Anyway…

I have done it. I actually finally did it. After 5 years since going back to school at Sinclair Community College and having to transfer to the University of Toledo to be able to complete it, I have finally graduated with my Associates Degree of Applied Business with a major in programming and software development. I’m hoping this degree will at least give me a fighting chance at moving further in my career. Whether that would be a new job or just on-the-side opportunities, it doesn’t matter too much. I’m not too picky. I do have another web site to design and work on for my father-in-law. I’ll need to apologize for not getting to it sooner but I hear he still would like it done. Work has been providing me with enough code-related projects so at least I’m a bit satisfied there plus some of my coursework actually helped me complete my latest project. Weird!

I’m still not sure whether or not I’ll go back to school to finish a Bachelor’s Degree but I do know that right now I need a big break from college in general. It’s taken up so much time from other things. Being done with school (for a while at least) will give me a lot more time to invest in other important areas of my life. Maybe my mind will change when my student loans threaten to come out of deferment. /laugh+groan

Our oldest cat, Murphy, was diagnosed with feline arthritis back in July. He’d probably had it for quite a while but the symptoms were getting more obvious and detrimental that we had to take him to the vet. He was limping around on one of his legs but we had thought he just landed funny from jumping from a high area – just a sprain – but after he started crying and falling down a lot when he walked we took him to the clinic. The veternarian said he had developed arthritis from age and possibly his weight. He also had a bad ear infection which was affecting his balance. The vet put him on some Metacam (pain medication) and an antibiotic. We were also told it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get his weight down which we attempted to do by limiting his food portions and not allowing him to graze throughout the day.

The medication sure did its job well. Murph wasn’t complaining when he walked. His limp was still noticeable but he seemed pretty happy that he wasn’t in pain anymore. I kept him on his medication schedule, made sure he was eating right, and got plenty of love & attention. As the months went on, he started limping on both hind legs as well as waddling and dragging them a few times. The vet said there really wasn’t more that we could do as arthritis is a degenerative disease and all we could do is slow the progression and make Murphy feel good about himself.

Last week, however, his condition got worse and beyond his control.

Early in the week, we had noticed there was a few drops of cat feces around the litter box area. We figured it was Murph and that he didn’t make it to the litter box in time, but he was going in there so we thought it wasn’t too big of a deal. On Wednesday, though, Murphy had started hiding. He was hiding in closets, under the bed, under the table, etc. If you got near him he would cry a bit and hobble himself off somewhere else. After the kids went to bed, I sought after him again and noticed more feces near him, only this time it was loose. As the evening went on, he kept on defecating as he walked. I cleaned up right behind him. Murph was losing control of his bowels, not a good sign at all. I placed a water dish near him so he could stay hydrated as his stools were becoming more loose than before, a couple of times he did it where he lay. I tried to clean him up the best that I could but fur is fairly tricky to clean without a shower. Not a proud moment for him, no doubt.

Murphy howled and hissed whenever he had to move. He was dragging himself throughout the house, unable to use his hind legs. I usually give him his pain medication on Sundays and Thursdays. I decided to give him his Thursday dose early to relieve his pain. It seemed to work for the most part. Metacam works really well for it but had the side effect of putting him in a stoned state, eyes glazed over and made him only feel like laying around. We sat with Murph for the remainder of the evening, unsure of what to do next. The best thing I thought we could do was to take him to the veternarian in the morning to see what they could do for his condition. I left a light on for him as he couldn’t bear to make it back to the bedroom. He looked miserable and suffering unneededly.

In the morning after the kids went off to school, Mandy and I took Murphy back to the vet’s office. The veternarian looked him over and concluded that his condition had changed for the worse. He told us that he could give him some cortisone for his arthritis and some medication for his bowel problem but we had to also think about his quality of life. He said that arthritis symptoms get progressively worse especially when the environment gets colder. With winter approaching soon, Murphy’s quality of life looked bleak. What kind of life would he have in the near future. One with him dragging himself everywhere he goes, unable to get into the litter box. Even with the anti-diarrheal medication, he’d still void where he lays. His pride and dignity all but extinguished.

It was a difficult and extremely emotional decision. It wasn’t one that was taken lightly at all. Murphy was put to sleep during that visit. I couldn’t believe how quickly the injection ran its course. One minute he’s with us, then his breaths drew slower and slower, and then nothing… I buried Murphy next to our other cat, Molly, who had died earlier in the year from what looked like a sudden heart attack. At least he has a friend in the heavens.

