Friday!

It has been a busy week, and I'm glad for the weekend - although, of course, I brought things home with me, and intend to spend tonite working on making some progress for my painting class tomorrow morning, and have excellent reason (visitor!) to get the apartment in really good shape. Lots of things have been happening, against a backdrop of terrific weather.

The house is rather more 'full' now, with Monday's pick up of a kitchen table and 4 chairs (2 more than I was anticipating!), and Tuesday morning's delivery of a free tall bookcase. I haven't gotten things settled in place yet. (A queen-size airbed was part of that delivery, and since in both instances the people were leaving the island, they tossed in additional 'stuff' - Christmas paper and ribbon, tupperware, a tool kit, flashlights, candles, cleaning supplies...) Not having things settled in place is making me a little cranky. I look forward to trying to get all that sorted this weekend.

This has been something of an "it takes a village" experience. The most recent things reached me thru the assistance of co-workers. The airbed etal were picked up by the husband of one of our department secretaries. I rode on the back of Jim's scooter as we headed to the house where the table was, to meet his girlfriend getting off from work on that side of the island. We took the table apart to fit in her car and loaded up all the other stuff but the bookcase, then she followed us back to my house. The bookcase arrived by taxi - all my truck-owning acquaintances bailed - but I'd called the driver to arrange for my visitor's pickup at the airport and asked him about this as a by-the-way thing. Turned out he was going to that house every morning to pick up the husband and bring him in to his office since they had sold their car, and he'd just carry it on over here after he dropped the guy off, on his way out to the airport.

What else? Got my first performance review, which went well.
Was drafting pieces for bosslady so she could get what she needed completed before she left for 2 weeks in Spain.
Have been deep into procedure development as part of an inter-ministry group on solar (mostly) renewable/alternative energy projects - which has been one of those things that people like the idea of but havent gotten around to making work here.
Have been working with Fire Department to develop some consistent and reasonable policies on dealing with proposed development on legal lots with inadequate roadway access. (Here, that means there is not a clear 12' paved carriageway - that is the entire roadway width, mind you - from acceptable street to lot. The other elements are, predictably, a minimum 15' clear height - so it is this 12' x 15' "caterpillar" they need; also minimum radii - lots of sharp corners and curves, sometimes with grades beyond what the trucks can handle.) Probably 80% of the applications are in that circumstance - they have an 8' or 10' private right of way. The Fire Department recently went to these bigger wheelbase trucks and can't get to lots and lots of places as a result.)

After work today I scooted over to BSOA for the opening reception on two shows - our birdhouses, and digital art, mostly by students. Photos attached!

I felt there were some really nicely done bluebird houses, and mine was nowhere near the level of those. But it held its own. They couldnt apparently mount it with its roof on properly, which is a shame, since that was a big part of the whole thing.

On to other things...Love hearing from folks!