Saturday, September 13, 2008
Day 1
We got off to a late start (Quelle surprise!) but hit the road. Friday night we had our nieces and nephews stay in the RV...it rained all night and it hit the top of the RV pretty hard...driving some to my bed. Rained most of the day Saturday too...heavy traffic in Chicago of course but we have arrived in Wisconsin...we have 'lectricity, air conditioning, water, cable TV (OSU-USC) and have margarita and wine in hand. What a vacation! And we haven't even seen any scenery yet! Banks is a natural RVer...she spent much of the trip on her back on the couch!
Friday, September 12, 2008
The RV has Landed
We picked up the RV today and got our training. We can dump, hook up, and back up with the best of them...er, or so we hope! Banks jumped right in the RV like she knew it was for her. She is comfortable on the bed or the couch...just like at home! And Kathleen is excited that she has room for her ironing board and her iron. She will have the best pressed shorts at Old Faithful!! We should shove off tomorrow at 9 am, or maybe 10 am, or at least by noon. 8-)
Friday, September 5, 2008
The Big Dump
I hoped that retirement would be exciting but I had no idea it would be like this!!
Last Wednesday I took the biggest dump of my life!!
Our neighbor here at the lake has an RV, a big 36-foot class A. We went with him to a campground to dump the sewer and water tanks of his RV. This was practice for our RV trip. Seems easy enough, but we shall soon see for ourselves!
Got the latex gloves and haz-mat suit so we are ready to go!!
Last Wednesday I took the biggest dump of my life!!
Our neighbor here at the lake has an RV, a big 36-foot class A. We went with him to a campground to dump the sewer and water tanks of his RV. This was practice for our RV trip. Seems easy enough, but we shall soon see for ourselves!
Got the latex gloves and haz-mat suit so we are ready to go!!
Banks in Retirement
I have joined Banks in retirement. Of course she left greyhound racing quite a while ago so she has this retirement thing down, as you can see! I am still learning.
Retirement
After 32 years, that Monday in August arrived and I did not have go to work! Many people have asked me if I miss it...not yet. I don't miss getting up early, I never was a morning person. Now I can watch Monday night football and not pay for it the next day! I don't miss living by the bell. I don't miss having a student call me a bitch or tell me to f**k off!! Most of all when I see Wendy Robinson on TV I don't throw up a little bit in my mouth, because she is no longer my boss. I do miss the actual teaching, the excitement when you introduce something new to students and they get it...or giving extra help to a struggling student and the light bulb finally goes on. Still the best feeling in teaching.
And I do miss my colleagues, but I do hope to see many of them through the winter when I am working at the basketball games. See you then!!
And I do miss my colleagues, but I do hope to see many of them through the winter when I am working at the basketball games. See you then!!
Friday, June 20, 2008
The Forensic Accountant
In March, 2006, I spent the morning monitoring a classroom of students taking the ISTEP. When I returned to my office my secretary directed me to a book case and pointed to a now-empty space where about twenty 4-inch notebooks should have been. It seems our principal had come and taken these notebooks to her conference room - notebooks containing ticket reports, copies of claims paid, receipts, copies of game and officials' contracts through 2011 and monthly summaries of the athletic accounts.
She began her investigation by having her secretary make copies of almost every page of every notebook! What a huge waste of resources...not only a waste of paper but the waste of time for her secretary to stand at the copy machine! Then she and her secretary and maybe our treasurer combed through the documents looking for financial fraud. A couple of days later I was called in to face the results. She accused me of selling the same ticket twice - once at the end of an event, then a second time at the beginning of the next event. There it was, a massive fraud scheme...at the rate of $4 per event, let's say 100 home events for the season, a whopping $400...at this rate I would soon have my condo in Florida!
I went to the white board in the room and taught my little class of three - principal, her secretary and the treasurer. For example, at event one, the first ticket off the roll is 1 and at the end of the event the next ticket on the roll is 4 (4 is unsold). This is recorded on the ticket report and by subtracting, we find 3 tickets have been sold (tickets 1,2,3).
first ticket = 1
last ticket = 4
tickets sold = 4 - 1 = 3
For the next event, now the first ticket is 4 and let's say tickets 4 and 5 are sold. The next ticket on the roll is now 6. So we have...
first ticket = 4
last ticket = 6
tickets sold = 2
Ticket 4 has NOT been sold twice, but it has been listed twice, as the last ticket for one event and as the first ticket for the next event. It is done that way so one simple subtraction calculates the number of tickets sold. As I finished my explanation, I saw the lights bulbs go on...her secretary and the treasurer understood perfectly...however my principal had a "deer in the headlights look". She did not get it at all, but she did understand that she was the only one in the room who didn't get it and that her dreams of nailing me for financial fraud were now gone.
