How Do You Spell "Scuzzball"?

Bill had a call-back tonight, and he's landed the role of a scuzzball lawyer in "Sly Fox," a satire. Rehearsals start on Tuesday, the night before we leave for a week in NH. Yea, Bill!

(I had to check the spelling of "scuzzball" but that's it.)

Fun outings

We've already had a busy weekend, and there's still one day left!

Last night, we went to Kiwanis Night at the Lakewood BlueClaws minor league baseball stadium. The BlueClaws were clobbered by the Kannapolis Intimidators, but it was fun, and the weather was perfect (cool and clear)! I also discovered, while I was perusing the printed program, that Charleston, WV's minor league team is now named "West Virginia Power," so I now have to get a shirt with that logo! (To top it off, when I told my parents what I had discovered, they said that the baseball team's phone number is just one digit different than theirs. When they occasionally get a phone call asking "Is this West Virginia Power?" my dad replies "This is ONE of them.") Speaking of the team name, one of their older names, the "Charleston Charlies," is apparently still a sentimental favorite, because the team store still has a lot of "classic" Charleston Charlies shirts. Or maybe they over-ordered decades ago and still have plenty in stock. ;-)

Today, we drove into NYC to see a matinee performance of "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center with Jim and Jennifer (friends in Brooklyn). We found a free parking space on 82nd street and had time for a quick trip to Zabar's, self-proclaimed as "NYC's Gourmet Epicurean Emporium" and one of Bill's favorite stores. We got a new stainless-steel coffee measure (to replace a badly-cracked plastic antique), some barbecue tongs, a pound of coffee, some ginger/lemon cookies, and a bar of the store brand of chocolate (milk/dark). Nothing to break the bank or do serious damage to the diets.

I've been squeezing in as much proof-reading (currently my only paid work) as I can -- thank goodness for the car voltage enhancer, which makes the laptop work with the cigarette lighter socket -- but I'll need to finish a bunch more by Sunday night, so after church, it'll be nose-to-the-digital-grindstone for me! (Bill has a call-back for an audition, but I don't need to leave the house after we get back from church.)

Stay tuned!

July -- before it's gone!

I've not been living up to my resolve to post more frequently, but I don't want to let July go by completely without posting, so here's the first 2/3 of the month, in a nutshell:

I spent a few days in Chicago as an advisor for a 3-day, CSTA-sponsored Leadership Cohort training session. While I was in town, I seized the opportunity to meet Emily, my nephew's soon-to-be bride, about 10 days before their wedding, and Emily, Jon, and I had a terrific dinner together! I knew their lives would be a lot crazier the following weekend, so I was thrilled to steal a bit of relaxed time with them.

Speaking of stealing... One casualty of my time in Chicago was my new red BlackBerry, which I left in the hotel room one morning. When I realized that I had left it, I didn't rush out of the workshop to retrieve it, and that was my biggest mistake. (I guess I'm not used to having cars or phones that people want to steal.) By the time I got to the room, it had been cleaned, and the phone was long gone. I had borrowed a friend's phone so I could call mine, in case it had fallen behind the bed, but it wasn't anywhere nearby. I continued to call my number periodically, and for 2 days it always rang a few times before rolling over to voicemail, but by the third day, it went immediately to voicemail, so it had either run out of juice or been turned off. I reported it immediately to both Housekeeping and Security, but it never turned up. I had gotten this phone at a bargain price (after rebates, with a 2-year contract), but the replacement phone, purchased via eBay, didn't come anywhere near as cheap! (The guy at the AT&T Wireless store, where I went to activate my refurbished phone last night, said that BlackBerrys are apparently quite popular among thieves.)

Never mind that nutshell thing...

A week after I returned from Chicago, we were back for Jon's and Emily's wedding -- what great family times we had! We weren't sure that Mom & Dad would make it there, due to Dad's complications from Parkinson's Disease, but they made it, he did OK, and everyone was glad they had come!

Also on the medical front... I need to get a crown replaced (symptom: peel-me-off-the-ceiling pain when I drink anything cold), but I don't have breast cancer (based on the results from a needle biopsy), so I'd say I'm WAY ahead of the game! BENIGN is my new favorite word!

In between (and during) my trips here and there, I've kept busy with some CS curriculum proofreading -- I'm actually earning some money this summer!

We're home for a while and eagerly anticipating being able to set up our office. (The rest of the flooring should arrive mid-week.) Maybe I'll even be able to find my paper copies of the score reports from my NTE/Praxis exams! I need them to get a NJ teaching certificate (if I get a job with a public school), and ETS doesn't keep scores after 5 years. Who knew, in 1977, that ETS would change policies so many years later?!