Horrid

Horrid: innately offensive or repulsive, inspiring horror, disgust or loathing. Yep that would describe today - quite well, actually. Now, it is highly possible that if you are not a meeting planner, or have not organized a rather large event you may not recognize just how horrid today was, so think about something you put lots of time into (LOTS of time), and then think about it all falling to pieces around your feet...and there is nothing you can do about it but pick up the pieces and try to keep it going. That was my day in short...like I said - horrid.

Really the set up for today started about 2 weeks ago. I have been working on the meeting we held today for, oh, about 8 months. That's not all that long in meeting planning land because it's not like you work on it every hour of every day, but it's decently long for a half day event. The reason it took so long was because there was a group of people planning it. Meeting planning is really done best with 3 or 4 people who know what they are doing - you get a mix of ideas but you can cull them down to something realistic, one person is the ring leader and with everyone knowing what they are doing you can all see what your role is and be comfortable with it. Unfortunately in the world of federal and state funding you are forced to do things like 'collaborative event hosting'. What this means is everyone gets a say (even people who don't understand what they are saying won't work), and you end up doing it all in the end, with too little time because everyone is supposed to help but no one does (but they don't tell you they aren't going to help until after what they were supposed to do needed to be done). It's actually the same reason I hated group projects when I was in school.

At about 2 weeks out you need to start assuring that everything in place is still in place. Who is coming is obviously a very important aspect of a meeting, but generally this is just a courtesy contact to let people know when you are meeting and where, not an actual confirming they are going to be there, because you assume that if they changed their mind about being there they would have let you know, oh I don't know sometime in the intervening 8 MONTHS OF PLANNING! First people who were supposed to be helping support the actual running of the meeting started saying they couldn't attend, which threw a whole new people plan into existence (and a few desperate e-mails). Then some of our topic experts couldn't attend - unfortunately that really can't be replaced...especially when you find out less than 24 hours in advance. We were down to bare bones staffing of the thing but I had it worked out so that we could swing it. Little did I know that at 10:24 last night I would get a voicemail on my work phone from one of the people that was supposed to be there today saying that he forgot about the meeting and couldn't come. Ok - it will be fine, you have less people, but you have as many as you absolutely need, so regroup and keep moving.

I also find out on my voicemail that when we were told we had 3 rooms plus the auditorium, that actually meant we had 2 rooms plus the auditorium. But it's ok - we'll figure out a way to have 2 of the groups discuss in the auditorium, not ideal but doable. Just finish stuff up and get on the road.

I go outside to pull the van around that we are carpooling in and load it up...and it won't start. Right. So, I go back inside find the only 2 cars that are not being used, sign them out, pull them around and load them up. Oh, and of course it's hot and muggy today. So after taking sweat breaks and helping the last of the prep work, we get everything loaded up and ready to go.

Next up: get to the meeting. Some of the people we were carpooling with were late (of course), so not only did we get a late start, but once we got on our way I noticed the car I was driving was at 1/4 tank because I guess the last person to use it couldn't figure out the next person might need gas in the tank, so we had to stop for gas. Because of the late start not only did we not stop to get something to eat but we showed up at the same time speakers did (generally I try to get there a bit before them). But, all is well, we can get through this. In all reality today is a rough meeting day, but nothing I can't handle - I've had rough meeting starts before. Just keep going, it will all work out.

We unload the cars, start setting up the coffee and registration and go to put the presentations on the computer hooked into the screen...oh, the computer they said they would have available for us to use - do they have it? No. So, I pull out my computer, which was supposed to be used for something else, but that's ok, we can just unplug, move and replug when that needs to happen. Keep moving, keep praying, keep focused.

