Just One Huge Picture
Today was the second day of Eliana’s final year of Preschool and would you believe she already has homework?!?
She was sent home with a sheet of neon green poster board to which a little note was attached. The note reads:
Dear Parents,
I am excited to get to know your children this school year. Our theme next week is, “All About Me”. I have provided a piece of poster board for you and your child to create a poster about themselves (their favorite subject). Be creative and add as many pictures and things about your child as you can think of. Let your child make his/her choices as to what they want on the poster so it’s their work. Some ideas are to include their favorite things such as: color, food, toy, book, movie, thing to do at school, etc. Remember to also include siblings, special family members and pets.
The poster is due on Monday so it gives us the rest of the week for each child to share their poster during circle time. I plan to hang them in the classroom for a couple of weeks and then send them back home. The last time I did this project with the class, the kids loved it and I’m sure yours will too.
I suppose I should look for just one huge picture of the Cheetah Girls!
Referral Watch #1
Our case worker posts a message to our agency’s web board every Monday which is like a ‘state of the union’ address. Her message this morning started on a down note:
I posted the referral news on Friday, so most of you probably know that the most recent referrals were received last week and covered the log-in dates of July 13 - 22. That means that the wait time for a referral is now 15 months from the dossier log-in date.
At this current rate, we would receive a referral in September of 2007 and would travel to China sometime in November.
Ernesto
Oh look honey!
We’ve not had a vacation all year. So of course we pick a nice, long, holiday weekend for our family to go to the beach in South Carolina and Ernesto decides to crash the party.
Great freakin’ timin’…
Referrals to July 22, 2005
The CCAA website has been updated and the new cut-off date for referrals is July 22, 2005. This batch covered a period of 9 days.
A New Hobby
We have discovered a new family hobby and it’s called Geocaching.
Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and “treasure”, usually toys or trinkets of little monetary value.
Armed with a small GPS receiver that Carmi bought off of the bulletin board at work, we went on our very first treasure hunt this evening. There is a cache hidden in the woods at one of the parks in town. We had been looking for a while and had decided to head back to the car when, with sunlight fading fast, I noticed an odd-looking ‘log’ buried under leaves. I touched the ‘log’ with the tip of my shoe and could tell that this was no ordinary woodsy item.
Carmi and Eliana came over and we picked up what turned out to be a camoflouged container of some sort. Eliana couldn’t wait to open it up and when she did, she discovered several little trinkets inside including a little blue, stuffed Neopet from McDonalds which she confiscated. Following the rules of geocaching, Carmi replaced the item we took with another equally valueless item.
I think we’re hooked.
You can find out all you want to know about it at the official Geocaching website.
Olympics Website
Okay...like there’s not enough to do around the house…
I have a particular interest in the 2008 Summer Olympics because the games will be held in Beijing, China.
I just designed and launched a website that is something like a one-stop shop for news pertaining to the Olympics. As a special touch, I have also recruited a young American named Justin who happens to live and work in Beijing to take occasional pictures of all the construction. We can follow along as the village and venues take shape over the next couple of years.
The site is located at http://olympics.hendersonhomeonline.com so be sure to bookmark it. Tell your friends and family about it and help spread the word. Please?
An Expensive Lesson
Almost 4 weeks ago, I started the blogathon on a Saturday morning with a little visit to the service department at Toyota West because the ‘check engine’ light came on in Carmi’s Camry. The problem was diagnosed and the defective part was replaced to the tune of $200. Later that afternoon, however, the ‘check engine’ light came back on.
I returned to Toyota West the next Saturday morning. Before I could even finish my cup of coffee, ‘Service Guy’ came to me and said some hoses were loose so they just tightened them up and didn’t charge me anything. All was fine as I drove home but later that afternoon, the ‘check engine’ light came back on.
I returned to Toyota West the next Saturday morning. Now I’m a real easy guy to get along with but after losing sleep for 3 straight Saturdays, I was starting to get a little testy. ‘Tech Guy’ hooked our Camry to the computer again and diagnosed another defective part which they replaced at no charge. All was fine until Sunday when the ‘check engine’ light came back on.
Last Saturday I went back to Toyota West for the 4th time. After sitting in the lobby for almost 1-1/2 hours, ‘Service Guy’ came up and sheepishly admitted that his guys had no idea what the problem was. In his words, “the guys who work weekends pretty much just do oil and filter changes”. He said I would need to bring the car back one day during the week so that their ‘Master Technician’ - who only works Monday through Friday - could look at it.
I took this afternoon off from work and returned to Toyota West for hopefully the last time.
I paced the floor like I can imagine an expectant father would do if his wife was delivering a baby. One hour later, ‘Service Guy’ caught up with me and sat me down for a talk. ‘Master Tech’ said that the Camry’s ‘charcoal canister’ was bad. It would take 1-1/2 hours to replace it and all for the low, low price of $434.
Holy Scheister!
“What choice do I have?”, I mumbled. “Go ahead.”
There was one other guy sitting in the lobby. As ‘Service Guy’ walked out, this guy asked if I normally top off when pumping gas. “Yeah, almost every time”, I replied. He went on to say that if you continue to pump gas once the pump shuts off the first time, gas will leak over into the canister and contaminate the charcoal.
“Is that so? You know what, buddy? I’m getting screwed out of $400 so I’m really not in the mood for friendly conversation.”
All right...I didn’t say that but I was thinking it. Instead, I offered a “hmmm...” with a nod of the head and turned my attention to CNN.
Just out of curiosity, I called an acquaintance who happens to be a mechanic back home and asked him what a charcoal canister would cost. He looked it up and said his shop could get one for $276. Ah ha. I knew Toyota West was ripping me a new one and I was going to let them hear about it. He went on to tell me the exact same thing that the dude in the lobby said about topping off.
Shortly, ‘Service Guy’ said our car was ready and he assured me that the problem was taken care of. “I certainly hope so.”
As we looked over the bill, the price for the actual part itself was...huh...$276 just like the mechanic at home quoted. And in a good-will gesture, ‘Service Guy’ handed me a BP card worth $20 for gas along with an apology.
Rest assured I won’t top off any more. And you better not either.
