Ketchup?! Oh, Catch Up

OnSIS has decreed that each of my ten jurisdictions must prepare a catch-up plan detailing how and when they will complete last year's school reports. And OnSIS has been able to convince the Ministry of Education (MET) that we will not be informed of our budget until we get those plans duly developed, signed (in blue ink—gotta watch out for those electronic signatures, can't accept none of that stuff in an electronic program!!) and returned to them.

And so, I begin. I am struggling to get some of my jurisdictions to even understand what OnSIS is, let alone what they're demanding of us. Of course, I can't travel to explain this to them, no budget. I hope NSRA will keep paying me! No money coming in, none has since last February! I hope they'll keep paying me!! I work to convince OnSIS and the MET to accept something other than blue ink signatures—eventually they agree to accept faxes as long as I round up the blue ink for them some time. Well, that moves things a lot better. I make up the plans, fax them out, call them to cajol them into signing, and faxing them back. Then I fax them in, and voila, my budget is approved! What a meaningful exercise that was!

Anyway, my budget has been approved as requested and the money can now flow. Hurray, let's get the program going!

Kristian Leif Ulrich

Kristian Leif Ulrich arrived into our lives on 16th September 2005, and he continues to be a delightful addition!

He has had a bout of the flu recently, but is now back at work running his grandmother into the ground, and his mother to distraction. It seems he can mess up a living room in less than five minutes, although it is also true that he is an equal opportunity messer-upper! He can destroy any room in less than five minutes!

An almost endless series of photographic evidence to the above assertion can be found on line at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristianleif/
And just for the sake of convenience, I'll post this one on his first birthday!

Back in the Business of Getting the Business

We got back to Thunder Bay, and I got back to work. Things were in turmoil. The Ministry of Education was at war with itself! My program is called Managing Information for Student Achievement (MISA), and as part of the plan to achieve this, Ontario Student Information System (OnSIS) has been set up. Well, OnSIS has determined to revamp the school reporting system and move to solely-electronic reporting. There are three main reports each school year: October, March and June. For the school year 2005-06, OnSIS decided that October would be done twice (once the old way, and then again the new electronic way-as a training program), then everyone would be ready to do March and June electronically only. Now you might suppose (well I would anyway) that to accomplish such a plan there would be an electronic reporting system in place. You might further suppose that it would be tested and have the bugs worked out of it before the plan was executed. But you would be wrong—this was a build-as-you-go strategy that soon turned into a catch-up-as-soon-as-possible plan! So... along about February OnSIS finally announced that the October reports could be begin! Except that, of course, they couldn't; the reporting system was now in place, but it didn't work! Soon, we were ordered to do March Reporting the old fashioned way, and that we would all catch up as soon as possible (and that is seldom soon, in case you haven't noticed it.) Okay fine, we thought, we can all be flexible while this works through. But we were wrong! OnSIS was in no mood to be flexible! Just because their application was not working was no reason to miss the scheduled reporting dates.

The MISA year ended on March 31st, and I prepared my reports on year one, and made my budget proposal for year two. Since year two funding was supposed to begin on April 1st, they promised a quick turn around (Government has a slightly different interpretation of 'quick turnaround' than I do.), and that we should have our budget approval in June and our money flowing by the end of August. What a nice coincidence, just when we get back from Zambia! Ah, but not so fast there Charlie. OnSIS has decided that we MISA types need to pay more attention to their problems. The monkey wrench is in the works. We will get no money; we won't even find out about our budgets until we develop a plan as to how we're going to catch up with the OnSIS reporting needs. Never mind that we've been without funding since April 1st, we can continue to starve in the dark until we come up with a plan. Never mind that my schools cover 1500 km and some are fly-in, I must get properly signed and authorized plans from each one of them detailing when they will get caught up on last year's reports.

Welcome back to Canada! "This is Africa" used to be my watch word; I see it applies more generally than I had thought.

Back in Business

Well, let's hope this is not another set of false hopes... but I'm back in the iBook business once again. One trouble is that there's been so much to comment on during the interim, and I've missed it!

Anyway, I'll try to catch you up on what's been happening since August 23rd, when I last posted. I'll date them for about each monthend; then we'll see how it goes after that. So, I've called this August 25th, although it's actually November 20th, but it'll keep it in the proper sequence... I hope!