I've got people setting up coffee, people setting up flipcharts, people finding our rooms for later in the meeting and so I head to set up my computer and get someone working on downloading the presentations, and just before I run out the door back to the registration table someone asks for a laser pointer (which the location said they would provide...and of course didn't have), so we found one, and then for a remote (which the location said they would provide...and of course didn't have), so we found one. Then the batteries were dead, but we fixed that too. Ok, out to the registration table, where I found people starting to arrive. I started checking them in about 30 seconds after I find out that the rooms we reserved (2 months ago, and checked back in on 1 month ago, and checked back in on 2 weeks ago, and called about just for good measure the day before) were being used for classes so they needed to find us new rooms. Ok, it will be ok, just keep focused.

Coffee was set up, so I reassigned coffee person to registration and headed out to check on the computer set up, then find out what was happening with the rooms. They had found us new rooms but they wouldn't be available until at the exact moment we needed them. Well, it is what it is, roll with it. So we come up with a plan to deal with how to get rooms set up and people in them at the same time, then I go back and check on registration, go back and check on speakers, find out one of my speakers is caught in a huge traffic accident, grab a handful of goldfish, and find out that they were wrong we can't use those rooms, we need to use different rooms. So at this point the people who are supposed to lead discussion in these rooms have no idea where to lead their groups after our large group presentations, but it's ok - I tell them I'll figure it out and let them know. Keep moving, don't think about the disaster the day is becoming.

And, start the meeting, because it's time. The introductory speaker (which I didn't want to have, but was overruled during our 'collaborative decisions') talks for twice as long as they are supposed to and says half as much as they need to. But it's ok, once the talks start it always calms down...always, I tell myself. Talks start, last few people filter in, grab another handful of goldfish, change the presentation for next speaker, and hope the drama has ended. No sooner than I think we truly are on the road to recovery do I find out one of the rooms we have is not available after all, so we are going to need to use another one. So we move all the stuff to the other one. 10 minutes later (as in we just finished setting it up) we find out they were wrong, we can't use that one, they need to see if there is another one free. I stay calm again. Smile at the man I want to smash against the wall and walk back to the auditorium to check on progress, make sure all is running smooth and find out how far behind we are (which at this point is good since we are playing discussion room roulette). On the way, I convince myself I don't need to cry, it's really not appropriate, and will not fix anything. I can deal with this. I come back find out we have a new room which is being set up. Go back and finish up the large group discussion, help with the directions for what will be next, send people to their break, and then head out to get the rest of the set up done, make sure everyone has what they need and then get in to actually run one of the discussion. At this time I find out one of the rooms is again not available, so we have to move and they don't have another room for us to use.

At this point, I fight back tears, and scream 'I NEED A ROOM!' The man clearly sees I'm about to break and runs off saying how it's not his job (oh really, what IS your job? because he is the one that keeps telling us where we can go and then turning around and telling us we can't go there), we pull all the stuff back out of that room, people go off to find a new room, I go off to move computers since we needed to use them in more than one place and corral people to their rooms (hoping we all of them), find out where the new room is, get people to where they need to go, and start my discussion group. This by the way, is something that on a normal day is a decent amount of stress for me. I'm semi-trained in how to do this, which makes me feel like I need to be focused to do it - something I'm clearly not at the moment. I also feel extra pressure because the results of these discussion groups are my intern's thesis...i.e. I'm rather invested in having good results, and she deserves good results. And generally I don't run discussion groups at my own meetings, unless I have someone doing the random running around for me (which I don't have since I am short on people). But, because of the shortage of people who said they would run discussion groups but then decided last minute they wouldn't, I suck it up and get it started. People don't talk all that much, which is not great, but not horrible, what they do say is interesting. We finish up, and it as this point that I realize I forgot to mention to people to hand in their evaluations. Knowing that people always skip out early this is an issue, and again, something I realize I'll just need to deal with after the fact in some way. Quite frankly, I'm starting to not even care.

We finish up the meeting - which is painful because I HATE reporting out after discussion groups, but again that was a 'collaborative group decision' to have that in our agenda, I close us out, we pack up, and we head out. And just for fun we hit a major traffic jam on the way.

