PLANET3RRY

[ed note: I just updated my Tear-a-Day calendar and it was stuck on August 1st, if that's any indication]

I think that I mentioned earlier a little bit of the chaos that was part of The Elder’s graduation of sorts to Kindergarten. The Short version is that the past school year, he has been in a program twith the county that has provided him educational services many because of his Special Needs status (Asperger’s).

We were at a crossroads because he was old enough for Kindergarten and smart enough for the 4th Grade, but socially and developmentally, he could handle preschool, he had done so well to this point. Our choices were to either put him in K-grade or hold him out until 1st grade. We were pushing for another Special Needs style class for 5yos, because there wasn’t one and some of the kids needded that extra transition to mainstream K-grade. There were rumors that we might get one…

Upon arrival from Dallas, we found out that there wouldn’t be a transitional class but that The Elder would get support and his teacher would be #1, #2, or #3. We then find out on Friday from one of The Elder past school mates that there was a Meet and Greet at the school on Thursday. We also had the bus driver call our house because she couldn’t find it!

[Insert Darkness and Chaos Here]

Well, after a few calls we found out that we weren’t the only ones confused or missing the pieces. We learned that The Elder would be in mainstream kindergarten and that he would get support (as needed). This was decided at a meeting with his teacher, his special needs teacher and his former teacher.

a little while later, we found out some background about how The Elder became a Kindergartner. The Child Find group takes a summer vacation, and they reconvene in August (reminds me of the US Congress) and they decide who goes where. They deemed that The Elder was ready for Kindgarten and so he was placed there (kinda at the last minute), which explains why things were confusing for everybody. BUT, now, after 2 staggered classes to introduce the kids to the Kindergarten Atmosphere, The Elder is going 5 days a week with 20 classmates. So Far, So Good. The Younger had a different story…

I think I clocked in around 4 hours of sleep last night. Not all of it was consectuative and not all of it was in my own room. At some point, I think around 4am (1 hour of sleep under the eyelids), I had to go to the bathroom. I had been hydrating myself from the run on Saturday and heard some crazy stomping running around like in the hallway. So, I checked it out, The Elder had gotten up and used the bathroom. So after I was finished, I went to la down with him, since he had seen me, I didn’t want to come into our room.

I think around 5:30 (2.5 hours of sleep), I woke up and went into my room into my own bed. It was like a dream from Heaven to know that our Resourceful and Reliable Au Pair started at 6:30am! I didn’t have to get up immediately to try to figure out breakfast and lunch (for our new Kindergartener) and so I slept in… to 6:45am. That’s when my phone starts to go off (NYSE Market Bell) to let us know that we need to get the kids up and *gulp* ready for school!

And it was nice to just lay in bed for 15 minutes until 7am before I mosied out to the kitchen for coffee.

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We are getting some remnant of Fay right now, which is good since we haven’t had rain in quite a while. Although it’s not as bad as last year. my grass has gotten crunchy in spots.

As a result, I think I may skip today’s interval run. Maybe instead, I will lift weights tonight…

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In a brilliant move last night, I reset my google Reader to “0″. It was at 1000+ of stuff that I needed to read or wanted to read. Don’t freak out about 600 of those were “Deal Websites” and so those go quickly. What DOES suck, actualty it Suckity Suck Sucks is that some of my fave Sites that had amazed a number of blog entries were also reset. I had wanted to save them for when I have time time really absorb the full flavor of the blog post.

But nope. Gone. So if I am totally clueless about something that happened that you posted in your blog, please forgive me.

I’m starting this post at 2:33am (my time). I am hoping that by 2:40am (same day), I will be asleep. “Why Terry, do you post at 2:33am?”

Somehow, this has become the only time in the past 20 some days of August that I have sat to post. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have wanted to post but it never happened. Some good posts have come and gone (in my head) and so I am left to post some memoirs about August in the upcoming days.

2:35am

Well, that whole 2:40am thing isn’t going to happen because I still have to brush my teeth… unless I go caveman… hmm…

I think, this coming up week at work, it will be “somewhat” normal and I will have the time to post when I want to… the good ole days of writing off and on in the morning, working out at lunch, doing some editing in the afternoon, then panicing to publish before I had to leave, ahhh the good ole days. Hopefully, I can get a glimpse of that again.

2:38am

And I have pictures too. I am going to bring my laptop to work, in hopes to get them uploaded and the posted. I keep this blog, not only as a one stop place to incriminant myself and squelch any chance for public office, but I keep it as a reminder of what I have done and who I am. Not that I forget, but I do sometimes, and so if the memory isn’t vivid, then I might forget or I might even misremember the details.