I enjoyed the moment (and still enjoy the memory) but then she moved on to something else.
She began her investigation by having her secretary make copies of almost every page of every notebook! What a huge waste of resources...not only a waste of paper but the waste of time for her secretary to stand at the copy machine! Then she and her secretary and maybe our treasurer combed through the documents looking for financial fraud. A couple of days later I was called in to face the results. She accused me of selling the same ticket twice - once at the end of an event, then a second time at the beginning of the next event. There it was, a massive fraud scheme...at the rate of $4 per event, let's say 100 home events for the season, a whopping $400...at this rate I would soon have my condo in Florida!
I went to the white board in the room and taught my little class of three - principal, her secretary and the treasurer. For example, at event one, the first ticket off the roll is 1 and at the end of the event the next ticket on the roll is 4 (4 is unsold). This is recorded on the ticket report and by subtracting, we find 3 tickets have been sold (tickets 1,2,3).
first ticket = 1
last ticket = 4
tickets sold = 4 - 1 = 3
For the next event, now the first ticket is 4 and let's say tickets 4 and 5 are sold. The next ticket on the roll is now 6. So we have...
first ticket = 4
last ticket = 6
tickets sold = 2
Ticket 4 has NOT been sold twice, but it has been listed twice, as the last ticket for one event and as the first ticket for the next event. It is done that way so one simple subtraction calculates the number of tickets sold. As I finished my explanation, I saw the lights bulbs go on...her secretary and the treasurer understood perfectly...however my principal had a "deer in the headlights look". She did not get it at all, but she did understand that she was the only one in the room who didn't get it and that her dreams of nailing me for financial fraud were now gone.
I enjoyed the moment (and still enjoy the memory) but then she moved on to something else.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
The Master Scheduler
I almost forgot this...and it is too funny!
Every spring each high school makes up its master schedule for the following school year. Next year's students sign up for classes they want to take and the school puts together the class schedule for next school year. All students class requests are then fed into the computer and the computer assigns students to the classes...a good first run might be 80% of student requests met. Then the master schedule might be tweaked and eventually some students will be scheduled by hand. The entire process might not be finished until July.
In the spring of 07 the principal thought she was expert enough to handle this process so she and her sidekick put together the master schedule, ignoring the assistant principal whose job it really was to do this. By June, the principal's master schedule was only at 40%...YIKES...this is disaster for a high school...imagine students showing up in August with no classes to attend!!!
A scheduling guru...retired administrator...was hired in July to clean up her mess. Since he had worked with her before (during year one of her reign)...his condition for fixing the schedule was that the principal could not be in the building to bother him. District officials guaranteed this. Sure enough, he had not been working long when the principal showed up!!! He made a phone call to district officials, someone came out to the school and ESCORTED THE PRINCIPAL OUT OF HER OWN BUILDING!!!! I had to use Dave Barry-like capitals here. A principal escorted from her own building....after this you would think FWCS leadership would get it and realize what a loon they had on their hands. Nope, took three more months for her to do something even more embarrassing!
Every spring each high school makes up its master schedule for the following school year. Next year's students sign up for classes they want to take and the school puts together the class schedule for next school year. All students class requests are then fed into the computer and the computer assigns students to the classes...a good first run might be 80% of student requests met. Then the master schedule might be tweaked and eventually some students will be scheduled by hand. The entire process might not be finished until July.
In the spring of 07 the principal thought she was expert enough to handle this process so she and her sidekick put together the master schedule, ignoring the assistant principal whose job it really was to do this. By June, the principal's master schedule was only at 40%...YIKES...this is disaster for a high school...imagine students showing up in August with no classes to attend!!!
A scheduling guru...retired administrator...was hired in July to clean up her mess. Since he had worked with her before (during year one of her reign)...his condition for fixing the schedule was that the principal could not be in the building to bother him. District officials guaranteed this. Sure enough, he had not been working long when the principal showed up!!! He made a phone call to district officials, someone came out to the school and ESCORTED THE PRINCIPAL OUT OF HER OWN BUILDING!!!! I had to use Dave Barry-like capitals here. A principal escorted from her own building....after this you would think FWCS leadership would get it and realize what a loon they had on their hands. Nope, took three more months for her to do something even more embarrassing!
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