Val-isms

4th of July and a Sunday in the park

The fireworks on the beach last night were great.  Sophie watched them with my ex and we picked her up afterward so that she could sleep at our place last night.

Today had a plan.  But before the plan, there were gifts to give out.

Sophie has begun sewing (there is another post in the works with more background on the reason for this new hobby), and here is her gift for Tommy:

It looks like a cat kippah to me, but what do I know.  Note, the ear holes! 

Tommy could be observant, but clearly, by the look on his face, he's not.

Back to the plan.  Up and out by 8am (ok, really, 9!)

Stopped for coffee and b'fast supplies.

Over to Wal*mart for other supplies and a license.  Supplies... check.  License... nope.

Headed to hardware store, where licenses were obtained.

Arrived at destination at 11:30 - Wolfe park pond.

Beautifully sunny... mid to high 70's.  The pond beckoned us.

Poles were set up with hooks and bait... positions assumed near chairs and big rocks... casting began.

Sophie is a natural fisher-woman.  She has a gentle grace about her and she becomes one with the pole.  However, sometimes, there are issues with hooks getting snagged on grasses along the edge of the pond and lines getting crossed with mine or Linda's!  Cutting of lines becomes the solution.  But all in all, she has great patience and we literally were out there for a few hours before we broke for a late lunch and then fished for another hour, before heading home.  No fish were caught, but we all had a great time on a perfectly beautiful sunny day.

Among the pretty sights in the water... a turtle, a couple of fish and a cute little baby duck who had no fear of humans and proudly swam over to us and walked by us all on the shore, though not pausing long enough to snap a great picture of him, but here he is (look to the left of the big grey rock):

Of course, Sophie is ever fashionable, even when fishing.  Here is the diva fisher-woman now:

 

and with her Mom:

 

And here is the cute ultimate fisher-woman:

 

Here is the lovely Sophie enjoying a well deserved ice cream cone:

 

All in all, it was a wonderful day.  We ended it by going to Red Lobster for some crab legs!  YUM! 

The Contendah!

The day started early. 

Up at 5:15am.  On a Sunday.

The weather was cloudy, with a mild warm breeze. Temps in the 70's.

We arrived at the beach, after stopping for bagels and coffee.  We followed a long line of cars (other crazy runners and their fans!) into the parking lot.

After getting signed in and obtaining the bib and 'timing chip', we headed back to the car to hang out until the 8:30am start.

I started thinking, "Hell, it's only 13 miles.  Maybe I should sign up and run with Linda..."  (yeah, right!)

We went up to the starting line about 7:45 and after they all (4000 runner/walkers!) took off, I headed back to the car, my coffee and my Sunday NY Times!

After about an hour of reading, I fell asleep in the mini with the sunroof and side windows open!  Nice!

I slept for about an hour and then headed up to the finish line and watched Linda come running strongly across the line at 2 hours and 38 minutes!  (Not a hair out of place and no sweat glistening her brow!)

Here she is crossing the line: (she's the gal in the center of the screen in the light blue sleeveless shirt and navy blue shorts!)

 

And here she is with her finisher's medal:

 

Seriously, this picture was taken within 3-4 minutes of her finishing.  Does she look like she's just finished running 13.1 miles???!?!!

While waiting for Linda to finish, I kept getting updates on my phone from my friends (via Fac*bo*k) that they were stuck on a MetroNorth train on their way to Pride.  I wondered if perhaps Linda coulda run to Manhattan faster than the train was getting them there!

I'm very proud of my honey!  When she puts her mind to something, she follows thru.  She sets some pretty high goals for herself.  Very inspirational.  Great job, hon.

The life...

Sophie & her friend Amelia - lounging in the pool earlier this afternoon:

We're so darn excited to have the sun out...

Merging projects

In addition to training for a ½ marathon, which she’ll be running on Sunday 6/28/09 locally, my fiancé has also been taking an online Master’s Certificate program in Internet Marketing since April.  This program will make her more marketable (pun intended!) in her current job, but also will be a nice thing to add to her resume in the event that she finds herself in the unfortunate position of job searching.  In this day of job insecurity, it’s not a bad thing to do.

