Hello-ee,
Got just a skif of snow today, not the 6 inches predicted. The boys would
like more, but might be just as well, as Nick has his first driving test
coming up on Wednesday. Probably easier without having to doge the snow
plows.
Zack got the job at the pawn shop! His first day was Wednesday. So far he
is so far very excited and happy. On his first day, he got to disasemble,
clean, and reassemble ‘a glock’ (some sort of gun). There are only 4 or 5
employees at this store, so Zack can get in quite a few hours. After school
3:30 -> 7 (except Friday), most of Saturday, then Sunday off.
Zack also got his grades back up, so I am back to sharing the sporty white
car with him. His school recently put up this nifty web page where all the
current grades and school work is posted, so we can do a much better job of
making sure school work is being done. Two of his classes didn’t show work
he claimed was done yet (teachers with computer problems … I think their
dogs ate them), so called me up last week from school and wander between
classes trolling for teachers that he would put on the phone to tell me that
his work was indeed getting done. At least they sure sounded like teachers
😉
Nick joined the school chess club a few weeks ago. They meet twice a week
(6:30 am on Tuesdays!). They just started a ladder tournement to pick the
top 7 for the varsety team. Nick dropped his first game (was ahead, but
lost on time), but has won all his others so far. They had their first
tournement with another school yesterday. He split his games, but he is not
sure how his team did. Not quite like a football game where the score is
posted to a big scoreboard in front of cheering crowds.
Our group at IBM re-organized last week, partly to address a big project
that we recently landed with Microsoft last month to design and build chips
for their next generation Xbox 2. The deal was anounced a few weeks ago, so
I won’t get shot if I point you to a public web page like this one:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12552 I’m not in a department that
will focus solely on this project, but I expect some of the work on it will
come our way. Should be an exciting project. All of our kids now getting
a different idea of what their parents do at IBM now … visions of game
consoles in every office 🙂
Bruce