(All hail, President Schauf!)
Just kidding, no homage necessary. Yes, I was made president, president of our condo complex. The complex is set up as follows. There are 28 condo buildings; each building has 6 homes in it. THat's more than triple figures in people living at the condo. Our budget is over 6 figures. Now, I'm not trying to impress you just telling you the scale of the public and the budget I help oversee. The name of the condo complex is called TMA (Terrace Maintenance Association).
My succession to presidency was a little abrupt & very unceremonious. The condo has a pool. The previous president was helping oversee the pool. Fights over how clean the pool should be, who runs the pool, & who works at the pool erupted this summer. The president (who we will call MS) before me & I served on the board since Dec. 2002. He quit in much bitterness as a result of the pool issues. I was the secretary and did all the minutes, counted votes on important issues and announced voting results. We were elected, then reelected in Nov. 2004.
The people that vote in the election are not the unit homeowners, but rather the condo captains of each building. So the 28 builings each have a captain. They are like the legislative branch and can pass important "rules & regulations", pass the budget and pass emergency spending that sometimes the TMA unfortunately needs. Most importantly, the building captains vote who gets to be on the TMA Board. They vote 7 Board members: Pres., Vice pres., treas., secretary, pool chairperson, landscaping chairperson & posting-of-notices chairperson.
When President MS decided to quit over the myriad of fights about the pool, our vice president decideded that at 50 something years old and with a bad temper, she didn't feel like being president. So I volunteered at a private TMA Board meeting to become president.
So that's my true story of how I became president. It happened during the end of July (when I didn't have a computer to do any posts)
I'm already facing my 1st crisis as I'm trying to stave off former President MS from suing the TMA. It involves a missing videotape of the all-important April, 2005 meeting. But that's for another post. I'm not even sure if anyone is reading this!
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
a little eulogy....tell me what you think
I gave this little rembrance of my co-worker Hani on August 8 at the chapel of Ingalls Memorial Hospital.
HANI’S EULOGY
All of us here have been fortunate enough to spend some time with Hani. First of all, he was a good worker and cared about the patients he watched as a cardiac telemetry tech. Hani was also a person you could talk to as he was very friendly. He was a smart, articulate person who spoke accurately of the current events. I recall having a number of talks with him while we were working together in the telemetry room about the fighting in the Middle East.
All of us know that since the 9/11 crisis, there has been a lot of talk about us versus them. There has been much fighting. However, when Hani spoke it wasn’t about us versus them. He spoke only about us. All of us. The fact was that when Hani worked with many of us here tonight; we were together. We shared the work taking care of the patients; we shared the conversations; we shared concerns and best of all we shared good times. We need more people like Hani who encourage uniting with others rather than dividing.
Hani also noted the common aspects that Christians and Muslims share. That both value peace. Both believe in living, good virtuous lives. Both religions believe in an afterlife that rewards people like Hani for living such a wonderful life. A life which ended far sooner than it should have.
This is the time to take comfort in God. The God of all of us. I believe that we can and do possess the spirit of God. If we live life the way the Bible and Koran teaches us, than we can make true that famous Psalm verse, "Lord send out your spirit and renew the face of the earth."
Death reminds us of how meaningful and sacred life is and live it to the fullest. In these days ahead we need to strengthen old friendships and seek out new friends. This is a time when there is still too much discrimination and lack of opportunities, we need to look at what brings us together instead of what tears us apart. & most of all we need to be ready for the time when God calls us to heaven.
HANI’S EULOGY
All of us here have been fortunate enough to spend some time with Hani. First of all, he was a good worker and cared about the patients he watched as a cardiac telemetry tech. Hani was also a person you could talk to as he was very friendly. He was a smart, articulate person who spoke accurately of the current events. I recall having a number of talks with him while we were working together in the telemetry room about the fighting in the Middle East.
All of us know that since the 9/11 crisis, there has been a lot of talk about us versus them. There has been much fighting. However, when Hani spoke it wasn’t about us versus them. He spoke only about us. All of us. The fact was that when Hani worked with many of us here tonight; we were together. We shared the work taking care of the patients; we shared the conversations; we shared concerns and best of all we shared good times. We need more people like Hani who encourage uniting with others rather than dividing.
Hani also noted the common aspects that Christians and Muslims share. That both value peace. Both believe in living, good virtuous lives. Both religions believe in an afterlife that rewards people like Hani for living such a wonderful life. A life which ended far sooner than it should have.
This is the time to take comfort in God. The God of all of us. I believe that we can and do possess the spirit of God. If we live life the way the Bible and Koran teaches us, than we can make true that famous Psalm verse, "Lord send out your spirit and renew the face of the earth."
