Meet and Greet Day at Mar Vista

Funny the things that pop into one's head. I woke up this morning thinking that 4 years ago we moved from Lindbrook in Westwood to the Maplewood house. I never did make it to 2 years in that house. I've already been at my Sawtelle apartment more than 2 years. And along with those thoughts was also feelings of gratitude and contentment. The latter feeling because I had gotten all that work done yesterday. And so I wasn't actually pressing this morning in the least. I just was sort of cruising until it was time for my Tech Council Meeting at 1:30. And then immediately after that I gotta change Johnnie to his picture day outfit and head on over to Mar Vista Elementary. I did the El Pollo Loco/McDonald's chicken McNuggets (for Johnnie) combination for lunch and then I was all good to go. As it turned out, there were really only 2 things I wanted to cover at the Tech Council Meeting. There was the IS Internet Survey and the HR Quality of remote work survey. And then the intranet redesign that I was struggling to frame such that it was an I.S. project. I had to figure out a way to not show my disbelief in the design I was trying to present. This was Barbara's idea and Eloisa already told me I had to present it like "this is what we're doing". So if I were presenting it that way, why do I have to present it at all? I mean, there were so many holes in the design and there were so many questions that we were far from settling anything in this meeting. I really just wanted to let people know this was happening and the to-do was that we need to clarify the design further. Gee ya think? Fortunately we only had 15 minutes to talk about it. That's because we took 45 minutes to talk about the surveys. Really all I wanted to present was that maybe we had 1/3 of the people working remotely might need an upgrade on their internet connections at home but since we're already giving people stipends all we can do is let their supervisors/directors know. Still it was probably one of the few times we talked about anything that long. We could have spent the entire meeting talking about the surveys. But I had a hard stop at 2:30 and so another pretty good Tech Council Meeting under my belt...

On we went to meet Johnnie's new teacher Ms Wiley at Mar Vista Elementary and to pick up Johnnie's bag of materials. The whole thing: meet Ms Wiley, take a picture for the school, pick up Johnnie's bag of stuff took all of 10 minutes. And we were back home by 3 PM. I did get the info on the orientation stuff. Yep, we did have stuff to do so they know we read everything. Hey we had to log on at least. Johnnie and I had to watch the orientation about all the stuff in the bag. Boy, I would have been overwhelmed without that orientation. Johnnie was pretty bored throughout the orientation. I'm sure I'm going to need to help him realize he's actually needing to do school work starting tomorrow. They have him checking in every day at 9 AM. To think he's just going to flip a switch from his play all day, watch videos all throughout the day to work mode is too much to ask I think. But it was me that got him used to vacation mode in the first place and so it will be me that will have to get him in back-to-school mode too. I kept telling him this would be the last day of vacation and that starting tomorrow we're going to need to get to work. Kind of like the way I got to work today. I don't think that has sunk in at all with him. And why would it? He's still stuck on the Octonauts. I have a feeling it's going to end up being a lesson in patience for me. Anyway I watched those orientation videos and then I started to get bored. So much so I was sort of fast-forwarding those videos. Digital citizenship? check. Familiarize with the new portal? check. I couldn't wait to get done myself. And by the time it was time to get out to Westwood to get dinner at Panda Express, Johnnie and I were back to routine. After all, it's only Wednesday and I've gotten the 3 things done that I wanted to get done for the week already. I can breathe out some already. And that's good because I can focus on Johnnie's first time on Zoom tomorrow morning. Still I gave Johnnie the choice of not showering tonight. It WAS his last day of vacation it felt like. Might as well let him enjoy it. And so it's only mid-week but it felt like the week's work is done. Now I can gear down to cruise control.