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Sunday, March 21, 1999
Yesterday was filled with our trip to Greenville, SC where Andrew competed in his third USTA regional tournament. It was a long day...we spent about 14 hours traveling to the tournament, playing the hurry up and wait game at the tournament, competing and then returning home. These tournaments usually run behind, but yesterday was more hurry up and wait than normal. Andrew was scheduled to compete at 2:30 PM and it was 4:45 before they entered the ring. It's not unusual for these tournaments to run about an hour behind. As the luck of the draw would have it we drew what had to be the slowest judge at the entire tournament. It took him more than two hours to run a contest that would have normally lasted an hour or less. The other judges at the tournament couldn't imagine what was taking so long.
But all worked out well for Andrew. He won his first career first place Tae Kwon Do trophy for his form. He's not a good sparer, so we didn't pick up any iron there, but he was one happy young man!
Today has been filled with church and the usual Sunday activities, which included building a web page for Andrew's Greenville competition. The youth of our church held youth Sunday today and the youth (fourth and fifth graders and below) planned and led the entire service. They did a wonderful job. It was a very moving service and the entire congregation was very proud of them. You can imagine the swelled pride of one certain mother and father! We all celebrated at Pizza Hut. It's the third day in a row I have eaten pizza with the kids, so hopefully I will be able to lay off the stuff for a while!
Monday , March 22, 1999
So much for the thoughts of Andrew be able to test soon for this Tae Kwon Do black belt.
When I arrived home this afternoon I thought it was strange that Suzy and the kids were not home. It was about 5:30 PM and Andrew Tae Kwon Do class is at 6 PM. He's usually getting dressed at about this time, but the house was dark and quiet. So I gave her a cell phone call and was informed that she and Andrew were on their way home from the Winston-Salem Health Care (your basic HMO) where Andrew was the proud owner (no proud really) of a green line fracture to his left wrist.
Today was a big day at Tae Kwon where all of the students who won trophies over the weekend were to be present with their trophies, so I grabbed his First Place trophy and met them at Mr. Deese's Tae Kwon Do Plus studio. Andrew was a broken hearted little boy when he arrived. He'll be out of action for at least a month and will not be able to test for his black belt. He really wants to get that black belt.
Needless to say I haven't had much time to do many computer related things tonight other than update this web page and console one broken hearted little boy. We had to wedge in there delivery Katie and her friend Anna to girl scouts. We also stopped by to see Bob and Barbara Thompson to show off the trophy. Usually Andrew is quick to jump out of the car and greet their pair of Border Collies. Tonight he didn't;t want to go there because he was afraid the dog would jump on him and hurt his arm. He teared up and wanted to stay in the car, so everyone came out to greet him, including the dogs, which did not please Andrew. Don't know how long we can play this sympathy thing? He's milking it.
Tuesday, March 23, 1999
Not a lot to report today. Andrew seems to be on the mend. I think he's using his arm as an excuse to slip into our bedroom about midnight every night lately, but then it must also be very difficult to sleep with that splint and bandage.
Started on the tax ritual. One thing I must admit is that using Quicken and Turbo Tax makes this job easier, maybe not less painful, but definitely easier. Urgh.
The fortunate thing is it look as though my tax planning through the year has been acceptable and the dear old fat uncle won't be taking as big of a bite on April 15 as he has been known to do in the past.
I turn my stomach to realize that I am funding Bill Clinton's sexcapades and such in the oval office as well as the other crap he throws on our plate. Bring on the republicans in 2000. No Y2K bug there.
Wednesday, March 24, 1999
Got finished with the employee evaluations at work today. We review our employees each February-March. It's always nice to be able to tell your subordinates they are doing a good job, progressing well and maybe even hand out a few bucks in the form of a raise once in a while. I must admit that our company is very generous to its employees. We ain't the bad guys the press makes us out to be!
Took a quick trip to the Lowe's Motor Speedway at Charlotte today. They are once again making improvements. Some of the new seats they are adding will stretch well into the fourth turn. That's an impressive place.
On the tax note, well I finished this evening and tried something new. I used Intuit to file the baby electronically. I'll let you know if I have any bugs to report in using that system.
I'm off to the Winston Cup race in Dallas-Fort Worth, so I won't be able to update these notes for the rest of the week. Have a nice weekend.