So. Do you see why today is innately offensive and repulsive, and inspires horror, disgust and loathing? I'm headed to bed - hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Yesterday

Yesterday I was supposed to run 26.2 miles...instead I laid on a beach. The plan to run a marathon after the trip to Panama and my total drop in practicing changed to a plan to walk a marathon. The plan to walk a marathon after losing my partner in walking changed to a plan to not do the marathon after all. And the plan to not do the marathon changed to a plan to go to Florida and hang out on the beach with my mom and sister. Honestly, I think it was a good trade :)

We headed down on Friday and just got back today...it was rather rough to not 'accidentally' miss our flight and head out on the plane to San Juan, Puerto Rico, which just happened to be leaving from the gate next to us :) I guess at some point I need to come back to reality eh? I did find out the day before I left for Florida that I'm now in fact headed to San Diego for work even though I had written off that trip, oh...5 months ago. Suddenly early November is looking really busy and I need to find myself a ticket to California!

Car Climatology

So this is my question of life for today: why do you need an advanced degree in climatology to clear a windshield? SC has this annoying quality where it makes windshields foggy no matter what time of the year you happen to be in. I have tried cold air, hot air, warm air, no air, air from outside, air conditioned air, and just when I think I've got it right the next day I do the same thing and it doesn't clear it! This morning at one point I actually had to hit the brakes because I literally could see nothing because the windshield was getting worse rather than better and the sun was making it so I could seen NOTHING!

So this is my request - someone who knows how to make windshields clear every time, please, please tell me how - oh and I'm going to need to know why that method works because I have issues remembering things if I don't know why they work (I know, I know, it's annoying, but it's just how my brain works - I've accepted it and moved on).

First Fire of the Season

Yep, this is the life.

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The Problem of Pain

As I blogged about a few months ago I am reading a daily devotional that has portions of C.S. Lewis' work each day. I happen to be a huge fan of C. S. Lewis, and so when my mom saw it she knew I would love it. It's not often that is presented that day of what he wrote doesn't turn on a lightbulb, as it were, in some way, but there are a few days, where when I read it it's like somebody turned on floodlights. And today was one of them, so I figured I would share.

This is from 'The Problem of Pain' discusses the often asked question of 'why would an all knowing and all loving God allow people to experience pain and suffering.' It's a question most everyone has asked, and few have bothered to really answer - chalking it up to 'only God knows' or 'God has a plan' - which while all well and good, doesn't really teach you anything about the whole process, which in my opinion (and as it turns out C.S. Lewis') is the whole point. And so for 176 pages he discusses this one question. The thing I love so much about C.S. Lewis is his honestly. Multiple times he says something profound and then follows it up by saying something along the lines of now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it doesn't hurt or that it seems fair, I've experienced my fair share and I most certainly haven't acted the way I should, but I'm just telling you what I've learned in hopes it helps you understand. In my opinion, it's the only reasonable way to address someone else's pain - try to help, but don't try to pretend you know what they feel or that you can fix it. Only God can anyway, so don't hurt them more by pretending you can. But I digress, for what it's worth here is what I read this morning...hopefully it helps you understand a bit as well. As a preface I will say that leading up to this excerpt he has been talking about the products of suffering and pain - all of which are not bad IF the person experiencing it chooses that to be the case. He now flips to talk about the person 'producing' the pain.

"A merciful man aims at his neighbour's good and so does 'God's will', consciously co-operating with 'the simple good'. A cruel man oppresses his neighbor, and so does simple evil. But in doing such evil, he is used by God, without his own knowledge or consent, to produce the complex good - so that the first man serves God as a son, and the second as a tool. For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John. The whole system is, so to speak, calculated for the clash between good men and bad men, and the good fruits of fortitude, patience, pity, and forgiveness for which the cruel man is permitted to be cruel, presuppose that the good man ordinarily continues to seek simple good...To turn this into a general charter for afflicting humanity 'because affliction is good for them' is not indeed to break the Divine scheme but to volunteer for the post of Satan within that scheme. If you do his work, you must be prepared for his wages."

