been busy (please wait)

I have been very busy at work. We have had new clerks in; they seem like a good group. The thing is that in addition to all the work I have to do, I teach them also. I really enjoy teaching new clerks, because I got my degree teaching high school social studies subjects (psych., sociology, poli sci., history, economics). The problem was there was such a glut of social studies teachers when I graduated that I never got to be a high school social studies teacher. I was only able to teach 2 yrs. in the Chicago Archdiocese school system and then didn't want to teach after that. But I have found ways to teach later. Teaching the new clerks is one example. They think they are bothering me when they ask me questions, but they really aren't. I always make it very clear to them that I welcome their questions and if they don't know about something, please ask!

It's been very busy. I have 2 new bosses and since one of my bosses left, I have to act like the attorney and keep moving his cases along. I am really happy with both bosses, especially Terry. There's no awkwardness, there's easy communication, no tenseness. The problem is that the other boss is leaving so then I'm going to have 2 sets of files (something like 40-60 cases!) that I'll have to move through discovery by myself. The hope is that our partner will hire another lawyer and transfer these same cases to the new lawyer or at least another lawyer.

Anyway, I gotta run, tons of work!

the Bad News Brewers

Because I was born and raised in the proud state of Wisconsin, there are 3 professional teams I root for. The Milwaukee Bucks, Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Brewers. The Bucks have been an absolute disgusting disgrace for the past 2 years. They have been wholly incapable of playing defense since about 2001 or 2002.

The Packers had a very good season last year (13 wins, 3 losses, and a playoff victory before their loss in the NFC Championship game), but the conventional wisdom is that they will do worse next year with a Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre retired and gone.

Then there's the Milwaukee Brewers. There's good news but mostly bad news. The good news is that the Brewers are pretty talented. They have a guy Prince Fielder (yes, his first name is PRINCE) pictured on the left, who was the youngest guy to ever slam 50 home runs in a season. They have Ryan Braun who was the Rookie of the Year last season. They have a very good pitcher in Ben Sheets. Also, their defense is better than it was last season.

BAD NEWS I put this in bold and in caps because there's just so much of it. Let's turn a strength into a weakness.

• While Ryan Braun has made a home for himself in LF and is much better there than at 3rd Base, he has had a hitting slump.
• PRINCE Fielder is also in a hitting slump. Before the season started, he announced he would be a vegetarian, because he doesn't like the way people kill animals before they are turned into meat. Now, he has fans blaming (wrongfully) that is the reason he is not doing well this year. Rumor has it that people are starting to throw hamburgers and steaks at him.
• Their young, promising pitcher is out for the season because he ripped up his knee.
• The Brewers have lost their last 6 games.
• Their starting pitching, other than Sheets, is awful.
• Ben Sheets is brittle and injury prone. He's had season-ending injuries a majority of the seasons he's played.
• The Brewers have had 1 winning season in the last 10 years.
• With poor starting pitching, poor hitting, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell they will make the playoffs this year. & that was the announced goal by management. They said, "The Brewers must make the playoffs or it isn't a successful season." At this point they'll be lucky to win more games than they lose. For the Brewers to significantly improve they must have the pitchers (by last names) Parra, Bush, Suppan and Villanueva go from rotten to very good. Going from rotten to average will not be good enough to even have a winning season.
• Many people are calling for the manager's head. I have no idea if that will help or not.

I'm so mad at them. People were saying at the end of last year, "Don't be so mad that the Brewers didn't make the playoffs. They are so young and talented that you can wait until next year. " I just knew that was nonsense. All that youth, all that talent, all that hope and it's flushed down the toilet with all that under-achieving! UGH!

concern about Andy

I'm a little worried about my oldest child, Andy. He has been having stomach problems and had to leave school early on Tuesday and yesterday he also "got sick" and would have left but it was at the tail end of the school day, and he didn't miss anything.

I was concerned that it was something he was eating that didn't agree with him, but we have been avoiding foods that are hard to digest.

I'm hoping it's not been stress. Maribeth and I have been getting along pretty well, and I do know there was an instance either in the fall or winter where we had an argument and Andy got sick that same day. That doesn't speak well for the 2 of us, and yes, we should probably argue away from the kids. But I live with someone who is pretty open about what she says, and it's hard to coax into going someplace to argue.

But anyway, with Maribeth & I getting along lately, it's hard to figure out what's wrong with my son.

blue

I feel about as good as the weather which is rainy with gunmetal gray skies. (wait a minute isn't gunmetal gray predominately black? if you know, let me know. If it is than the sky isn't that dark, it would be nighttime if it was).
I feel crappy because some good people left our law firm. Brad, my boss, left. When he first announced that he gave his notice to quit, I ruefully said, "Well, thanks for leaving me with Joan!" (I changed the name of my remaining boss so that she stays "protected"). He replied, "Well, it's nothing personal" Yes, we know Brad. But it sucks seeing his empty chair. The thing I liked most about Brad was how unflappable he was. I could tell him that I made a mistake, and he was just so nonchalant, so "laid back" about it! I loved that. It really encourages a person to be very truthful because even when you admit something you did was wrong you aren't going to be punished or even made to feel bad. Brad never would do that unless the mistake was real bad like a blown deadline that would kill a case. & I never made mistakes like that with him.
We also had a clerk that was gone. I enjoyed working with him because he knew more about rock n' roll (it seemed) than I did. I miss all the fun conversations and he always was someone I could share things with, and commiserate with.
But, you know what? It's silly to get upset about people leaving because the turnover rate at law firms is very high. That's just the way it is, and I've been at quite a few of them. That's why I'm so thankful that I've stayed at this law firm for over 2 1/2 years. That seems like a short time anywhere else but it's relatively long at a law firm.