2:40am

Okay, time to wrap this up. The kids will no doubt try to wake me up. Maybe, one day, I will sneak and fall asleep in THEIR room, they would never find me.

2:58am

I’m really going this time…

Greetings fellow readers… I know that some of you have been having issues with leaving comments on my blog, that for some reason, you are doing all the Right Things, but that computer is blowing its nose at you.

Unfortunately, I am at a loss on WHY this is happening, It’s probably some conspiracy from Big Brother to limit the reach of this influential blog.

The only thing that I know of is that a majority of the people are yahoo.com email users, which shouldn’t be a problem, but I am going to investigate WHY more people aren’t leaving comments. Of course, if I would post regularly, that might help, or if there was quality content… I did get an almost record number of comments on my recent Guess My Time, Win Crap contest blog entry.

Of course, I might have to post nude pictures of me, from the knees down (of course) but that might draw a different type of readership.

So, I will tinker with the blog today… there’s a WP upgrade anyway, so WHY THE HELL NOT? Sit back and enjoy…

Yes, there is another Theme here. I wasn’t planning on changing the theme, but we found out that there were errors in the coding of the blog and thus it was causing some backend problems… and that’s NOT a pain in the ass… it was a coding problem. Also, if you ever tried to search something on the last theme, you may have noticed it was spelled “Serach”.

So, I changed my theme to something close, but a little different. A tad bit more artistic. I think the theme just LOOKS easier to read and stuff.

Also there should be some other changes in scenery, such as a Race Report, A picasa Photo Album of Park pictures and a few other things. It had been chaotic in our household, but the dust is settling and we’ve found a “mainstream” kindergartener here and a school-less preschooler. More on these in a bit.

See you real soon!

We made it back from our Dallas trip just fine. Actually, we made it to Dallas just fine and without incident… just like we like it! Our Annual trip to Northern Texas started off with a 3 hour drive West to Nashville. Flying out of TYS is just way too expensive, so we can get tickets for HUNDREDS of dollars cheaper flying out of BNA. Only problem is that sometimes you have to leave at 5am in the morning!

Our stay this year was at the Sheraton instead of the Hyatt, as it had been the past 3 years. What this meant was that walking to and from the Convention Center was impractical given the Dallas Heat and personal Safety issues. This meant that we could take either A) The Provided Shuttle Buses or B) The Dart (the local innercity rail system). Although the Buses would keep us in our own Pink Bubble, the wait and travel time would increase 10 fold. So we went for the local flair.

Actually, I was sorta envious of the Dart, because I wish Knoxville had something like this. I enjoy public transportation, even though it sometimes scares me. It’s an excellent way to experience a city. Knoxville only has a Bus System, which is decent, but Knoxvile is so spread out that coverage where I live to commute to downtown is minimal.

Only a couple of times did we have any problems… one guy came up and started a conversation about why were there and when he found out he said that he was close neighbors to Ross Perot and Mary Kay while growing up, but he was harmless. When dressed to the Nines for awards night, an elderly lady asked where the big fancy party was. I gave a guy $2 to “get peroxide” because he had been turned away from the hospital and had a big abrasion (although not super fresh) on his knee.

Day 0 Checking In
We determined that we need to come in a Day earlier, so we need to fly in Day -1. I pretty much slept all afternoon long of Day 0 and so we missed a number of things because of that. We did get to eat at a nice Mexican Restaurant though and that was good. Mexican restaurants are better places to get Gluten Free items off the regular menu.

Day 1
We were running a little late to the Opening Ceremonies and so we missed the opening performance of the Performing Group, The Friends of Tyme. But apart from that, the Opening Ceremonies were excellent. Another good rule for Seminar is to win as many of the Luncheons as possible. MK runs contests throughout the Seminar Year and one level of awards is to earn a Luncheon. Well, this year My Lovely and Talented Wife won the It’s In The Bag Luncheon and so we ate well! Yummmmmmmy!

In the evening of Day 1 is the Kalicak Awards night. Sylvia (Kalicak) is our National Sales Director and so everyone in her National Area gets together for a catered dinner at the hotel and Awards are given for the people in Sylvia’s area. This one of the couple times a year that I dress up in a Tuxedo. I did get to take a bunch of pictures, of which I need to send to Sylvia. One of the other husbands had a sweet 70-200mm lens with Image Stabilization, but he confessed to always shooting in auto mode. To boot, he had a SpeedLite 430, which is definitely on my list of “To Get”.

So the night was great. I was very please with the 4GB card because I was not worried about the number of pictures that I was taking, and I was even using the Highest Setting mode. Maybe I’ll upgrade to 8GB because, you’ll find out in a paragraph or two that I maxed out my card.