Running in Place

At the beginning of the day I had a bunch of e-mails, and 4 major things to accomplish. I answered/responded/dealt with all the e-mails and amazingly enough did all the things I need to. It is 4:00 and I now have a bunch of e-mails and 4 major things to accomplish tomorrow. And it was at that moment when I decided I have no motivation to work for the last hour today - it's the same reason I don't like doing dishes. Sure it looks nice for a while, but before you know it the dishes are piled back up and it feels like you've accomplished nothing.

Hands Around the World

Our church picnic this weekend was awesome! We have quite a number of people from different countries that attend our church (hence the name International Church of God), and so each year we have a picnic to celebrate our cultural heritage as it were. This year, seeing as I'm now in charge of the kids, I was in charge of the kids crafts and pinata smashing :) All the countries make food, so we can sample different food from different countries (Aunt Barb - you guys should come down and we should totally do an Ethiopia table next year!) Sandor added Hungarian food to the festivities this year, as well as making a kilt for Justin (whose family actually is Irish and thus the kilt makes sense). Justin by the way won the best outfit award, earning Sandor his first award-winning kilt :)

After eating, we had a little pinata smashing and then retired to the volleyball court, where there is a battle of the nations...well kinda...this year we had Asia, Africa, Micronesia, and two USA teams. I think the rules are you need at least 2 people from the actual country (continent in many cases), and at least 2 girls on each team. I have never joined in the volleyball festivities as I haven't played volleyball since high school, but this year I was almost drafted for the Africa team, until they realized they had all the people they needed, and so at the last minute (as in the team was standing on the court and yelled, Becky where are you?) I was drafted onto the Asia team - hey what can I say, I go where I am called :) Considering I was a bit rusty, I wasn't all that bad - a few missed serves being the most obvious sign. In the end Micronesia won, thanks to their ridiculous ability to actually spike the ball.

Of course we picked the hottest day of the month, but whatever, it was fun anyway :)

filling the Pinata - those things take a LOT of candy!

I couldn't help but put this picture in - Good Lord she is cute!

Megan sporting her 'Team Leonard' t-shirt (otherwise known as Team Africa, but I like Team Leonard better) :)

Justin in his kilt looking for Ireland on the ginormous globe

Sandor showing the kids how to do one of the crafts that I brought for them, but for the life of me couldn't figure out

award time

me and Cynthia - you would not believe what it took to get the picture - Sandor kept snapping them without telling us and we looked ridiculous in every one!

$2

Think about this statistic for a moment:

More than one half of the world's people live on $2 per day.

Seriously, think about that.

Day Trip...of sorts

This week I was in Savannah for 2 days for a meeting that I was hosting as part of work. There were 4 other people from my office attending the meeting, which was on community based social marketing - super cool for anyone in the world of environmental education by they way. Problem was, an out of state travel request may as well be a request for a million dollars, because even though Savannah is closer than a number of locations in South Carolina, in the world of state governments it is all about process and procedure, and out of state travel is it's own process and procedure. Thankfully, there is a DNR facility about 45 minutes from Savannah, on the South Carolina side of the line, so we had a pretty easy way to deal with the denied travel request. And thus we had two day trips to Savannah :) Wednesday morning we drove down nice and early (a sweet 4:30 wake-up) and headed to the meeting. Afterwards since we were staying at a dorm-esk type thing we needed to find ourselves some dinner and so took a nice walk downtown to get moving after sitting inside all day, had some pizza, and then found our way to the...
...Savannah Candy Kitchen! Where we bought bags full of taffy...and ate disgusting amounts of taffy the next day (fyi - don't buy bags full of taffy if you don't want to eat bags full of taffy).

