My parents old admonition about food probably applies to politics. Your eyes are too big for your stomach. The City Council vacacancy I’ve already admitted to finding interesting. I wasn’t deterred by the probability that I wouldn’t be seated. In fact I am probably too cavalier about all the times I’ve been denied elective (or appointive) office. My family are more embarrassed by my defeats than I am. The simple fact is that I’ve got a truck load of work to do as it is and I’m always piling more on.
That is my short way of apologizing for delaying yet again on starting a series on Charters in the Duluth Area. Since it hints of questions of a sale of Central which are some months off as well as teacher’s negotiations about which I’m still finding my sea legs its not that critical for me to get my two cents out.
Instead I am working on diplomatic missions to other School Board members and assorted other luminaries to assure them of my high minded aspirations. Or something like that. All the while I’m still getting myself organized.
As I watched the opening of the Putin Olympics last night and took pictures of Duluth’s delightful Anna Ringsred, in the US contingent. She’s a member of our church and grew up in it with my kids. As I watched the festivities I was also sorting through the papers, receipts and documents that I needed to fill out my “final” school board campaign finance report. It was due on Jan 31st. Oops. I’ve been expecting a reminder from the Business Office of its tardy filing.
I had to add another roughly $500 in donations (mostly mine) and one last expense. Before that I’d spent the day continuing to whittle away my diminishing pile of papers that accumulated while I ran for the School Board last year.
Among the other items I made progress on today was adding numerous clippings to my twenty year file on Duluth School News and tax materials for my Mother for whom I act as her Power of Attorney. I woke up after a good four hours sleep at 3AM and started up the Computer to look over Duluth’s School Board policies. I put in a request for a paper version at our last meeting but since I have no idea when it will arrive I decided to read up on my School Board responsibilities. Its been ten years since I was last on the Board and I thought a refresher was in order and that I ought to find out what might have changed in the decade of my absence.
They are all online but I am hopelessly addicted to paper for working copies. I did print out about thirty pages of the 8000 and 9000 series pertaining to the School Board. As I was doing this I also began another long time goal – organizing my passwords. I have slowly acreeted the damn things and made occasional changes so that its become devilishly hard to keep track of them. This has led me to many minor hassles of trying to get into sites for which I’ve forgotten the latest password or username. It will probably take me a month or two to get most of them in a single secret place.
I am of necessity an archivist of all the paper that Claudia threatens to throw away upon my demise. Most of it I hope to refer to to write a half dozen books before I join my Mother in her demented dotage. I can’t start them until I’ve got the School Board work in good order. That’ll be a year off at the least. Meanwhile I’ve gotten a new project started. I volunteered to help teach at Lifehouse. Its a fifteen year old center for kids who find themselves in difficulty. Its best known for its drop-in center but its much more as I discovered after a tour last week.
I’ve been dreaming about teaching again off and on since I lost my job. I even made a request to the school board when I last served to resume substitute teaching twelve years ago. I was turned down by my fellow board members who based their decision on the Board’s conflict of interest policy. Well, Lifehouse doesn’t present a similar conflict. Besides I’ve been worried that the recent discombobulation of the District has been especially hard on the marginal students. I’m hoping to get some insights volunteering. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do yet but I’m expecting a challenge.
I’ve been busy for two and a half hours now and the green tea I fixed myself isn’t keeping me sufficiently alert. I may try to catch a few winks before attempting to the work I meant to start a couple hours ago. Get into my new District email account and see what I’ve got in it. A week ago, before I forgot my password, I had 52 emails to attend to. I’m sure its a longer list now. I don’t want to keep my public waiting. Yawwwwwwn. There will be more blogging in a couple days.
What a stupid title I gave this blog post.