Day 2

Day 2 is the Class Day. This is where the learning portion of the event is taken place. There are general sessions based on where you are and then in the afternoon is the ever entertaining Director’s meeting. This is where alot of the new stuff and technology is showcased. For the husbands, the company has events that they sponsor for those husbands who don’t want to sit in a room.

The husbands in national area where going golfing, in dallas, in morning and middle of the day. Now, they went to the best course in Dallas, so that was nice… but the 105F wasn’t from what I understood. I played paintball again. It’s been a couple weeks removed, from the event, but I went home with ALOT less welts than last year. I was much more efficient in my tactitical maneouvers. I’ll post a picasa album of some pictures that I took.

The evening of Day 2 is the Company Awards Night… another evening of dressing up in a Tuxedo! This event is held in the Convention Center, so while taking the DART to the Center, an eldery lady asked where the fancy party was.  One of my favorite parts of the evening is the performances that the Friends of Tyme put on. This year, there was no Broadway Showtune medelly, it was all Music Industry performances. They did a timeline Rock music type monterage followed with an All-Country set.

Day 3

Closing ceremony… it wraps up the event and showcases the theme on the upcoming year. In the past, we’ve usually hit the road right after seminar ends, but this year, we decided to stay an extra day to give us a breather before getting home. Smart Choice. We ate in the West End district of Downtown Dallas for both lunch and dinner… definitely a place to stop at again even if we are at a different hotel.

I tried to meet up with my friend Nick who I went to high school with in Virginia but our schedules couldn’t mesh… poo. At least I know that I will be back next year!

That’s right… although I haven’t been blogging much lately with traveling and then a big ole “Hey, your Kid IS going to Kindergarten this year” Bomb being dropped. Oh, and our Resourceful and Reliable Au Pair went on vacation this week, because… we didn’t think The Elder would be in school this week…  But that is a different post for a different day because…

IT’S RACE WEEK

It’s Race Week and it’s time for another contest! Here are the Rules:

1) Leave a time you think I will complete the Event as a comment to this post.

Event: Scholar’s Run 5k website

2) You can enter as many times as you want, but only your most recent entry will be your official guess

3) This will be an Over/Under format, meaning that you time will count whether your time is over or under my official time

4) You can enter as long as Comments are allowed for this post, which is typically through Race at some point

Scholar’s Run 5k is run at 8 am on SATURDAY AUGUST 16th

5) The Official Time as reported at the event website will be the End-all-Be-all result. Should no result be posted, then my watch time will be used

Results for this Event are (eventually) posted at: Parks & Recreation

6) Winners will have to send me their postal address to gain their prize. Giving me their address subjects them to such things as world domination, Christmas Cards, and other random items (and sometimes embarrassing items) sent to their homes.

7) There are no restriction for past winners… Enter and Win and Enter Again.

All submissions must be made as a comment unless you are technical incompetent, then I will accept other forms of submission such as carrier pigeon, smoke signals, tea leafs, chicken bones, etc

9) Is my favorite number, so I wanted the Rules to go to 9, so, uh, have fun!

The Crap Prize for which you are competing is:

A Bag, a box of Tea and a pack of Gum

Stuff to help you in your guess:

Last Five 5k Times:

Reindeer Run Dec-2-2007 5 k 22:33
Spring Sprint Apr-12-2008 5 k 24:12
Ribbon Run Apr-19-2008 5 k 24:10
Run for the Deaf May-3-2008 5 k 23:27
Fireball Classic Jul-03-2008  5 k 26:23

Historic Scholar’s Run Times:
Scholar’s Run    Apr-24-1998    5 k 23:07
Scholar’s Run    Aug-28-1999    5 k 22:07
Scholar’s Run    Aug-26-2000    5 k 22:51
Scholar’s Run    Aug-25-2001    5 k 24:24
Scholar’s Run    Aug-24-2002    5 k 23:13
Scholar’s Run    Aug-23-2003    5 k 27:36
Scholar’s Run    Aug-21-2004    5 k 24:57
Scholar’s Run    Aug-20-2005    5 k 24:36
Scholar’s Run    Aug-19-2006    5 k 25:12
Scholar’s Run    Aug-18-2007    5 k 23:32

So what gets in the way of some perfectly good blogging opportunities? Life, that’s what!

