Ball Sacks

Thursday, 08 September 2011

I took the day off of work today, which makes six days of the last three weeks that I haven’t gone to work (excluding weekends). I started a new class at Hamline today, and coupling that with our upcoming move, I figured I’d stay home today and get stuff done.

Well…I dropped the class.

Everything was going fine in the class for about the first 45 minutes, and then I looked closer at the professor’s class schedule – which she had in electronic version only – and realized the class was scheduled for both Thursdays and Tuesdays. I raised my hand to ensure this was correct…and of course it was. I had specifically asked my adviser to suggest classes that were available only one day a week. There is no way I can leave work at noon TWICE a week and still make my 40 hours each week. Beyond that, this history class is considered a capstone class – meaning it’s essentially supposed to be the last history class I take before earning my minor.

About an hour later, after running around campus getting the proper paperwork and signatures for dropping a class, my adviser told me he had confidence that I would do well in the class. I appreciate his high opinion of my abilities, but I still can’t miss that much work. He suggested I sign up for another class – a Friday only class that begins tomorrow. I considered this option for a few hours, but tonight, whilst talking with my wife, I decided to just forgo a class this semester.I’m just too busy and stressed out right now. This isn’t likely to change anytime in the future, and that really puts my goal of achieving this degree in question.

In lighter news: after picking Owen up from school this afternoon, we headed over to the St. Paul Corner Drug store. Owen saw some paper pumpkins taped to the wall. He asked what they were for, and I told him that if you give the store some money, they will let you put your name on a pumpkin and the money goes to help kids with cystic fibrosis. After the soda jerk told us the cost was a buck, Owen asked me if I had a dollar on me.

I did.

Owen’s is the rightmost pumpkin.

Friday, 09 September 2011

I spent the day at the Minneapolis Convention Center today. About an hour after getting to work, all us employees boarded chartered buses and rode to the City of Lakes. There, they held an “Employee Expo” featuring presentations, ‘cafes’ of activities, food, and games.

I played a trivia game featuring corporation-related trivia questions, such as “Who is the VP of HR?” and other fascinating bits of knowledge. The top two scorers of the day went home with iPads. The best I ever got to was #9. Man, I just can’t seem to win any iPads, Wiis, or iPods no matter how hard I try. I must be unlucky when it comes to products with absurd names.

Later, I assembled kits for making lava lamps and magnetic Silly Putty (these will be donated to kids’ science clubs – the magnetic putty was rather cool; I’d like to make some at home soon).

The most distracting thing about the day, though, was the centerpiece decoration: Hanging Ball Sacks. I’m not kidding you. Hanging. Ball. Sacks.

Take a look:

Ball sacks.

The balls kept changing color, which I think is a clear signal the Convention Center needs to see a doctor. I kept looking up at them, wondering if the contents were going to come spilling out of the ball sacks at any moment. Thankfully, nothing like that happened, which, of course, means that the sacks were well hung.

All right, enough already with the crass jokes.