My Final Blog Post

About six weeks ago or so my immediate family (my wife and two daughters) had what amounted to an unintentional and unplanned intervention with me. It was just like the TV show, except that there were no cameras rolling, and there was no drug addiction or alcoholism or anything like that. And also, as I mentioned already but wanted to re-clarify, this wasn't a planned thing. No one had any speeches written on tiny scraps of paper that were nervously read with shaky voices and shakier hands. But it was an intervention nonetheless.

The REAL scheduled event of the night was that my older daughter was off that night to her first formal high school dance. She came downstairs in her formal dress, her hair and makeup perfect, my wife, other daughter, and I all watching her descend the stairs, and I reacted the way parents have reacted for the last 75 years. "Oh!" I said to her. "I have to grab a camera and get a picture of you." I took off for the office, and was back in 10 seconds with the camera in my hands, powering it on and adjusting settings on it while I walked.

My Next to the Last* Blog Post

About eight months ago I decided that I was going to take a break from writing this blog, but stated at the time that I would probably come back to it. And I did. After a one month break, I came back to the blog with renewed enthusiasm. But I've decided now that I am actually completely done with this blog. I will not be adding to it after this post and the next one.

In the next blog post, my final blog post, I'll explain WHY I'm quitting this blog. Today, though, I'd like to take a look back and present to you my 25 favorite posts on this blog. I read back through all 840 prior blog posts, and these are the 25 that summed me up the best.

Dealing with the government

I received some correspondence today at work that I thought was rather humurous, and also an example of the absurdity that occurs sometimes when dealing with the federal government...

I don't need to go into all of the details here (because the details are many, and to be honest, I don't understand them all myself), but you do need to know that the federal government has a funding program for schools and libraries that provides them with some electronic equipment at a huge discount. But the program funds aren't guaranteed, so often in my job I'll apply for the funds but not receive them (which isn't fun, because filling out this paperwork is as difficult and time consuming as doing one's income taxes--This is, after all, the same federal government). Two years ago I applied to have wireless networks installed in four of the six schools in our district. All told, the upgrades would cost almost $250,000, and if my application were approved, the federal government would pay for almost $200,000 of the expenses.