In addition, you may wish to check out these other sites for updates on Kristian:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristianleif/
Trav & Sylvia:
http://www.travisulrich.com/index/Welcome/Welcome.html

Family / History

As we spent a few days in Denmark on our way home from Zambia, we were again privileged to add to our knowledge of the members of the family, and of Dad's early years. The tragic deaths of his parents when he was but eight years old, created a crisis in my dad's family. The eldest son, Johannes was but twenty, but he was ready to fend for himself. He was posted to work, and later found himself invited to Farup to work on the farm of the local vicar, Ellith Hauvinkel. Hauvinkel was one of the uncles so judiciously selected by our great grandmother, the widow Cecilie, in her boarding house in Copenhagen. Now that father & mother were gone, these uncles played an important role in the family survival. It seems another of these uncles was instrumental in the success of Aase in Copenhagen, and there is speculation that the assignment of my dad at eight years old, and his even younger brother, Viggo, to the Edvard Mundt family of Sorø as also through the uncle connection! Cecilie's daughter Marie was married to Peter Kromann who attended school in Sorø. The Mundts, a childless couple from Sorø were the ones who took them in. Dad seemed to question and be concerned about why they had to go there. He did not seem to have a good childhood there. Still, he gave me Edvard as my second name, and we had a picture of Edvard Mundt on our living room wall.

Toyobonana alimwi

"See you later," or its companion expression in English, "We shall meet," are not lightly given farewells for Zambians. They are fundamentally expressions of faith. We find that our Zambian friends do not take people or relationships lightly. They, who have virtually nothing, value people very highly, while they will give you almost anything they have. We, who have virtually everything we could want, value things very highly, and sometimes are willing to sacrifice our relationships in defense of our things... I'm sure there's a sermon illustration there somewhere!

Reflections on Zambia

As we prepare to leave Zambia, I am reflecting on my experiences. It has been a time of both joy and sorrow. Certainly some of the situations are even worse than I expected, but there have been compensating and even surprising pleasures. Namwianga Mission is even in greater difficulty than I expected, and my friends there are suffering. On the other hand, things are developing very well in our community schools. We enjoyed great experiences in those schools and are encouraged that education is being made available to more and more children. It was especially rewarding to see how some communities are uniting to promote development. Community headmen and other leaders are organising the people and planning construction projects and other improvements. The people are willingly assembling construction materials and preparing bricks so work can go on. It was delightful to celebrate this progress with them. There was much singing and dancing, especially by the women.
Other highlights included The Haven--an orphanage developed by Steve & Joan and now operated by Thomas & Cecilia. What a delight it was to see how wonderfully it is progressing under their management! The place is clean and neat. The yard is both functional and decorative. This represents the cutting edge of our response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The tiny victims are struggling for life under Cecilia's dedicated and effective care. We are so proud and happy!

Rewarding / Worthwhile

After spending three weeks of celebration with our Zambian friends it is easy to understand how rewarding this work is. Zambians are endlessly grateful. They give tremendous appreciation for the stuff we do there for them. As we enjoyed their celebration at Zyangale, my friend asked me, "Bill, what are you doing in Canada?!" It is true that there is much to do, and the generous thanksgiving of the Zambians make doing it very rewarding, but the question for me is always becoming, "Is it worthwhile?" As I have told many people, the fundamental learning I've done in Zambia is that it is incredibly difficult to help people. There are so many things that we can do, and that we can afford to do for them. But should we? How can we be truly helpful? I have witnessed that many of our interactions in Zambia (likely in many parts of the third world) over the years have not been helpful. Instead we have created dependancy, and we have been guilty of economic enslavement. I am constantly in a personal struggle over whether what I'm doing is worthwhile; I have no doubt that it is rewarding!

Into Africa

A wonderful breakfast (complete with leverpostej) begins our day in Copenhagen on the right foot. After checking out, we check out the National Museum, but are disappointed to find that it is closed on Mondays. We walk around downtown for a bit (too much), and then catch the train out to the airport. Once there, we get another nice surprise‹our missing piece of luggage has caught up with us. We retrieve that and complete our check-in for Amsterdam, Nairobi and Lusaka. We change planes in Amsterdam and Nairobi, so we hope our luggage makes the change as well. I am experiencing some problems with my computer; it seems the video card is not behaving; twice now it has filled the screen with random lines and required me to reboot. This is not performance! Must be time to retire this old laptop and get a new one! I can't tell if something has damaged it on the trip, or what the problem is, but it is certainly frustrating. Anyway, we manage our plane changes, and land in Lusaka about 10am on the 18th, however, our luggage does not perform as well, and only one of our pieces has come with us. We fill in the necessary reports and when we go back in the afternoon to collect our Yellowknife team members, we have a report that two pieces have been found vacationing in Athens! So we hope they will arrive in the next day or so, and we hope the final bag will also be located soon. As it is we have very little of our own clothing; the one bag to make it contains mostly baby clothes to give away. Anyway, we get settled in with the rest of the team at Eureka camp in Lusaka, and continue our preparations for the month ahead.