The children are coping okay from what I’m seeing. Abigail and Nicholas are too young to understand what happened. Ben especially was heart-broken by the news. He was the one cat of ours that he really liked. The kittens were confused for the first couple of days without him. I’m trying to dote on them so they don’t feel neglected. Murphy took over the parental duties after Molly passed, but now they’ll have to do more on their own.

I still mull over in my head whether or not we did the right thing, thinking through possible other outcomes, what I could have done differently to help him. I try to console myself with the fact that he wasn’t going to get better, that this was inevitable. You could see the suffering in his eyes.

We’re doing our best to keep everyone’s spirits up but I can’t help myself from thinking about him throughout the day. It’s hard to not remember him. He was quite possibly the best cat in the world ever. He wasn’t a cat to complain about anything. The only thing he demanded was love (and the occasional slice of ham) and during his life, he received more than enough from everyone he had met. We’ll always miss you, Murphable.

Murphy Romig
September 1, 1998 – October 16, 2008
R.I.P.

I would like to introduce you to a wonderful technological advance of the century – err, make that last century. Introducing: the computer. You see, on every first day of school, children come home with the same paperwork that needs to be filled out by their parents. Usually parents are writing down the same information on the forms as they did last year. If there is more than one child attending school, the work involved in filling out paperwork is multiplied. Now, writing down the information is not itself hard at all, but it is a time consuming and tedious process. This is especially true when multiple forms want the same information.

I’ve been to your offices at the schools. I see computers in there. I can only assume that every year, the forms are returned with each child and hand entered into your “system.” Is the information not saved at the end of the school year? It seems that everything is purged when school is out of session only to be re-populated come next August? Though it seems that some information is kept as class lists are created and they know which grades they go to. With the onset of the twenty-first century, I would like to suggest that the district embrace technology and streamline its processes in the realm of student records.

Suggestions that may be helpful:

• Update, not Re-enter: Record the information and keep it in the system via a well-structured relational database. Every year for returning students, send a hardcopy home with the student’s information on it. The form would ask to update the information if it’s not accurate (i.e. address/phone changes, new doctors, etc). There really shouldn’t be any need to record the same information every year, just the data that changes. Then the records could be updated when the form is returned. When the child leaves the school district or graduates, make the record available to the next district or the family in some way.
• Cross-Reference: Some forms that are given at the beginning of the year ask for the same information. Heck, some forms that are given throughout the year (i.e. field trips, extracurricular activities) ask for information that was supplied already. Why do we need to reiterate? Just look at the main record with this data instead or placing it in multiple places where it could be subject to inconsistency or outdatedness.
• Accessibility: Go a step further and make the forms available online to cut back on the time needed for staff to update the system manually and allow for easier/faster submission of forms with common information. Security of childrens’ privacy is probably one hot button for people but seriously, we trust other information over the Internet (banks, insurance, credit) so this is hardly anything different. Security can be implemented that should satisfy the toughest critics. Traditional paper forms should also be available for those without Internet access or choose to submit paperwork the old fashioned way.
• Homework too: While we’re on the subject of using the Internet, allow for some homework to be submittable over the Internet. It could just be via e-mail but also consider using a workflow system. The student submits the homework and the parent certifies the homework (verifying that it’s not plagiarized or someone else’s work). The homework is sent to the teacher for review/grading. Optionally a grade could be available for viewing online. Even an online progress report could be dynamically generated so students can see how they are doing without waiting for interims to be passed out. This would also allow parents to be more informed of what their child is doing in class. I realize that younger children (ages K to 5th) probably have work that isn’t submittable in this fashion. I think that’s fine.

The above suggestions may seem insane and I can understand it may not be feasible at first glance. We use technology in a lot of areas in our lives so why can’t we leverage it for our schools in some way? Let’s save some trees, clutter, and potential headaches from parents. I know it’s not realistic to expect too much change in how our schools are run. An overhaul in the record system shouldn’t be taken lightly and would cost a bunch to implement, but we can’t expect to keep using the same record keeping procedures forever. If I have a misguided view on the current process, please, someone enlighten me. I do realize I have an outsider perspective on how school recordkeeping works, but from where I’m standing it doesn’t seem very optimal.