 

Anyway, as part of her coursework, the program encourages their students to either create a website or find a website where they can apply the things being learned.  “Hands on” learning, especially with this type of material, can be more beneficial.

 

As you know, I’ve been involved in my Temple for a few years and recently finished my first year as a member of the Board.  My project for the past year was to get that youth group reunion put together, but after that, I was just kind of there hearing all about the financial woes and brain-storming ideas for getting more congregants ‘connected’ and more involved with the Temple.

 

So when Linda was looking around for a site, she thought that she could use the Temple website as her case study. 

 

It’s been eye-opening to go thru this process with Linda.  First of all, it’s kind of fun. 

 

The Temple's website is well meaning and has an abundance of information, but it's not as effective or organized as it should be.  Some things are outdated and other pages are in need of a make-over.

 

Once ‘tags’ are put on the various pages within the site, all kinds of reports can be generated showing all kinds of tracking information like where people are coming from geographically, as well as how long they stayed, where they went, and what search criteria got them there.

 

What it comes down to, is that our Temple website could use a little make-over.  Both from a functional stand-point and it’s appearance.   I decided to take it one step further and asked the Temple President if we could get together with her and some other board members to see about making this a project.  She was thrilled and and we’ve been given a green flag!

 

Linda has been driving all the behind the scenes techy stuff that has to do with tagging things as I mentioned before, and I’ve been focusing on doing descriptive write-ups for the descriptive tags and also working on a ‘pitch’ to present to the board members when we meet with them in July.  This pitch will contain what the reports have shown us (with the 3 months of data that we’ll have in the reports as well as some contructive suggestions for improvements for the near future and some long-range plans, as well. 

 

In addition to all of this, Linda e-mailed the Instructor about our Temple’s website last week, asking for some advice.  She told him all that she had done so far, what she was planning on doing in the future, and asked him if she was on the right track and if he had any suggestions for her. 

 

She didn’t hear back from him right away and thought that perhaps with all the mail that he must get, who knows when she'd hear back from him.

 

Each week, there is an online class, where they go over various topics to do with the chapters being discussed.  And at times, they’ll take a look at a specific website as a case study exercise for the class.

 

The Instructor replied back to Linda yesterday.  It seems that our Temple website will be the case study for tonight’s class!  So I’ll be sitting in with Linda to hear what is being said.  How cool is that?!!!

 

This whole Internet Marketing is turning out to be a win-win for Linda and our Temple!

 

In the meantime, there’s a lot of work to be done, but it’s all for a good cause.

 

Nice job, honey.

 

Curvy blogging

I'm blogging from my phone tonight. Cool. It's a little slower typing with just my thumbs... But it's kind of fun! Today was Sophie's last day of school. She's a little nervous about going to camp tomorrow (even though she's gone there for all of the summers in her short life!!!) I'm confident that by the time I pick her up, not only will she bursting with stories about all fun things she did, she'll have a new best friend. First days are always tough for her and these are the tough times for me, as well.

Gotcha Day celebrated & Father's Day weekend

Tough making time to blog.  Everything is going well.  Sophie's last day of school is tomorrow!  She's excited!

Busy weekend.

Synopsis:

50th birthday party of a friend Sat night.  Saw friends who I 'lost in the divorce' (and whom I've realized I'm better off without) and had to play that surface b.s. crap with, but we still had a good time at the party.

Father's day breakfast at my ex's for my Dad.  My sister's kids had a sleepover there on Sat night with Sophie so I got to see them.  Everyone had a great time.

Sunday afternoon, my ex, Sophie & I went to Broadway to see "Wicked".  Was the best show. LOVED it.  We all had a great time and it only rained while we were in the show, so we got to walk from Grand Central to the restaurant and to the theatre and back to Grand Central.  Sophie had a great "Gotcha Day".*  Was the 8th one!

* - anniversary of the day that we 'got' Sophie (adopted).  Though the date is actually in May, we couldn't find good tickets for any dates in May!  We go to the theatre every year to see a different show to celebrate.