Hope some publicity helps spur on a big sponsor or two. Also hope that the Derby and its old-fashioned charms can make a comeback in this age of electronics.
Archive for April, 2010
Soap Box Derby saga makes Wall Street Journal
Friday, April 30th, 2010Lost days
Friday, April 30th, 2010I hate lost days. The kind where you are at work from like 7 to 9, then you come home and just crash, realizing you’ve done nothing that day but work, eat and sleep. Or when you work a couple of those days in a row, and then need three days to recover — more “lost days”. Or when you’re sick and have no energy to do anything at all and the days come and go and nothing gets done. Or when you come back jetlagged from a trip several time zones away and it takes you a week to get back on schedule. Life’s too short to lose more days than necessary.
Blame it on the genes
Thursday, April 29th, 2010Isn’t it just *great* when your children inherit some of your worst traits? Like, for example, my tendency to gag when the dentist takes X-rays or I get a strep test. My youngest, of course, inherited THAT gene from me so that when she gets strep tests (like today), she throws up all over the doctor, herself, me, the floor, her toy and/or the office furniture. I’d like to say this was a one-time-only occurence, but it’s not. Next time, I’m sending my husband! (P.S. I’m not alone in this — my BFF’s daughter inherited her debilitating migraines.)
Can these tragedies be averted?
Thursday, April 29th, 2010After reading today’s top story in the Beacon Journal, I have to express my thoughts about the tragic car accident yesterday morning that killed a 16-year-old girl and seriously injured her teenage brother. The driver of the other car was 17. In the same school system, a 16-year-old was killed in a car crash during Christmas break. and yesterday Medina County firefighters responded to another car accident — this one seriously injuring a 17-year-old who had only been driving for three weeks. I know I’m in the minority, but I have serious concerns about 16- and 17-year-olds driving. On my side of the family, I have two teenage nieces and a nephew who are driving. Added together, they have been in about 10 accidents – one which could have killed my nephew, had he not been wearing his seatbelt. I don’t know where legislation now is about the possibility of raising the driving age to 18, but the idea definitely has its merits. Especially if it can prevent more of these front-page stories and teenage tragedies.
Update: I’m so sad to report that the younger brother involved in Wednesday’s car accident has died of his injuries as well. My heart goes out to their family and friends … I can’t even imagine.
A nice moment …
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010As “they” say, the secret to happiness is to recognize and savor the nice moments in life. Here’s mine for today: my youngest daughter was coloring in and decorating big letters for a sign she’s making for me that spells out “I love you mom. You are the best mom ever”. (I’m not sure if she’ll get beyond the first sentence; that’s a lot of letters! But I love the sweet thought anyway. It helps take the sting away when five minutes later I tell her “no” about something and she informs me that in fact, I’m NOT the best mom ever. Between her and my son, I get crowned and stripped of my title about six times a day.) Anyhow, I was doing dishes and thought, “Heck with the dishes, I’m going to take a few minutes and paint.” So I painted while she colored and she soon came over to where I was working (the other side of the dining room from where she was) and pulled up a chair to watch me paint. It was such a nice moment — especially because she spent almost the whole time saying, “Boy, Mom, you’re good” and ”Wow, Mom, that looks nice.” All three of my children, in fact, show so much interest in and are so supportive of my work, young as they are. Their compliments mean so much to me because as a mom, it’s second-nature to support your child. When the tables turn once in a while and they are the ones rooting you on, it’s very sweet and straight from the heart.
Is there a message here?
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010The last time I saw my doctor (a woman, married, mother of three) and we talked about the challenges of parenthood, she mentioned something like “You know, I just learned that suicide was one of the leading causes of death among pioneer women”. Then the other day she told me, “Did you know Valium was the #1 prescribed drug for women in the ’60s; that’s where the Rolling Stones song, Mother’s Little Helper * ( … she goes running for the shelter of her mother’s little helper … ) comes from.” Mind you, her daughters are older and she’s really enjoying a whole new phase of parenthood with them, so it’s not like she’s dropping hints about how she feels now. It’s just an admission that parenthood is hard, has always been hard, and always will be hard. Period.
