Taking a breath …
// July 23rd, 2005 // No Comments » // tagged: Life
I'm back from camp with my church's students ... and now I'm halfway through my ten year high school reunion weekend! I can't wait for Monday :)Archive for July, 2005
I’m off to Camp!
// July 16th, 2005 // 2 Comments » // tagged: Life
Tomorrow morning I leave for a week at camp with my church's students. As my internet access situation is still up in the air (or at least the speed of said internet access) - I doubt there will be much activity here this week. Well -- that and the fact that I will barely have time to breathe this week, much less have a few minutes to sit down and blog ;)
MacGyver is spending the week at his grandparents. They were up here in Nashville this weekend -- and we sent him back with them for the week. Steve's out of town this week too -- and since we're down at my parents next weekend for my reunion (more on that subject) -- we figured they could spend some time with the grand-dog -- and we'll just pick him up when we're down there next week. 
I think they're more nervous about watching Mac than they were about keeping Sarah, their grand-daughter, for the first time overnight. Maybe that's because Mac tends to get in trouble when he's visiting friends ;) 
Sarah is pretty easy to take care of! They do have one thing in common -- they're both complete cuties.
Now Running Movable Type 3.2 Beta
// July 14th, 2005 // 1 Comment » // tagged: Movable Type
Just upgraded the Movable Type 3.2 Beta ... so far no problems. I like the new and improved interface - I'm still checking out all the new features. I'll have to go back through and upload all my personalized graphics though. I had my movable type pimped out :) When I finish re-uploading my changes with 3.2, I want to upload my screenshot to that flickr tag group!It’s Been Ten Years Already?
// July 11th, 2005 // 3 Comments » // tagged: Life
My ten-year high school reunion is two weeks away. I'm on the planning committee :censor:. (yes, I must have been smoking crack to agree to that.) We've been working on it since September of last year. That may sound like a long time - but not when you consider that we had almost 600 people in our graduating class -- so just trying to contact everyone in our class was a huge task.
We divided up the yearbook pages amongst the committee members - so each person had about 40 people to locate.
Lesson one - we needed a bigger committee.
We gave ourselves til January of this year to locate everyone on our lists. That was about 4 months. In December, some of our committee members hadn't contacted anyone on their list yet. :banghead:
Lesson two - those people you didn't like in highschool? you still don't like them
Ten years isn't a very long time - but people have moved, their parents have moved, their friends have moved; so finding classmates was a nightmare for the most part. Our high school doesn't keep any type of alumni records :weep: - so we had nothing to start from except our yearbook. The girls were, of course, the hardest to find. We just had their names at the time of graduation. Who knows what their married name is - Nightmare.
So once we finally had a decent number of graduates contacted (just over 300) - we sent out our first mailing. This was a general info mailing, with a registration form, and a list of classmates we couldn't find yet. We were hoping that these 300 classmates we found could help us find the other 300 we couldn't find. And they did - which was cool. Everybody knows where somebody is ... so we found about 150 more people that way.
I had set up a very basic website early on -- which made it super easy to share information with our entire class. The committee has access to a section of the site where we can update the graduate database online - and we're all part of a mailing list through which we keep track of all the little details. The registration form dumps straight into the database too. So with the click of a button we can quickly see how many people are registered, paid, etc. That's handy so that everyone has access to the same info at all time -- I have to say that I don't know how we would have made it this far without the website, mailing list, and especially the online database. Saved so much time.
Lesson three: It's good to have at least one geek on your planning committee. :thumbsup:
An interesting fact about our committee is that only one person on the committee still lives in our hometown. Which means only one person on the committee lives in the town where all the reunion events are happening. Wheee! What fun for her! :dance:
Lesson four: You need more hometown people on the committee. Lots of running around/errands to do. All of us out of town people can do a lot via email and phone -- but some things just have to be done in person.
