Christmas 2008

There is just something about Christmas time and the joy that you see in people's eyes and faces. It truly does feel like the one time of year when people are geninely happier, friendlier and more compassionate. I have always and continue to love this time of year.

We started a new program at work this year called Silver Bells. We basically did an Angel Tree for our elderly population and were able to get them some unbelievable items and gifts. The gratitude that you see on people's faces by just doing simple acts of kindness helps to get you through all of the bad times that you may endure at other times. With all the bad news that we see and hear about (first hand on too many occasions) it always does me good and leaves me feeling a little more energized to start the new year. And the way things are heading, I am going to need it in 2009.

We are enduring another round of budget cuts and now the county is asking for us to introduce budgets with a 15% reduction!!! That is an unbelievable number based on the size of our caseloads and the amount of people we are serving. Everyone in our business knows that when things are going bad, our doors are swinging at an incredible pace. It doesn't make sense to me, but neither does the entire governmental process at times.

With the legislative session about ready to begin, January 14th, I am preparing to begin making my weekly trips to Richmond. These are some long day trips and are really long by the end of the session, which is supposed to be a short session this year, but I don't see them finishing early.

Anyway, everyone in the family is happy and healthy and we are all looking forward to Christmas. We have already celebrated with both my mom, dad and Becky's dad, so Christmas day will be all ours for the first time. I am looking forward to getting plenty of new toys that I can play with and just celebrating the season. Shatlyn should be happy as she is just a tad spoiled, so I don't see her wanting for anything this year. Overall, this year has been very good to me and my family.

I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and I hope everyone is happy and healthy.

Thanksgiving and More

Oh, it is amazing how time slips away. It is hard to believe that the month of November is already gone and we are only days away from Christmas!!!!! It is also quite unbelievable that it has been more than a month since my last post.

Anyway, things have been extremely busy at work and at home. The budget crisis in Virginia and the overall downturn in the economy have been wreaking havoc for us. We have had record numbers of applications and caseloads. People are really struggling right now and that means that our business is booming. Not a good thing, but at least we are helping people as best as we can. We are doing a new Christmas for Seniors program called Senior Bells which is a great program, but is creating even more work. It always feels great to actually see the people we are heping and this is one of those programs where you see actual results. It helps make what we are doing a little more bearable. It is quite difficult work, but these types of programs are really rewarding.

The whole child welfare transformation in Virginia is also creating some new challenges for us. What they are asking for us to do is a huge challenge and not giving us any more resources to do it with. The last administrative increase our agency received was in the early 90's. I would love to see how other programs would operate with no additional funds for over 15 years; however, speaking to it would be like beating a dead horse over and over and over again. Anyway, we have two days of managing with data tomorrow and Tuesday in Abingdon. I truly can't contain my excitement!!!!!!

Shatlyn finished up cheerleading at the beginning of this month and decided not to play basketball this year, so that is giving us a little more free time now that we don't have to do all the practice and games that go along with any sport.

My friend from Iraq was just in for a couple of weeks before he went back for another three months. He works for one of the contractors in Iraq and just finished his one year contract. Now he has the decision to re-up from month to month. He truly thought about not going back this time; however, making around $100,000 per year virtually tax free is certainly enticing. I just hope he stays safe and isn't exposed to too much violence in his trials.

I continue to bowl in my league on Thursday nights. Due to work, I was only able to make a couple of the nights during November. I am averaging in the mid 180's which is closer to where I want to be, but certainly not back to 200+ where I was when I was bowling year round on at least two leagues, but still close enough to where I am pretty happy with it.

December brings the joys of Christmas and all of the Holiday season. Hope that everyone is well and all of you and your families have safe and happy holidays!!!

Skull and Crossbones Jack-O-Lantern

Shatlyn and I finally got around to carving our Jack-O-Lantern four days before Halloween. Oh well, at least we were able to get it done. I attached a copy of the skull and crossbones pumpkin for your viewing pleasure.

Grown up Halloween

As I continue to age (I refuse to grow up), I continue to find ways to enjoy the Holidays and other events. A couple of years ago, we began visiting different destinations each Halloween. Two years ago, we went to Spookywoods. This is one of the top 10 scariest destinations in the US and is outside the Greensboro area. Overall, this was a great experience; however, we didn't realize that when you purchase general admission tickets, you get to wait in the line until everyone who purchased VIP tickets goes first. This ultimately meant that we waited in line for approx. 4 1/2 hours to be scared to death. By that point, we were so cold and tired (it was about 2 AM) that we were just ready to go home.

Last year, we visited another attraction called the Hacker House (and as it's name suggests, it was full of people chasing you with chainsaws, machete's, etc.) and once again not for the faint of heart. If you don't like people jumping out at you or the adrenaline rush of basically being blind and having Leatherface chase you with a chainsaw, it is not for you!

This year, we went to the relatively calm Haunted Caverns of Dixie Caverns right outside Roanoke with a couple of our friends. This was kind of a last minute plan, being as for the last year, we had planned on attending Scarowinds. Being as Shatlyn just passed the age of Trick or Treating, this was to be how we spent this Halloween; however, we went to the website to purchase tickets, and she was so freaked out by the website, that she refused to go. At this time, she doesn't share our affinity for this type of activity. So, we went with Plan B. This is a much more tame version of the Haunted activities we have attended. Overall, it was a cool experience; however, with all the steps up and down, you have to concentrate on not falling and it takes away from the experience a little. While we were there, one of employees actually fell and hurt her ankle and had to be taken out by ambulance.

So at this point, if I had to pick a return trip, it would be to Spookywoods. This is truly a great experience, but not for the faint of heart.

