He has grown so much, as evidenced by the photos I’ve included in this post.

He was tremendously excited about his presents and waited very patiently, for several hours until after everyone had finished eating supper, to open them.  Several of the presents were Lego sets and he didn’t get a chance to open and put any of them together before bedtime Saturday night.  He spent a restless night and finally woke us up around 6:30a Sunday to ask if he please, pretty please be allowed to open one of his Lego sets?!  He spent all day that day putting together some of his presents and playing with them.

With this event comes the realization that Keegan, whose birthday is in January, will turn 18 (!) and then, Michele and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage at the end of next month.  Again, how time flies. It hardly seems possible.

Cohen: two (stitches near left eye, then a month later, several stitches on left arm)

Tristan: one (stepped on a long screw and then needed a booster shot)

Keegan: one (messed up his right knee, had to also see an orthopedic specialist yesterday and has an MRI today)

Michele has been to a regular doctor visit and so have I.

See? It all adds up to a lot of support for healthcare. (That is a bit ironic since we are in a big healthcare debate right now in this country. While I think we need significant changes in our current system, I would be horrified if the plan pushed by the Obama administration gets passed into law.)

Let’s hope that today’s MRI will show that Keegan’s knee isn’t as damaged as I think it may be. He really wants to play football this fall.

I’ve been watching a lot of football lately.  Keegan’s team plays every Friday night and sometimes on Saturday morning as well.  Unfortunately his team lost for the first time this past Friday, to Vernon Hills.  On Saturday his team played Vernon Hills again, and lost again, but it was great to watch the game because Keegan got to play for awhile and he got in at least one good tackle.  (The position he plays is defensive tackle.)  Yesterday afternoon while Michele and Brinley went to get groceries, I watched quite a bit of college football while Tristan and Cohen built a fort and played with knight costumes.  Those who know me well would understand how unusual it is for me to be watching football!  But you know what? I’m kinda getting into it.  I was thrilled that Illinois beat Penn State, but disappointed that Michigan State didn’t beat Wisconsin.

In other news, a good friend of mine lost her job Friday due at least in part to blogging at work.  She was apparently accused of writing negative things about her job and her co-workers, neither of which is true.  It really makes me wonder about the whole blogging at work thing.  Personally I do not have a problem with this at all, viewing it as something akin to using the telephone sometimes for a personal call, or writing a personal email while at work.  Of course, there is always the possibility for abuse, but then, there always has been.  By that I mean, the introduction of Internet access, blogs, or any other computer-related technology provided to staff did not usher in a new era of possibility for abuse or performance issues.  Think of the telephone.  Persons can abuse their telephone privileges as much or more than their Internet privileges, and the telephone predates computers and Internet access by a long shot.  What I’m trying to say is that there isn’t really anything new here, first of all; and second of all, abuse of work equipment — whether it is the telephone, the copier, or the company’s Internet access — is a performance issue.  If staff members aren’t getting work done in a reasonable amount of time, then their manager needs to look at how they are spending their time, including time spent talking on the telephone for personal reasons, or time spent browsing on the Internet, or time spent posting to a blog or commenting on other blogs.  And it is important to state that how they are spending their time in these ways is only part of the overall picture the manager needs to understand in order to figure out why staff members are not productive.  Put another way (and setting aside potential for really negative things, things that other staff might deem offensive), if my staff are getting their work done in a timely fashion or even ahead of schedule, I have no problem with them spending some work time doing personal stuff.  Folks, this is just common sense management practice.

It really galls me that so many corporations think they can truly control every aspect of what their employees do during a work day, particularly when it comes to computer and Internet use.  It galls me because as I’ve already tried to point out, this is a local, individual management issue.  But it galls me even more because work environments will never succeed in shutting down or blocking personal activity.  And I think it is extremely COUNTER productive for them to even try to do so.  This is particularly the case in this time of instant messaging, personal cell phones, email, blogs, and more.  I fully understand and support monitoring of personal activity when it becomes a performance issue, and the potential need for reprimands or other strictures for the few cases where this privilege is abused.  But even then, there needs to be a step by step process whereby a warning is issued and the staff member is given an opportunity to improve, followed by progressively stronger measures culminating, finally, with termination.

I don’t know the whole detail of my friend’s situation but I do know that her employer made claims about what she was doing and writing that were simply false, and it seems as if her dismissal came without prior warning.  This is the sign of extremely poor management.

Michele just IM’d me to tell me another funny anecdote from this afternoon.  Cohen was sitting by her while Tristan and Brinley were busy arguing loudly about something.  She remarked to him, “They’re crabby!”  His reply:  “They are fighting.  I wish I was in God’s world!”

You just gotta laugh…