*http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/rolling+stones/mothers+little+helper_20117873.html (If you get a chance, read the lyrics. I’ve heard the song a hundred times but never knew what all the lyrics were until I just read them. Very interesting, 40 years later.)
Bologna? Seriously?
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010At the grocery store this morning my youngest begged me to buy bologna for her sandwiches when she packs, because “that’s what some other kids pack, and it looks good!” I have one thing to say about that: Blechhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Growing up middle-class, I packed lunch year after year after year with either a bologna or peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich (chip chopped ham was a special treat). Sometimes dinner at home was fried bologna. And although I can still eat P&J, I will never ever ever ever ever ever eat another piece of bologna again in my life if I can possibly help it. I did buy the cursed food this morning mostly out of curiousity as to what my often-picky daughter will think of it …
(Later that night) Well, as the famous commercial goes … ”Mikey liked it. (S)he liked it!” Of course she liked it. She’s a kid. AND to make matters worse, she went on and on about it to her older siblings later that day so of course they tried it and of course they liked it too. Again, I say to myself, ”Gross! Disgusting!! Ewwww!” You know I actually shuddered when I saw my daughter take a big bite out of her bologna sandwich at lunch today?? Blech!!!
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Bulls?
Sunday, April 25th, 2010Not the Cleveland Cavs, anymore. As I begin this post, Cavs are up 102-82 in Game 4 against Chicago. It’s funny how this year the talk has been about the good odds of a championship ring, with little thought or worry given to their opponents along the way, especially the Bulls. My how times have changed! Do you remember how 20 years ago we could never get beyond the first round of post-season playoffs with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen as adversaries?? And as someone who was actually at the infamous game with “The Shot” — well, I’ve never quite recovered from that. So I don’t take anything for granted … there are no “sure things”, even with just 1 second left on the clock.
Post-PowerPoint Trauma Syndrome
Sunday, April 25th, 2010I recently sat through 25 PowerPoint (yes, that’s 2-5) presentations in 2 days, most about 30 minutes long. It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many PPT and I have to say that, although people are using a few more bells and whistles than they were a few years ago (like including video clips), overall, these presentations (and presenters) break pretty much every rule of an effective PPT. To recap a few:
- keep the number of words on a page to a minimum
- keep the number of slides to a minimum (one presenter had 75. 75!!)
- make sure the font size is big enough to read
- watch your colors (i.e. burgundy type on a dark gray background isn’t going to work)
- watch spelling , spaces, and consistency of capital letters and punctuation
- don’t read your PPT word for word, especially if you start your presentation by saying, “I’m not going to read my slides to you; you can read them yourselves.”
Funnily enough, the only presenter who actually followed most of these rules used notecards (you never see that anymore!) — which was great — except that the notecards got mixed up a couple times and out of sync with his PPT. Figures! You know, I miss speakers who could use communication skills, audience participation and visual aids to give knockout presentations instead of counting on a PPT to do the work for them.
It’s no scrapbook but …
Sunday, April 25th, 2010it’s better than nothing, is what I tell myself. I’ve saved tons and tons of stuff the kids have drawn, colored, scribbled, etc. through the years. I don’t have the time to do anything organized or creative with them, and the stuff is pretty much scattered throughout the house, but I did come up with something that works for now. Each child has a big binder (I collected a bunch of them for free from that zerolandfill thing last year in Akron) filled with sheet protectors. When I find something that has a child’s name and approximate date on it and is a good example of what they were doing at the time (now my youngest is obsessed with drawing ”constellations”) or is just really good, I put it in the binder. I figure as they create things or I find things I’ll just keep adding to the binder. It’s in pretty much chronological order so my kids can see how their work has progressed. It really doesn’t take much time or effort on my part, and the kids love to look at their books as well as the books of their siblings. And now they’re starting to create or choose things they think are worthy of their books. As I said, it’s not the prettiest or fanciest thing in the world, but it does the trick. (it’s also nice to show grandparents or other people who don’t see the kids often the kind of work they’ve been doing) (oh, my younger two children are more the artists, while my oldest is more the writer, so her book contains more of her writings than her artwork)