• Crayons, 16-count, regular size: Not a big demand at first, but the stores have this gem costing a little over $2.00 while the 24-count box was only 22¢. Why in the world am I going to pay more for less colors? Not going to happen. If they really want to have a problem with it, I’m just going to remove 8 colors and change the number on the box with a Sharpie™.
• 200-count packs of loose leaf paper: I could not for the life of me find packs of 200-count filler paper. The store only had 150-count which I figured should just be as dandy. If they need more paper, I’ll go get some more. Actually, I just searched Office Depot’s site and found that they have 200-count packs… for twice the price of 150-count. Ha! No, thank you.
• P.O.U.C.’s: “You mean the pencils of unusual colors? I don’t think they exist,” was my reply to the search of the elusive red pencils. Not red colored pencils, but red leaded pencils. I think they have the kids self-grade their work sometimes. Or it could be for editing a paper. Or not… he’s only in the third grade. Are they making 8 year olds write essays yet? Anyway, the P.O.U.C.’s were eventually found at Walmart.
• Standard/Metric 12″ ruler: What? I think they mean an English/Metric ruler. Of course a 12″ metric ruler would be funnier.
• Pencils, sharpened: That’s fine and dandy, I suppose. Don’t they have pencil sharpeners in schools anymore? I remember way back when we had to sharpen our pencils using the big sharpeners by the door that could take some skin off your finger if you weren’t careful. That’s fun there. I need to find an electric pencil sharpener. Sharpening all of those pencils by hand is a pain and calluses are not fun.
• Dry-erase Markers: I really doubt the kids are actually using these themselves. This really sounds like a teacher supply which really should be bought by the teacher/school. The costs are getting the teacher down? Doesn’t the state of Ohio reimburse teachers for supplies they had to buy?
• Folders: Folders with pockets. Folders with pockets and prongs. Plastic folders with pockets and prongs. In six different colors. Red, yellow, blue, green, purple, and orange. That orange one is the tricky one. Thought I had found them but they didn’t have prongs. Almost had to make another Princess Bride reference.
• Teacher/Time specific supplies: Some supplies are only needed if my kindergartner is in a certain class or goes during the morning/afternoon. And we usually can’t find that out until a few days before school starts. Found out today what class Abi will be in but… her class says there’s 23 children. The other class says there are 13. I have a sneaking suspicion that some kids will be moved to balance out the classes. If that’s the case, we may have bought the wrong supplies…

Just a minor rant. Maybe it’s just us but it just irritates me that they don’t consider the parents when making the supply lists. I don’t think I need to run out to 4 different stores to find things. Plus they really should find out what stores are carrying in the sense of quantities (see paper & crayon bullets above). Well, they go back on Wednesday and should have everything by then. Wednesday? Why start in the middle of the week? Le sigh…

We went back to our hotel to recuperate a bit (and change clothes) before heading back for the fireworks. Too tired to go out somewhere, I let Mandy take a nap in the hotel room and I took the kids out to dinner at some swanky fast food restaurant. I brought back Mandy’s and my own dinners to the hotel and set up the table for a “romantic” dinner while the kids watched some television quietly. Dad, I told you that it’s not tradition unless it happens at least twice in a row… Well, I guess you told me so. But at least I stepped it up a notch and had it at a nice hotel. Let’s ignore the fact that 4 children were with us.

After dinner, we got back on the bus & monorail for the park again so we could ride our favorites again and watch the 10pm fireworks. It was definitely one of the most spectacular displays I’ve ever seen. Afterward we got some cotton candy and one of the special birthday cake hats to use for future birthday parties. After watching the evening SpectroMagic parade, we set off for the monorail and bus back to the hotel… in bed by 12:30am.

We packed up and left our hotel at around 11am yesterday and we arrived back home this morning at 5am. It was a long and tiring drive but the trip back was mildly amusing. From the British guy who thought to give me the a-okay in lieu of the American bird to the guy in the pickup truck who drove with his foot out of the window with his dog walking about the bed of the truck. Georgia didn’t amuse us. We were counting down the miles to get out of that state. Tennessee & Kentucky were no problem, especially with a 20oz cappuccino. Anyway, we’re back in town now and the cats apparently missed me as I woke up covered in fur.