I am in the process of making some blog posts, but due to forces beyond our control, our week has gone awry… and so not only did I have little time to blog over the weekend (hence, NO Photo Hunters OR Success Sunday) but today, Monday, leaves me little to get this out…

But, there is hope

for 3 each payments of $33.33

I do have a working draft of Dallas events

and, if you weren’t keeping track of it at home is, uh, RACE WEEK! Yeah, I know… it’s time to win some CRAP! So there’s a post that has to be created…

*sigh* then there is my Trading Blog that is seriously outdated… made me some money in POT today… didn’t see the big drop today… KA-CHING! So, I have stuff about that…

Oh, and I started my training for the marathons and well, that’s a novellette…

And, of course, there’s Terry being T3rrry and so I have that to do…

But wait… THere’s more… if you order in the next 20 minutes, you get not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 posts

plus, if you are one of the first 12,245,565 readers, you’ll get and ASD Athletes update… FOR FREE (a $100 value.)

Stay tuned for the regularly scheduled mayhem goofiness

Of course, I am making a reference to the Country & Western song:

“Goin’ Through The Big D”
Written by Mark Wright, Ronnie Rogers & Jon Wright
Recorded by Mark Chesnutt

It’s our annual trip to Dallas and once again Marianna (aka Greek Chickie) will not be there this year. Her excuse… this year is: “She out of the country”. Come ON! First weather, then a sudden death, now out of the country (and IRAQ to boot). I’m starting to get the hint… fine! Maybe NEXT year then. But hell you might be in OUTERSPACE or something outlandish like that.

For Past Dallas Trips, you can click the links to see all the fun and excitement we’ll be getting into:

2007 Dallas… in a Nutshell

2006 Dallas in 4 Acts: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Act 4

2005 The One With the Baby Bjorn

2004 Jobless in Dallas

This year, the set up is that our Resourceful and Reliable Au Pair will be watching the kids here in Knoxville with help from Grandma while we are in Dallas. So, that’s a cross country stress we don’t have to worry about. However, we are going to be at a different hotel (Sheraton) than before (Hyatt) and so this is going to A) Cause more stress because I have to learn this new hotel and surrounding area and B) Give me a Chance to learn something new because of the new hotel, plus there might be more Stella action in this part of town. But for the most part I should be Upped on MK Enthusiasm, so it should be too big of a problem.

As the unofficial Pro-Am photographer of the Kalicak National area. I was really hoping to have a new lens this year, but a guy can dream, right? I’m just hoping that the lighting is better in this hotel because in the Hyatt’s ball room, the light just Suckity-Sucked with a big fat Suck-a-tude. If you really want to know how I felt about the lighting, I’ll kindly tell you in an email. If you didn’t want the yellow tones of the lights, you had to Flash (and not the naked kind) the hell out of your subject.

So, here’s to hoping!

Also this year, I will be partaking in PAINTBALL again. I am not sure if we are going to be at this place: http://www.gatsplat.com again (probably so). If we are, there is a webcam there that you can see all the action, and even control the webcam as well. I don’t know what I will be wearing this year, but it will be lighter in color. And it’s not like I am going to be totally unconnected while I am in Dallas, so I’ll probably post an update or not.

Wednesday night I actually got more sleep than usual. I was in bed by 11:30 (okay, it was really close to 11:30) and after a couple of games of Solitare on the Palm TX, I was alseep. The Kids woke me up around 6:30, but I got up made oatmeal and then somehow was able to get back to the bed for some more sleep.

So, I am thinking I may have had around 7 hours of sleep. Too bad it wasn’t consectutive.

My foot is much better today, I can actually put just about all my weight on it and instead of being in pain, I can just “feel it”. My finger is better too, so now typing doesn’t hurt and I don’t have to wear a bandaid that mashed extra keys when I type.

It was a fairly straightforward day, I had a decent day trading today and took some profits on some positions. I will be requesting the money that is dogearred for Elijah on Friday, so I can get that sent in.

I threw together an episode of Gravity. Mainly because I had worked on part of it, but thanks to My Lovely and Talented Wife, that has all changed for the fall marathon training. I didn’t want what I had to go to waste, so ir’s a short episode (10 min) and it trails off after the announcement.

Next week, I’ll post what I am going to do since I will be in Dallas next week and then training will start on August 4th for my marathon. I’m not sure how much internet access I will have next week and I wish that I could get my camera phone to send posts to my “secret” blog email and I would MoBlog.

Stella’s lens covers are on order, but not sure if they are going to make it or not. It’s not that I am too nervous because I can always purchase one from the local camera store. You never can have too many Lens covers when your Father in law is involved. Someone asked how that happened. We were talking and I had gotten pictures off of Stella and she was in the chair. He went to change chairs to better see the computer and knocked it off with his butt.

So is everybody ready for Friday?