Just Living the Dream

It has been a little while since my last post. It is amazing how quickly time passes and just taking a few minutes to set down and reflect on the last little while.

I have been extremely busy working on doing some remodeling of the house. I just finished redoing all of the wood floors in my home. It is amazing the dust that comes from this. The dust gets into places that I never knew were there. I have been repainting all of the trim in the house which takes forever!!! I will be so glad to have a huge wall to paint, so it will not be quite so tedious. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be replacing all of the interior doors in the house. These are a couple of the last finishing touches and then our entire house will be redone from the time we moved in about 8 years ago. So now, Becky is ready to move and find another home. Oh well, I don't know what I would do with all the extra time, so we can just move to a new home and have new projects to complete!!

Shatlyn has continued to cheerlead for football, so we have been busy running back and forth to her games. The football team is not having a good year. They tied a game on Tuesday, but that has really been there only close game of the year. Yesterday, they got beat by Fries 39-0 which is closer to how most of the games have been.

Professionally, things have been busy as can be expected. When the economy takes a downturn, we have more and more people coming through our doors who need assistance. Throughout the state, we have seen the greatest number in the increase of cases over the last three months that has occurred in the last 10 years. People are just really having a hard time right now. The way the economy is going, I don't expect that things will slow down anytime soon. Virginia has a huge budget shortfall and the Governor announced some pretty huge budget cuts this week. He eliminated around 100 positions throughout the state, which fortunately didn't impact my agency. If things continue at this rate, our Commissioner is propsing eliminating one of the programs that serves our elderly population. That would be extremely detrimental, so let's hope that things turn around soon.

I was offered the Director's job in Montgomery County, but ending up turing the job down. I have to say that it is probably the most interesting interview process I have ever gone through. It consisted of a telephone interview, a full day interview and then a private interview with the Board of Supervisors member who sits on the board of the agency. I was just not comfortable with the entire interview process and was concerned about how supportive the Board would be if I were to take the job. Luckily, I am not in a situation where I need to move on to another job. Additionally, everyone in the world knows that I applied for the position. I love how confidential job interviews are!!!! Oh well, just livin the dream.

And for those of you who care how football season has been going, GHS won their first game and had last their last five in a row before Friday night. They beat Grayson 30-28 Friday night in a great back and forth game. Finally, back in the win column again!!!

August in Galax

Things continue to be hopping around our house. The first week of August, I was in meetings with the other 21 Directors from SWVA for a few days. It was nice to see everyone and catch up a little. The way things are with the economy and the state budget, you never get good news. The Governor is suggesting further budget cuts, so we will just see in time how things work out and how his reductions effect the agency. I did speak with new Children and Families Director from Richmond about his vision for the direction of the agency. He told me that he would like to have me in one of his key position's in Richmond. If this plays out in the next couple of years, I will have some major decisions to make about whether to take a job in Richmond and move our family. In the meantime, I am exploring some other job options in the Christiansburg area which may allow me to stay in the Galax area and drive or to move to that area.

The Fiddler's Convention has come and gone for another year. In my opinion, it was nice when everyone left and things got back to normal. We didn't attend any of the nights as we just aren't big bluegrass fans.

On Monday night, we went with Shatlyn's softball team to the Salem Avalanche stadium for something called the "Field of Dreams". They got to go down on the field and be introduced as Southwest District Champions and then were introduced via their position and got to go out on the field with their counterparts from the Avalanche. They got to stay on the field for the playing of the national anthem. It was a pretty cool experience.

Tonight, we went to the opening football game of the season, Galax vs. Carroll. While I would like to say that it was a good opening, it was actually a pretty sad start to the year. We left with a couple of minutes left in the fourth quarter and Galax was down 45-0. Being as my wife graduated from Carroll, she rubbed it in pretty good. Oh well, maybe we will have better luck as the season progresses.

Busy All The Time

It feels as though we have been on the go constantly for the whole month of July. We stayed home the week of the 4th and visited the local carnival and the demolition derby. The carnival just keeps getting smaller and smaller every year. There were basically 5 rides for the older kids and adults. Shatlyn and her cousin Haley spent most of the night riding on the kiddie roller coaster. They were barely able to fit into the seats!!!!!

The week of July 7th I had to travel for work and spent most of the week in the Richmond area. These meetings are a nice break from the office, but all the time on the road becomes a hassle at other times. On the 11th, we had my 15th Class Reunion from Galax High School. It was great to see so many friends and classmates I had not seen in 15 years. Everyone looked great and seemed to be happy and healthy. We got to meet people's families at the park during the day and spent the evening at one of my classmate's mother's restaurant partaking and catching up. Cissy's is a great little restaurant and you need to visit if you get a chance. The setting is great for the Galax area.

We then took off to Gatlinburg the following weekend for a long weekend. We didn't leave until after work on Friday, so it was about 10:30 by the time we arrived. We spent the next couple of days fitting everything we could into a couple of days at Dollywood and Splash Country. It was extremely hot and around 100 degrees, but it was still nice to get away. The water at Splash Country felt great, though it felt like there were a million people there that day.

We got back in town Monday evening and then on Thursday evening we went to Salem to see the Olympic Women's Softball team play an exhibition game. We arrived over an hour and a half before the game and there were still no seats!!!! There were probably 1,000 people like us who had tickets but no seats, so we camped in the grass out in the outfield and enjoyed the game. After the game, we were able to meet my daughter's favorite Cat Osterman, my wife's favorite Crystal Bustos and the reason we started watching softball, Jennie Finch. It was a really fun night and the US Team won the game 9-0. Hopefully they will do well in the Olympics and win a gold medal. I will post some pictures when I have a few moments for everyone to see.