And We're Off

The first legs of our journey take us to Copenhagen. We start off with a short flight down to Toronto. We spend three hours there finding our way around to the international departure gates and having a lunch at Tim Horton's—a last touch with Canadiana! Our flight is delayed, and then delayed again. Finally, they change airplanes from a Boeing 767 to an Airbus A340. Then they have to round up a different flight crew who know their way around an Airbus. Finally, we get boarded over an hour late. But we're in first class, and that makes all the difference. We relax our way through the night across the Atlantic to London, in our spacious digs. Imagine reaching out as far as you can with your feet, and not even coming close to the seat in front of you! Unfortunately, the flight ends about 2 am (body time) as we land at Heathrow. That's early morning in London, but not early enough. Our flight to Frankfurt leaves while we are trying to change terminals. We report to Lufthansa; they send us to Air Canada; they send us back to Lufthansa, who give us a new boarding pass to Frankfurt. This will be a lunch time flight instead of the morning flight we were expecting. They decline to give us another boarding pass for the trip up to Copenhagen. We'll have to check with Lufthansa when we get to Frankfurt and arrange that. Once in Frankfurt the wonderful connections counsellor advises us that all will be well, and even provides a gate number. When we get close to there we go to the check-in counter, and discover, as we feared, that our reservations for the leg up to Denmark were cancelled when we missed the scheduled flight to Frankfort. Eventually we are awarded new boarding passes on the original flight we were supposed to take in the first place! We arrive in the Danish capital in the early evening, and go to retrieve our luggage. Eventually three of the four pieces do show up. Our new Roots bag has a wheel broken loose, and our other wheeled bag is torn open, This must not be Africa—nothing is missing! The lovely lady at the luggage counter is very kind and helpful. She awards us a new bag—she has several for us to choose from—and takes note of the damage to the other one and invites us to claim for repairs. Then she tracks down the missing bag—it's still in Frankfurt, and promises to do all she can to get it to Copenhagen in time for us to take it with us to Africa. We manage to check-in for our Africa flight, sans one piece of luggage. Then we take the train into town, settle into our room at the Hotel Centrum, and try to catch up on the six time zones we've been flying over!

News Update

Another week is ending here on the shore of Lake Superior, and we don't plan another week like it for a while! We're off to Zambia tomorrow. We travel via Copenhagen, and look forward to spending a few days there on the return trip after mid-August.

It's been a busy week with many things to do in anticipation of Zambia or in completion of some projects here. Everything has come together well, and we feel ready to board the plane tomorrow at noon. I have also managed a couple of golf games, including a new low of 76 on the 11th! Then I followed that up with an 85 today. It was a little difficult to accept using nine extra strokes to play the same course two days later, but that's golf, and it was fun anyway. I've reduced my handicap to 12.2 from 13.9. I'm aiming to get to single digits, but it doesn't look like it will happen this year.

I also managed to get some progress on the work front as all my school boards are putting together plans to complete some data reporting for the Ministry of Education. I shall look forward to hearing news of second-year funding some time while we're in Zambia. Then I got a used computer and a new printer for our old friend in Zambia. I still have no assurance that the ink can be found there, but we've packed a few extra cartridges just in case. We're going to use the printer to produce photos of our students in Zambia. Most of them don't get pictures of themselves in their lifetime—no school photos there!

Wendy has been busy around the place getting things assembled and packed for the trip. The new weight restrictions for air travel mean our bags are forty per cent lighter this trip. However, they still seem plenty heavy to me!

The boys have been involved in summer day camp activities. This week Haaken was in a Business Camp operated by the University. He developed a business proposal, arranged a loan and operated a hamburger joint for two hours today. He cleared about $60 for his efforts. Erin and Kristian have had a rough week as Kristian has a cold as well as thrush. However, Kristian has continued to make steady progress in learning to walk. We're going to miss them all for the next five weeks.

