Where to start to get caught up!
Thinking back two months now to all that Stacy and I have been doing, and most of it has been work related too.
Stacy did her 3 week trip to California to be with and help out oldest daughter Sandy's pregnancy and birth of newest grand baby Natalie, and since the birth everything has been doing well for grand babies and family, if you don't count very little sleep into that equation.
Both Stacy and myself did our last stint with the Idaho Juvenile Justice Association in early September. And we will be out of it for a year or two at least since she is now off the board, and I am no longer the event photographer. We were a package deal but there, as with almost everything else, everybody is replaceable! So we get a break!
We're both happy about being done for a while and looking forward to the time off break after 6 years of being involved with that organization. For Stacy it was always almost a full year activity for each event with several trips to the South end of the state no matter where it was being held that year.
In late August, after Stacy's return from California, we had a two day training a couple of hours away for a program called "Restorative Justice" that is working its way through the Country after being developed in New Zealand and being implemented in many countries around the world. In our little community we are planning to start the program off with the area school system. Many US cities have started implementation in area school districts too.
Also in late September I had an all day class about Cyber Safety that was a 'train the trainer' class so myself and the twenty others in attendance could help spread the word to Schools, kids and families. I'll be having a two day training in a couple of weeks for Cyber Stalking and evidence gathering for those cases. Both the Cyber Safety and Cyber Stalking classes are timely as even in rural America, abuse of the web happens here too.
So, it's been work, work, work, or work related as there was a stretch where it seemed like our area delinquents went a little crazy. For a time we had 5 people on GPS, ankle monitors, I'm in charge of those devices and the online monitoring of the users. Five at once was a record for us, so far. And no, like so many things that are seen on TV, they don't actually work the way TV shows say they do!
At home on our weekends we've been gathering wood as it's that time of year again to be getting ready for winter. Daughter Sandy recently posted a photo on Facebook that was passing on another's photo and comment that was of an ice bound pick up truck with the caption "I'll be watching winter from my TV in California!". VERY funny, and even now, Stacy's kind of wishing she was doing that too! As I've said before in another post, while I still love the actual seasonal changes, Stacy is so over the cold and snow of winter in North Idaho. Even though with climate change the last few winters have been a lot less snow and more cold temps, I still like it better than the 10 months of summer back where we used to live!
Out in Hawaii, son Sean had been let go, along with the entire crew he was working with, when the government contract company he'd been working for since getting out of the marines, lost the contract for the helicopters they had been working on. He was of course very upset and unlike when the contract was lost for CH-47 in San Diego and he'd been offered the job that precipitated his move to Hawaii in the first place in 2010, no such offer came through this time. They were just all let go.
So Sean concentrated on school, he's working for his degree and almost halfway through his 4 years on it, and applied at other contract facilities he was aware of. He wound up being off work for about a month and then was hired on at another facility that happened to be just down a few hangers from where he'd been working, and making more money too. So, he's happy again!
And out in Texas, Laura recently told us she's getting a non paying promotion at her job, of "Training Officer" which was the position Stacy had always wanted in our department when we lived and worked back in California.
Oh yes, and one last thing was about Stacy's father, 92, and soon to be 93 years old, Selby, was given a quick trip to Washington D.C. as part of the Veterans Honor Flight that covers the flight and lodging of Veterans from across the US to be able and see the Veteran memorials for the different wars in DC. When up in his age group a chaperon accompanies and assist the veterans. So he and his sponsor/chaperon went on the cross county and back in 2 days to the memorials. He got some good memories out of it and with the photos and video taken by the sponsor I made into a DVD video for him to send out to family to see what he'd done and seen. That was two weeks ago now and he's still recovering from it all. Stacy's father was a soldier in WWII and was one of the many at the "Battle of the Bulge".
And that's about it for this post, but I have a post to write about something Stacy and I did that I hope to start writing tomorrow, yes, tomorrow. Till next time, Tad
Thinking back two months now to all that Stacy and I have been doing, and most of it has been work related too.
