February 19, 2010: Heading Down to League City

I woke up a little early this morning and got a jump on the day.  If I manage to get up and get out the door in the morning before Dominica and Liesl wake up then it only takes me about one hour to leisurely get ready and get to work – and I arrive at work just five minutes later.  Today I was up at seven and, even after taking Oreo on a longer than usual walk, I was to the office by a few minutes after eight.  If Liesl is awake before I leave it easily takes another hour to get out of the house.  I like seeing her in the morning but she cries when I leave and makes me very sad.  Sometimes sneaking away early just works out better.

With the extra time this morning I got caught up on SGL.  Finally.  Now to get to work on my paper for RIT.  That is going to be my big project.  That is going to be extra tough as I have very little time to sleep tonight between driving to Houston tonight and then having to start work at seven tomorrow morning.

To make things harder at RIT, and this seems to happen each class that I take there, I have very little feedback on my work coming up on the final.  I have not gotten feedback on my midterm or over half of my weekly coursework or my last reflection paper yet.  Not that I am concerned about my work on any of them but it means that I am doing my final mostly blind.

The major news today is that Lindy Matsko and the Lower Merion School District near Philadelphia, PA got caught using district funds to buy laptops, supposedly so kids could stay connected to school even when home, so that they could watch children in their bedrooms at home.  The school got caught when Lindy decided to yell at a boy for his behaviour at home and claimed that she had taken photographs of the boy doing “inappropriate things” in his bedroom.

The thing about pedophiles, I guess, is that they aren’t very smart.  So Lindy and the Lower Merion School District are now facing some pretty insane federal charges from some pretty irate parents and teens.  They are now looking at a minimum of eighteen hundred accounts of everything from invasion of privacy, violating constitutional rights and, of course, collecting child pornography is a real possibility (or at least the attempt to collect it.)  This is a major embarrassment for the state of Pennsylvania and the entire US education system.  Not to mention a sickening display of felonious behaviour.  How people like this aren’t caught before being allowed to work around kids is unbelievable.

If anyone ever wonders why Liesl isn’t going to public school, now you know.  This person, Lindy Matsko, beyond being sick and needing to be locked up forever, is clearly a complete idiot and having a person like this be in charge of educating anything smarter than a snail is a serious educational oversight.  What possible educational advantage does having this person running the school serve?  I realize that Lindy is likely the scapegoat for a child pornography ring being run by the school administration or some other seriously nefarious activity – someone had to approve the purchasing of eighteen hundred overpriced Apple laptops – but still, getting into that position isn’t one that any halfwit would make the mistake to do.  Maybe Lindy needs to take an anonymous suitcase and embark on a trip to China to start a pop singing career.

Today was slower than the rest of the week.  Thank goodness.  Final a chance to catch up a little bit.

I found out this afternoon that I get to take a Red Hat Architect training class.  That is pretty cool.  I have not had training from work in a few years.  Nice to take a break and take a class now and then.  Not a real class where I get to go somewhere, just one where I have to take it from my desk but better than nothing.

I completed writing another article this afternoon although it still needs to be proof read and edited.  A lot of work completed though and one less article rattling around in my head that I am trying to hold on to before forgetting what I might have wanted to have said.

I got a start on another article as well which I really hope to be able to have done by the middle of next week.  This weekend is going to be crazy so there is not all that much that I can do before Monday and writing during the week is pretty hard although Dominica’s idea of having me use the bar stool as a mini desk will help quite a bit.

I managed to finish all of my reading for my final paper so I will be able to get to work on it first thing tomorrow while thinking about it on my drive down to Houston tonight.  Work slowed down this afternoon which was great.

At just a little after six I was able to leave the office and head for home, on foot of course.  Dominica should be ready to go when I get there.  We are driving right down to League City tonight since we missed Madeline’s birthday last weekend.  It will be nice to do something different this weekend.  We haven’t been down to League City for several weeks.

It will not be a relaxing weekend for me but getting a jump on the travel by getting out of the office at a good time tonight is going to make it far better than it usually is.  Driving down to League City on a normal, two day weekend is a ton of driving for very little time spent down there but getting out early makes it not too bad.

This is our last chance to make it down for several weeks.  Next weekend I have to be in Austin and Round Rock and then the weekend after that Dominica, Liesl and I will be in Las Vegas for Andy and Miranda’s wedding!  Then back to Houston not long after that.

I am posting early tonight as I leave the office so that I can close out the post and get a jump on the weekend.

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