Busy Bastard

Today is one of those days on which I am a busy, busy boy. This morning, we had our all-staff meeting at work. I woke up before dawn and drove to my principal worksite, where I met three co-workers in order to carpool to our headquarters, which has a smallish parking lot. This being the week of our season opener, I hadn't seen a lot of my co-workers since December. It's great, as one of the year-round skeleton crew, to see the eight-monthers return.

After a lavish breakfast, our head of HR and our president spoke- we heard the yearly talk about how to boost site visitation with fundraising events in order to finance our educational mission. It was pretty much standard boilerplate.

After a brief break, one of our site directors, who is pretty much the nicest guy in the room (seriously, he is one of the most hospitable persons I have ever met), gave us a presentation about the restoration work being done on his site, including the lifting of a building so a new foundation could be installed- fascinating stuff.

Then, our head grant proposal writer gave a presentation about the various funds she had lined up from national and state funds, and institutional and private donors, to pursue some remarkable projects, including remote learning and artistic collaborations with schools in The New York Metro Area. Her presentation was captivating- she is a compelling writer and she was able to pull off some remarkable feats on a very short notice. I think I've kinda got a crush on her, she makes my continued employment more likely.

The final presentation was by the head of our education division. He's typically a mellow fellow, but is very impassioned about his field of study. He gave an account of the challenges of increasing school groups in a time of budget cuts and an emphasis on "Common Core" learning. Besides figuring out how to convince schools to send more grade cohorts to our sites, he summarized some video courses that were being produced with local scholars and artists. He knocked it out of the park, despite starting off with a big dose of self-deprecating humor: "I want you to lower your expectations. I used to drive a Ford Pinto, and I gave my wife a vacuum cleaner for an anniversary gift." I think I have a crush on him too, even though he doesn't look like a pixie.

I returned home and took a nap, and am now heading to Brooklyn for the SSC lecture. North for work, south for play... Busy busy Bastard!