Eric has been able to get a few bus driving charters this week, and has continued to hit the links with me as often as possible. His golf is progressing well, and I expect him to be playing about bogie golf by the end of the season. Erica has continued with work. She has recently negotiated a new office location, so they'll be renovating and moving while we're gone.

Travis and Sylvia are back from their honeymoon and back at work. Their car suffered another setback this week. The automatic transmission refused to shift. Then a small hose near the water pump blew apart, so they pumped all their coolant onto the engine. It made for a great cloud of steam! The transmission problems were electronic, so were easily fixed. The hose has been replaced, but is still not satisfactory. It requires a small, curved hose, and I fashioned one out of straight heater hose. It seems to be working for now! Anyway, they have our car while we're gone.

And that's the kind of week it's been.

Seventy-six!

I hit a new low today—seventy-six! The first nine went pretty well, as I had five pars and four bogies, but the second nine!!! Yi, yi, yi! There were a couple of scrambly holes, but I ended up with one bogie, one birdie, and seven pars. I was even par for the nine holes! Yowsa!

Eric and I were playing our first full round at Strathcona. We were joined by a regular for that course, and he proved quite helpful as he advised us on how to play each hole. He was also a nice, smooth player, although not as long as Eric or I are off the the tee. I was hitting my drives well; I was hitting my irons wonderfully. I hit a lot of greens, and those I didn't, I was close by. I made a few one-putts to salvage par, but also missed two birdie putts within six feet, so it could have been better!

Playing well is very uplifting; even playing poorly is a lot of fun!!

News Update

Another week draws to a close here on the shore of Lake Superior. The wedding accomplished, Travis & Sylvia are travelling south of the border this week, and are expected back this weekend.

I have also travelled some this week. On Wednesday, I flew over to Sudbury where representatives from our company met with our counterparts from northeastern Ontario to plan the professional development program for the next school year. I returned on Friday evening. The sessions went well.

I also managed a couple of golf games this week. On Sunday afternoon, Tom, Eric, Chris and I checked out the Whitewater Golf course here in Thunder Bay. It was a difficult experience, as the greens were faster than I was used to, and I also found them very tricky to read. I was also spraying the ball off the tee, so I was frequently in trouble and eventually staggered in with a 95. After corrections for triples, I posted a 92 for handicap purposes. Tom scored, as he described it, "The best of a bad lot!" He also found the course quite challenging, and the rough impossible. Later, I golfed with Eric back at Chapples, and that went better (84), as I was able to reduce my swing to merely Herculean proportions. I have concluded that golfing with a brother tends to bring out undue stress and very undue swing speeds!!

Wendy has spent time recovering from the exertions of the wedding preparations all the while continuing preparations for our next venture, i.e. to Zambia. We are scheduled to fly out of here next Saturday, the 15th! I shall try to post on Friday evening, and then as often as possible from Zambia while we spend the next month there.

Kristian continues to develop and grow. He is getting around famously, and driving his mother to distraction—the answer to a mother's curse!!

Liam and Haaken are enjoying summer holidays and a few special activities that come with the freedom from the school schedule. Haaken has taken to making movies, with a new release almost every day! Liam participates in some of the movies as a star, or a producer, or an extra, but he enjoys spending a lot of time outdoors riding his bike as well. The pool is in full operation in the back yard (along with a small one for Kristian), but they're not being used that much despite the thirty plus temperatures. We are really enjoying the newly installed air conditioning!

And that's the kind of week it's been.

SCAM

I hate it when people forward bogus warnings, and I have even done it myself a couple times... but this one is real, and it's important. So please send this warning to everyone on your e-mail list:

If someone comes to your front door saying they are checking for ticks due to the warming weather and asks you to take your clothes off and twirl around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!! IT IS A SCAM!! They only want to see you naked...

I only wish I'd been warned before yesterday... I feel so stupid!

The Royal Wedding 06

Since a picture tells a thousand words, this blog is already getting long. I hope you can see that it was a beautiful wedding, and that we all had fun! Travis and Sylvia are now travelling on their honeymoon and are expected back this coming weekend.

