and I wish her the best.