The place we stayed, though 45 minutes out of the way, was beautiful! It really is nice that the DNR mariculture center has this house full of rooms where interns stay during the summer. And it's hard to beat waking up the next morning, and reading devotions looking out on this...
We headed back down towards Savannah, however, a much later start time this time! One problem - we forgot the fact that we weren't staying in the city, and didn't plan in time to stop for breakfast. Instead we found ourselves driving through the city looking for some kind of fast breakfast items (there is literally nothing on the drive from the mariculture center to Savannah). One of my favorite quotes of the two days 'you know you're a state employee when you're in a car full of people and no one has an iPhone'. Eventually we found a little diner that was very sweet to make us egg biscuits and OJ to go.

It was a great conference - and super easy on the planning side since I'm used to being the only host, and we had 3 this time! Afterwards we headed back to Charleston - our 2 day trip to Savannah complete :)

Morning Laugh

Ok, I am having major issues concentrating this morning, and then I got these on an e-mail, which didn't help but did make me laugh so hard I started crying. So, I figured I would share (it's kinda long, but oh so worth it). And no judging, you know it's true!

-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

-I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

-I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....

-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

Confusion

So quick question...when did the Nobel Peace Prize become a joke, or worse, some kind of political statement? Al Gore and now Obama? I mean I voted for the guy, I support him and his presidency, but I still don't see what he's done for world peace. He's been president for less than a year. Somehow I feel like they could have found someone on this planet who's been doing what they are doing for more than a year and thus a bit more deserving. I'm not saying he's not going to do anything for world peace, I'm just saying you don't give someone an award for what you THINK they are going to do, you give them an award for what they've DONE. Perhaps, I'm crazy.

Priorities

Well, the couponing isn't going well this week - I'm having a problem with adding time into my schedule, but I will not give up so easily, I will regroup and continue...just as soon as I get back from a 2 day work trip to Savannah. I will say however that Google Reader may have just given me a bit of an easier way to deal with priorities on the Southern Saver site - you can star blog posts just like I star e-mails in my g-mail that I need to do something with. It's brilliant. So I can slide through, star the ones that I need to look at later and thus don't feel like I need to have an extended period of time to look at the site in case I forget what I needed to do and can't find it again...something that is happening a bit more often recently :) Way to go Google.

While I'm on priorities, I will note a little priority check God gave me today. As I was leaving work, thinking about all the things that I didn't get done today and annoyed with all I needed to do tonight, I was more or less hit in the face with a 2 by 4. The 2 by 4 was a cool breeze and this view:

Suddenly the day didn't seem all that bad.

Another Glorious Day at the Office

This ladies and gentlemen is why you'll take pathetic pay and still be happy about it - yesterday Maia and I joined Kim for one of the Coastal Exploration Series events. Those who live in the Charleston area may want to check it out because it's pretty sweet - I mean granted I'm Kim supervisor, so I think the programs she puts together are pretty cool and perhaps am a bit biased by her coolness, but really it is a good program.

Anyway, yesterday was Fall Wildflower Walk, and being that I haven't been in the field in about 2 months I was itching for a day out of the office. I could have gone the whole day and not seen a single wildflower and still thought it was a great day based purely on the beautiful weather, so all the following pictures were a plus :)

Maia's nemesis - the fire ants. She unfortunately walked onto a nest, and thankfully Kim noticed it because she only got one bite and her entire ankle is swollen to a ridiculous size today!

in addition to flowers we saw some animals...small though they may be

Our favorite flower - gerardia - I had forgotten my zoom lens which was making me mad, and then I finally realized that if I took off the auto focus I could focus onto something much smaller...only took me about 2 hours to figure out that obvious fact!

Broom sedge - apparently you really can make brooms out of this

We ended up on the marsh to see a few plants out there that flower in the fall - here is sea lavender.

Maia and I were kinda over the whole walking thing so we sat in the sun and looked through the wildflower and caterpillar books while everyone else continued down the boardwalk

After a wonderful day in the sun, we stopped at Kudzu Bakery for a delicious lunch and then took one more break on the way home for a little something sweet...a wonderful end to a wonderful day!