Board Meeting

The 8 AM thing did NOT happen yesterday morning. I ended up finally getting up at 9:45 or so. Meg and I had breakfast, and then both brought our laptops out to the deck to do or morning mail and news reading. I also got started on another project I've been wanting to work on... creating playlists for my Zen.

I believe this is truly an art, and I have been brain-storming about the various types of lists I can make since I got my Zen. A few days after I got it, I made 1 initial list called "All Time Favorites," where I basically went through every album, and added my favorite songs to the list. But yesterday, I came up with some new ones. My first list of the day was my "Weird Al vs. The Original" list. Yes, I know, I am admittedly a geek, so therefore it is a requirement that I like Weird Al's parodies. Whether you like him or not, you have to admire the cleverness of the lyrics, and how accurately he aligns the phrasing, rhyme-scheme, and accents with the original lyrics. Not to mention the music, most often depicted exactly like the original (except sometimes with the addition of accordion). Well, I took all of the Weird Al songs I had on my list, and coupled them up with the original versions. I discovered that I was missing a lot of the originals, so I jumped on Limewire, and downloaded what I needed. Meg and I will listen to this list in the car on the way to G-burg today.

Some of the other lists I made were: my favorite 80's, my favorite pop/rock, as well as several lists from memorable time periods in my life. It has always amazed me that just hearing a song can bring back so many memories, senses, and emotions that were associated with that song. For example, I have a list called 'Movie Tunes.' Back in college and high school, I worked at a local movie theatre, first as a concessionaire, then as a manager. Every both, the theatre was given 1 CD to play repeatedly inside the theatres (while the movies aren't showing) and in the lobby. A lot of the songs you got sick of, because you would hear them over and over for a month. But some of the songs got stuck with me. I can almost smell popcorn again when I hear these songs. So anyway, I made playlists for these time periods: high school, high school 'break up' songs (I went through a bad break up in high school, with a slew of songs I associate with this. Since the break up was long ago and forgotten about, the music just brings back feelings of nostalgia, rather than sadness), college summer songs (those too had several sad memories, since much of those songs involved me missing Meg in the summer, but now that we are married, I can really enjoy them), Summer of 1999 (the summer before college), Summer of 2003 (the summer we graduated/got married), and one list for each year I have been teaching so far. Well, enough about my lists, onto the rest of my day.

I got showered and dressed, and then had lunch. After lunch, I took a ride up to church to see if the handbell music I had ordered came in. It did. I also picked two old pieces from the handbell music library while I was there, and then took everything home, so I can start looking at and preparing the music.

After that, I got started on money stuff, which I need to finish after posting this. At 5, I had to stop what I was doing to make an eat dinner, as I had to go to the BOE meeting as a union representative.

At about 6:15, I left for my 30 minute commute to school. It has been a while since I did this commute, but it was nice to see the progress made on the construction sites I always passed. Hopefully the road construction will be almost finished by the time school starts.

I got to the BOE meeting, where there was a very small audience. Just me, Jeanie, an English teacher I work with, and the preschool teacher who works at the other building. There was also a guy there from the education foundation. I also got to meet our new superintendent. He seemed kind of quiet, but he doesn't officially take over for a week or so. The board meeting was a little more like a 'bored' meeting. Basically reviewing over reports and presentations and approving and amending things. Pretty much a good demonstration of how Robert's Rules of Order work: Motion, second, discussion..................... all in favor? opposed? Very exciting. ;-) My job was to take notes. I brought my laptop, because I type way faster than I write. Jeanie was impressed by this, as she usually is by my use of technology. I offered to just e-mail my notes to the union president, this way, they didn't really have to. Both were very appreciative of this.

After the board meeting, I headed over to my parents to switch cars again, so that we can travel to Gettysburg safely with Max. Then, I headed home, finally getting home at about 11:30. I had a bowl of ice cream, watched another episode of Seinfeld, and then was off to bed. I'll blog about today later on.