Category: Friends

Joy and Camaraderie

Published on by Andy Affleck

This past year in Cub Scouts has been a tumultuous one. I don’t really want to go into details because there are far too many ways to offend people or hurt feelings. And that’s mainly why I’ve never really blogged or tweeted about what’s been going on. But let’s leave it at this: the den leaders got together in early fall and demanded a change in leadership to right a whole host of wrongs that had been going on. It took a few months from that point for real change to happen but it finally did. How and what is not important. Suffice it to say that the problems are now over and gone.

This past weekend, our pack held the annual Pinewood Derby. For the three of you out there who are not familiar with this, it is a race of scout-made wooden cars on a wooden track (I’ll let you figure out what kind of wood the cars are) using only gravity to propel the cars. This was our first pack event without any influence or involvement from the source of the problems and it was a markedly different event from all others we have held to date. When we met to set up up the track and the finish line software, screen and laptop and the sound system on Friday night, we had fun. It was all joy and camaraderie. On Saturday, the entire event ran smoothly and everyone had fun. There were no politics, no last-minute insanities brought about by poor planning or last-minute changes. Everything just worked and everyone worked together like a fantastic team.

I had forgotten that things could operate that way after so much dysfunction for so very long. I’m still in a good mood from how wonderfully the weekend went and look forward to what this great team will do for our boys moving forward.

Posted via web from Webcrumbs (Posterous Edition)

Updates and Such

Published on by Andy Affleck

Somebody took me to task for not blogging recently. Imagine that. Being taken to task for not blogging. Anyway, in the interest of not being glared at meanly, here is an update of what’s been going on lately.

First, we’re deep in the throes of getting this house ready for re-habitation. Since a week before the great flood, we’ve been staying at my in-laws while we had the hardwoods done, did flood cleanup, lead abatement (in the form of covering it all up since actual removal would be a horrid nightmare), and painting. We’ve still got a lot of work to do in the painting department but we’ve finished all of the nasty wall repair and prep work and we’re mostly down to priming and painting. In fact, two of the rooms are fully primed and the ceilings are painted leaving just wall color and trim work. So, we expect to whip through what’s left so that we can get new area rugs, move the furniture back in and be ready for Thanksgiving when we’re having a large number of family members over. When we painted our living room in Virginia, we gave ourselves a week and managed to finish everything the day of our annual holiday party.

Second, we’re debating what to do about the floors. When we started working on the baseboards, we found that putting down blue painters tape and immediately pulling it back up to reseat it pulled up the polyurethane. We’ve also noticed that it’s blistering/bubbling up in the cracks between floor boards. Clearly, something has gone horribly wrong. Perhaps the flooring people did something wrong or perhaps it is the result of the incredible humidity the week they put it down (they did the three coats the week it rained non-stop). We were hoping to have them back in to do some spot repair and talk about it before thanksgiving but it’s clear that we won’t have time. So, we’ll put down rugs, move in furniture and accept the fact that we may have to reverse back out if they need to do any large-scale fixes. Or maybe we’ll just decide to not care about anything except what’s out and visible (ie, where there’s no furniture or rugs). I figure that with a five year old, the floors will age rapidly anyway…

Third, I’ve been heading up to Boston a fair amount. Went to a mini-reunion of current and former WebCT folks, a birthday party, and various lunch meetings and interviews. I nearly forgot how much I love Boston and it’s been great to visit it. Good thing too, odds are that any job I find will be up there as that’s where the jobs appear to be. I’ve done the commute via train a number of times and already know that I am going to like it very much. Much nicer than the bus/subway combo I had to do in VA since I can stretch out and actually use my laptop.

Fourth, I took Jack to the zoo today. It was much fun. I love seeing the world through the eyes of a five year old. So refreshing. And exhausting.

So, that’s an update.

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