My mom has always been active in planning her reunions - her class recently had their 35th reunion. Her experience with this has helped us a lot - and maybe it's because of her that I knew that reunions have to be totally funded by the registration fees. The school doesn't have a fund for reunions. Everything you spend for the reunion has to be covered with registration fees. I think some people in our class thought our high school must have a slush fund or something for reunions - because some people thought $40/person was ridiculous. But when you break it down into facility rental, catering, printing fees, postage -- it all adds up. We're running an extremely tight budget. From some people's comments, it's like they think we're trying to make a profit or something. Grrrr. :headache:
Lesson five - you are going to have some cheapskates and belligerent losers. They would complain if it was $3 a person! Forget about them and move on. Did you really want to see that person at the reunion anyway?
So now we're two weeks out. We've done several mailings; we're now on a weekly email to everyone in our class (we're still missing about 125 people, but finding more and more every day); the newspaper has run lots of articles for us for free; I think we've done a pretty decent job of getting the word out.
The website has been a great tool. At least 90% of our class has registered and paid online. Less than a handful of people actually mailed in a physical registration form and check. People were more than willing to pay a little extra for the convenience of paying online (we tacked on the paypal fees to the registration cost).
The next two weeks are going to be crazy. The week of the reunion, I am out of town. (I'm a counselor at summer camp with my church's student ministry all week. It will not be a relaxing week -- it will be long, long, long days. :whip: But I'm sure I'll still have fun!!) We get back on Friday afternoon and Steve and I will have to immediately get back on the road and head to my hometown. The main dinner event is on Saturday night, and then the family picnic at the school is on Sunday afternoon.
Yadda yadda yadda. All this to say -- I've been slammed doing reunion stuff and I'm at the stage where I just want the event to be done and dusted.
Lesson six: it will definitely take me another ten years before I'm willing to do this again.
Dominey Redesigns … Hmmmm
// July 9th, 2005 // 1 Comment » // tagged: Interesting
Things that make you go hmmmmm. I've been enthralled with Dominey Design since my first visit to his whimsical, fun and informative business site (the previous version is still available here); now he's redesigned and I just don't get it. My thoughts pretty much echo those of Simon at jessey.net:A quick view source revealed that the whole site is an image 'slice-n-dice' that has no text content of any kind... In this era of web standards and accessibility, Todd has created something completely inaccessible. The site cannot be used by the visually impaired at all ...
Now granted - the previous flash version wasn't very accessible either. But ... I don't know. It had - personality. Which counts for something, right?
Here are Dominey's thoughts about his redesign (posted on his personal site, What Do I Know?).
What do you think? He's an absolutely AMAZING designer ... I mean - wow. Just look through a few of his projects. Extremely talented. I wonder what his thought process was behind this latest design of his business site that is totally inaccessible. Like Simon, I just don't get it. I do like his new logo; and how cool to be confident and secure enough (and in his case, very justifiably so) that you are known by your last name. Your name equals excellent design.
Bactroban For Sale
// July 9th, 2005 // No Comments » // tagged: Reviews
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London bombings
// July 7th, 2005 // 1 Comment » // tagged: Family
I've not been able to get through on the phones to Steve's family in England all day. As soon as I heard about the bombings - I tried calling - but I can't get through. Most of his family lives about 90 miles north of London - and we don't think they were on any trips down to the city; but he has friends who work downtown. I wish I could just get someone on the phone. Steve's also out of town on business - I've been trying to reach him all day too - I'm sure he's worried and has been trying to get in touch with his family all day too. Argh. Just last night we were on the phone and he was so excited that London got picked for the Olympics. And now this. I'm actually home sick from work today - I flipped the TV on briefly this morning and saw the news and since then I've been trying to get in touch with someone. It's times like this when it's hard having family 5,000 miles away. I'm hoping that maybe they are at least checking email today - since the phones are busy.The Cute Factor
// July 2nd, 2005 // 1 Comment » // tagged: Photos > Sarah, My Niece
Wow ... it's unbelievable how fast they grow up.
Here's my niece, Sarah -- she's 2 1/2 - and calls me Wacy or Sacy... Steve is Teve and MacGyver is Gyver ! :hug:
We're in Cleveland for the long holiday weekend -- and she's spent the night with us at my parent's house. Steve and Sarah are playing hide-and-seek now :) I'm going to go join in!
