DigitalHobbit » Family

Preschool almost evicted

DigitalHobbit — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 05:42:29 +0000

Last Wednesday we almost lost the preschool that our two daughters go to. The preschool was subletting from a private elementary school that apparently wasn’t doing all that great. Now it turned out that the director of the elementary school hadn’t been paying rent for 16 months, so they were evicted on Wednesday – and along with them the preschool, even though they had been paying their rent to the elementary school every month. My wife and several other parents spent the morning removing all the preschool’s belongings from the property and were about to send everything into storage for the time being. Luckily, after several hours of intense discussion between the very engaged preschool director and the landlord, with some support from engaged parents who are lawyers, they were able to reach an agreement that permits the preschool to remain as a tenant.

I’m truly shocked how an elementary school director can be this irresponsible, without any regard for the pupils or their parents. Based on what I’ve heard, the director was a con artist who embezzled money (such as the rent that the preschool payed to him) and was well aware that the school was going to be closed down.

Of course I’m glad everything worked out for us, as well as for the preschool. The director and teachers are great, my kids love going there, and it would have been a shame to see all of this destroyed by a greedy, irresponsible con artist…

Off to San Diego

DigitalHobbit — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 06:09:14 +0000

We’re off to San Diego for a week, so don’t expect any updates (not that there have been a lot of those recently, anyway…). Although if I feel like it, I might post a photo from the beach or from SeaWorld via my mobile phone.

This will be our first long road trip with the kids (4 and 2 years old), so wish me luck. Usually the fighting starts after just 10 minutes in the car, and the screaming another 5 minutes later. Hopefully all the new toys that we bought them for the trip and the portable DVD player that we borrowed will be enough to distract them.

It’s not exactly beach literature, but maybe I’ll finally have a chance to dig into my new Ruby on Rails book.

DigitalHobbit CafePress Store

DigitalHobbit — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 06:50:44 +0000

I’ve been playing a little with CafePress. I have to say it’s a pretty cool concept, and very powerful. My daughter Julianna is drawing the cutest pictures these days, and I thought I’d use that opportunity to put my scanner to good use and upload some of those pictures to CafePress.

Check out my CafePress store.

So far I have uploaded one image called “Happy Guy” (not sure if this is supposed to be me; he certainly has a bit more hair than me ). Next up will be some really neat dinosaurs, complete with teeth and all.

I’ll certainly be ordering some T-Shirts for myself. To those of you who work with me: Consider this a warning so you’re mentally prepared for the day on which I’ll show up in my new, green Happy Guy T-Shirt…

Kids and jetlag

DigitalHobbit — Sun, 23 May 2004 07:20:00 +0000

My wife and kids (one almost 3, the other 11 months old) recently returned from an extended Germany vacation, after which I discovered that it is much more exhausting to have children that suffer from jetlag than to suffer from jetlag myself. For the first couple of days, 2 AM to 4 AM suddenly became play time, dinner time, potty time, etc. Not much fun when you need to get up early to go to work.

After about a week, they appear to have finally settled back into their regular schedules. Definitely something to consider if you’re planning a short trip to a place with a significant time difference (Germany / San Francisco is 9 hours), as your kids will likely spend a better part of the trip adjusting to the new schedule (along with all the crankiness that goes along with this), only to have to adjust back to the old schedule after the return. Not that you can do much about it…