Another thing that really bothered me is that the bank really gave me a big hit for overdraft fees. Yes, I know that I have no one but myself to blame for that, but in one case it just defies logic. On Saturday, I mailed a credit card bill to Target located in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. That's in excess of 400 miles away, but my payment made it there in 1 day and was processed and sent to the bank the very same day! Now Target National Bank is a very big bank and you would think they would literally receive 1,000s of pieces of mail every day. So, I'm still scratching my head over how I mail something Saturday and it winds up getting there Monday and my check is immediately cashed. Had I known that would have happened I would have obviously would have waited until Monday to mail the bill. (I got paid on Tuesday, and I figured, at the time, that I had plenty of time to zip my check into the bank the same day and it would be able to beat the check to Target. But noooooooooooo...................

Oh well, the answer is to suck it up and keep going!
On a more positive note, my Mom's birthday is today. She's 82. I am very thankful I didn't have merely a good mother, but a great one. I will be buying Mother's Day cards for her and Maribeth. Even when we were separated, Maribeth & I would still get each other Mother's Day/Father's Day cards. I told her today that I planned to take her out for breakfast which is her favorite way to celebrate an occasion. She liked that idea a lot. To all you mothers who read this blog, Happy Mother's Day.

finally, it's SATURDAY!

I remember having a rough time getting up last Monday morning, and I said to myself, "I can't wait until Saturday when I can sleep in." Then every morning thereafter, when I wanted to go back to bed so badly after the alarm rang, I thought, "Wait 'til Saturday". Well, here it is Saturday. I didn't get to sleep in much longer than usual, because I got up at 7:20 as opposed to 6:45. I guess the celebration came after I got up. I got to read the paper in bed. I listened to NPR. I read a little bit of my New Yorker. So the "sleeping in" part wasn't so great because I didn't really sleep in, but the sense of not having to race to a train station to go to work, the sense of being so casual, the sense of being unshaven, unkept, in shorts and tank top (yes, I look terrible), was very nice and very pleasant.

What was really nice was that I made it a point to keep the phone lines open as Maribeth requested, but no one called which was nice. When I saw on the caller ID that there was a phone call from Firestone, I blew it off and didn't answer.

The highlight of the morning was hearing one of the popular programs on NPR called Car Talk, it comes on before the very popular show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me which is a quiz show focusing on people's knowledge of the past week's news events. I loved Car Talk because I hadn't listened to it in at least a year or so. I listened to it when I lived alone in Midlothian, but I haven't lived alone since the end of 2006.

Car Talk is a very good show made that way by the hosts, Tom & Ray Maglozzi (yes, they're brothers). They are very folksy, witty and the show can be listened to for its humor as much as the knowledge you get about fixing a car or finding out what the problem with your car is. Here's an example. The 1st caller was Christy of Washington, DC. Here's how the dialogue went.

Host: You're from Washington DC? Are you a lawyer, lobbyist or politician?

Christy: None of them, I'm a teacher.

Host: Teacher? Do you "reach" your kids?

C: Absolutely, yes!

H: What %age?

C: 100%.

H: Wow, sounds like a promoter more than a teacher.

After the humorous exchange, they finally get down to the problem. She loves her 1993 Honda Accord (& it has 270,000 miles), but there's a funny noise after she got a new clutch, & the noise occurs when she turns the car either right or left. They asked her if it makes the same noise when she is in idle and turns it right or left. She didn't know.

This is what surprised me: they told her to go out to the car at once and find out because that would help them diagnose the problem. They told her to keep her phone line open. So while she did that they took another caller a guy with a 1983 Volvo who lived in Malaysia. One of the hosts bragged that while his brother didn't know where Malaysia was, he did because he worked in the CIA. (OK that wasn't so funny but it seemed to be at the time; you had to be there, ok?)

After the guy was finishing up the car, he told the hosts how much he enjoyed Car Talk.

"It has kept me sane being so far from home"

Host: Well that's good because the show is driving us crazy!!!

So, the woman with the 93 Honda Accord came back after the call and after some discussion they came up in very expert fashion of what her problem was. Then a man came on the air with a car he has had for 20 years (man do they ever take a call from a car literally built this century???!?)

It was a problem with his front end. They asked what's the longest he drove the car and he said 400 miles. Then they chided him because he took such a big risk. The problem was a metal bearing connected to the wheel. They told him that it was breaking and if it broke completely off, he would smash into something. They told him to drive his car slowly to the car mechanic at once. But before he drove there, make sure that his life insurance was paid up and "all of his affairs were in order!"

To really appreciate the show, you would obviously have to listen to the show.

But I am enjoying my Saturday. I am hoping that this weekend is the 1st weekend I get to ride my bike and burn off a few calories in my fight against my fatness. I have lost 30 pounds.

You ever notice how much better complements are when it comes from family?? Well, when I was home last, my brother, Jerome, told me how much better I looked, and that he noticed I lost weight. I felt like I was handed $200. & from a guy who has to watch every dollar and is scrimping, saving and not taking a vacation in about 15 years ago, $200 would feel very, very good. Then I thought to myself, gee, I wonder if Bob (another brother, nicknamed good-naturedly "the Golden Schauf" since he has done so well and is prosperous {& yes, Bob, we know it was a result of hard work}) would ever make such an observation to me. Probably not, he would focus on the fact that I still need to lose at least another 50 pounds. That's ok, everyone needs a critic. Think of what a good critic our Lord is.