Death reminds us of how meaningful and sacred life is and live it to the fullest. In these days ahead we need to strengthen old friendships and seek out new friends. This is a time when there is still too much discrimination and lack of opportunities, we need to look at what brings us together instead of what tears us apart. & most of all we need to be ready for the time when God calls us to heaven.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
where to begin......!
There has been a lot that's happen but I didn't have the computer to put it in. As I said before, I work at a hospital reading EKGs as a cardiac monitor tech. We have a total of 90 patients to watch & so, 2 people watch them . There is, of course, times you can talk to your partner who is watching patients with you. One of the people I watched EKGs with is Hani.
Hani was a Muslim. We went to an Arabic bar one time with2 other tele techs (a male& female) & 2 nurses. We had a blast. In fact one of the nurses (Trudy in previous posts) I really liked but decided not to date later. He was a great guy. Hani was not your stereotypical Muslim. He was very much against Al Queda & the jihad. He thought that there needed to be more understanding and dialogue rather than fighting. He spoke about things that united the rest of us not what divided us.
In early August, he was to fly to Jordan and get married. He never made it. He went to his own bachelor party in a rough neighborhood and then was shot to death as he left a place called Sky Box in Harvey, IL. He was only 29. He had a sick mother who he lived with and helped take care of . He has a heartbroken fiancee' back in Jordan.
Many people at the hospital cried. I told people who came to the telemetry room where I work that even though I am divorced, I still consider my wedding back in '93 and the subsequent honeymoon to be the happiest days of my life. We knew with such an outpouring of grief on our floor that there needed to be a memorial service at the chapel of the hospital. Not very many people were able to go the Muslim funeral (not sure what they call funerals) I helped arrange the hospial service, I gave a reading and I gave 1 of 2 eulogies. I will put the eulogy as a post later.
2 weeks later another tragedy struck our floor. Danielle, a nurse on night shift, was 8 months pregnant with her 7th child. AFter starting a 3-month leave of absence @ the hospital, she called her co-worker and told her that something was wrong with her. Her friend told her to come to the hospital. The placenta ruptured from the uterine wall. Minutes after arriving at the hospital her 8 month fetus, already 9 lbs., was dead. The uterine wall was bleeding so badly that she needed emergency hysterectomy and then went into kidney failure. Hours later she died from massive hemorrage. She left behind 6 kids with the oldest only being 16 and the younges not yet 2.
THere's more that has been happening. The next posts are about: the eulogy I gave, becoming president of our condo complex, leaving the law firm-a place I complained a lot of and my new full time job.
More to come......
Hani was a Muslim. We went to an Arabic bar one time with2 other tele techs (a male& female) & 2 nurses. We had a blast. In fact one of the nurses (Trudy in previous posts) I really liked but decided not to date later. He was a great guy. Hani was not your stereotypical Muslim. He was very much against Al Queda & the jihad. He thought that there needed to be more understanding and dialogue rather than fighting. He spoke about things that united the rest of us not what divided us.
In early August, he was to fly to Jordan and get married. He never made it. He went to his own bachelor party in a rough neighborhood and then was shot to death as he left a place called Sky Box in Harvey, IL. He was only 29. He had a sick mother who he lived with and helped take care of . He has a heartbroken fiancee' back in Jordan.
Many people at the hospital cried. I told people who came to the telemetry room where I work that even though I am divorced, I still consider my wedding back in '93 and the subsequent honeymoon to be the happiest days of my life. We knew with such an outpouring of grief on our floor that there needed to be a memorial service at the chapel of the hospital. Not very many people were able to go the Muslim funeral (not sure what they call funerals) I helped arrange the hospial service, I gave a reading and I gave 1 of 2 eulogies. I will put the eulogy as a post later.
2 weeks later another tragedy struck our floor. Danielle, a nurse on night shift, was 8 months pregnant with her 7th child. AFter starting a 3-month leave of absence @ the hospital, she called her co-worker and told her that something was wrong with her. Her friend told her to come to the hospital. The placenta ruptured from the uterine wall. Minutes after arriving at the hospital her 8 month fetus, already 9 lbs., was dead. The uterine wall was bleeding so badly that she needed emergency hysterectomy and then went into kidney failure. Hours later she died from massive hemorrage. She left behind 6 kids with the oldest only being 16 and the younges not yet 2.
THere's more that has been happening. The next posts are about: the eulogy I gave, becoming president of our condo complex, leaving the law firm-a place I complained a lot of and my new full time job.
More to come......
Saturday, August 06, 2005
when you're cut off w/o a home computer
Hi,
Haven't been blogging in a while because it's been busy at the law firm and because my NetZero or home computer has glitched and won't let me use the Internet; to all the dear readers out there, you're going to be getting some substantive news, soon!
Haven't been blogging in a while because it's been busy at the law firm and because my NetZero or home computer has glitched and won't let me use the Internet; to all the dear readers out there, you're going to be getting some substantive news, soon!
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