Stacy did her 3 week trip to California to be with and help out oldest daughter Sandy's pregnancy and birth of newest grand baby Natalie, and since the birth everything has been doing well for grand babies and family, if you don't count very little sleep into that equation.
Both Stacy and myself did our last stint with the Idaho Juvenile Justice Association in early September. And we will be out of it for a year or two at least since she is now off the board, and I am no longer the event photographer. We were a package deal but there, as with almost everything else, everybody is replaceable! So we get a break!
We're both happy about being done for a while and looking forward to the time off break after 6 years of being involved with that organization. For Stacy it was always almost a full year activity for each event with several trips to the South end of the state no matter where it was being held that year.
In late August, after Stacy's return from California, we had a two day training a couple of hours away for a program called "Restorative Justice" that is working its way through the Country after being developed in New Zealand and being implemented in many countries around the world. In our little community we are planning to start the program off with the area school system. Many US cities have started implementation in area school districts too.
Also in late September I had an all day class about Cyber Safety that was a 'train the trainer' class so myself and the twenty others in attendance could help spread the word to Schools, kids and families. I'll be having a two day training in a couple of weeks for Cyber Stalking and evidence gathering for those cases. Both the Cyber Safety and Cyber Stalking classes are timely as even in rural America, abuse of the web happens here too.
So, it's been work, work, work, or work related as there was a stretch where it seemed like our area delinquents went a little crazy. For a time we had 5 people on GPS, ankle monitors, I'm in charge of those devices and the online monitoring of the users. Five at once was a record for us, so far. And no, like so many things that are seen on TV, they don't actually work the way TV shows say they do!
At home on our weekends we've been gathering wood as it's that time of year again to be getting ready for winter. Daughter Sandy recently posted a photo on Facebook that was passing on another's photo and comment that was of an ice bound pick up truck with the caption "I'll be watching winter from my TV in California!". VERY funny, and even now, Stacy's kind of wishing she was doing that too! As I've said before in another post, while I still love the actual seasonal changes, Stacy is so over the cold and snow of winter in North Idaho. Even though with climate change the last few winters have been a lot less snow and more cold temps, I still like it better than the 10 months of summer back where we used to live!
Out in Hawaii, son Sean had been let go, along with the entire crew he was working with, when the government contract company he'd been working for since getting out of the marines, lost the contract for the helicopters they had been working on. He was of course very upset and unlike when the contract was lost for CH-47 in San Diego and he'd been offered the job that precipitated his move to Hawaii in the first place in 2010, no such offer came through this time. They were just all let go.
So Sean concentrated on school, he's working for his degree and almost halfway through his 4 years on it, and applied at other contract facilities he was aware of. He wound up being off work for about a month and then was hired on at another facility that happened to be just down a few hangers from where he'd been working, and making more money too. So, he's happy again!
And out in Texas, Laura recently told us she's getting a non paying promotion at her job, of "Training Officer" which was the position Stacy had always wanted in our department when we lived and worked back in California.
Oh yes, and one last thing was about Stacy's father, 92, and soon to be 93 years old, Selby, was given a quick trip to Washington D.C. as part of the Veterans Honor Flight that covers the flight and lodging of Veterans from across the US to be able and see the Veteran memorials for the different wars in DC. When up in his age group a chaperon accompanies and assist the veterans. So he and his sponsor/chaperon went on the cross county and back in 2 days to the memorials. He got some good memories out of it and with the photos and video taken by the sponsor I made into a DVD video for him to send out to family to see what he'd done and seen. That was two weeks ago now and he's still recovering from it all. Stacy's father was a soldier in WWII and was one of the many at the "Battle of the Bulge".
And that's about it for this post, but I have a post to write about something Stacy and I did that I hope to start writing tomorrow, yes, tomorrow. Till next time, Tad
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