To help you make sense of the photos, I offer this commentary.
-the wedding party was set up under a bower of trees along the shore of Lake Superior. This beautiful setting provide on the property of John & Diane Whitfield.
-Travis sailed off (Viking that he is) to claim a bride and drag her back by the hair (hand) to be his wedded wife!
-After plighting their troth, the deed was duly sealed with exchange of rings, and duly signed paper work!

Travis, I'm sure, will develop a proper website of the wedding replete with a quantity of photos. When it is complete, I shall post the URL on my blog.

News Update

Happy Canada Day!

It's been another busy week here on the shore of Lake Superior. We have a lot of things to complete or get ready for the big wedding on Saturday. Wendy is building the wedding cake, and a wondrous sight it is. We are hosting a large crew here for a barbecue after the rehearsal on Saturday. And we have some additional house guests as well. All in all, it's a busy but good week. I'll prepare another post on the wedding as soon as I have some pictures ready to post.

I do manage to sneak in some golf and I also buy a couple of new drivers. I trade in my old driver, and now have two of the newer, big-headed variety to try out. Surely one of these can get me further into trouble. And no, I didn't say hard-headed... that's the golfer, not the equipment!

I get more of the yard work done, and begin building a walkway around the pool. The completion of that task will have to wait for another year, as the installation of the pool will need to be upgraded first.

Erin and Kristian both experience some sickness this week. Erin comes down with food poisoning after eating at a local restaurant. We get her to the hospital, and they get her rehydrated with four litres of IV fluids. She seems to be recovering well. Kristian comes down with a bout of thrush, so he's on medication now, and seems to be coming around fine.

My computer is still not back, so I'm still in mourning over that! Our preparations for Zambia can begin in earnest now that the wedding is accomplished.

And that's the kind of week it has been.

News Update

It's been a busy week here on the shore of Lake Superior. Wendy has me doing many errands in preparation for the wedding next Saturday. The garage has been cleaned out, and some stuff has been disposed of, while other stuff has found a new storage location. She has activated two of our fridges that are stored in the garage, as she needs more capacity for the wedding cake and other wedding preparations. Travis also has me helping with preparation of the house. We manage to complete installation of his new pedestal sink; we also install a fancy-dancy mirror. Sylvia and he have repainted the bathroom as well. I also work on his wireless system and finally manage to get that going after downloading new drivers from an internet source.

I find a little time for golfing with Eric, and another round with some local people I was placed with when I arrived as a 'walk-0n'. Both rounds were satisfactory; my iron play seems much improved, and the three-wood is keeping me in play off the tee most of the time. I scored 83 and 81. Always, it seems, there are places where I feel I could do much better, and places where I feel I have escaped with several saved strokes!

I get the pool filled and operating. I have installed a make-shift pool-heater by adding some garden hose into the filtration cycle. This seems to gradually assist in raising the temperature. I also get more yard work done, and continue my battle with the weeds and undergrowth.

Erin and Kristian are continuing to keep each other occupied, although lately, I think Kristian is winning the activity war! He gets around much more quickly now with his crawling, and sometimes terrifies his mother with what he can get into!

My computer is expected back tomorrow. It will sport a new hard drive. I still have no news on how much, if any, of my files can be restored.

And that's the kind of week it has been.

News Update

Another week has passed here on the shore of Lake Superior. We arrived back in Ontario on Monday evening after ten days out west. Work is basically over for me until September, but there are always some small items to keep working on. I have a teleconference with my opposite number from northeastern Ontario. We have agreed on a student management system for our schools and are now trying to arrange training for our secretaries, teachers and principals. This is moving forward well.

I got back to golfing with some reminders from my brother, Tom. He was quite helpful, but would have been more helpful if he had given me the advice before my game with him!! I have been able to achieve some respectable scores this week--78, 82, 83--after the 89 I managed last week with Tom. (I actually scored 91, but had to remove two strokes for handicapping purposes.)

The wedding planning continues apace. In addition to the usual stress, these plans are also bringing no small measure of distress. We hope all will be worked out before the special day. Wendy is working on the wedding cake; this has caused (allowed) a large amount of extra shopping as she looks for just the right pans and display options for this particular cake. She has also been working on bedding plants for the front and back yards. And she has dispatched me to do battle with the weeds! I have also begun work on the setting for the pool. I hope to get it set up next week.

Erin and Kristian keep busy around the edges. Kristian is always finding avenues to engage his cuteness into our activities. Erin managed to get another batch of pictures up on his website:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristianleif/
and it was a good thing as my computer suffered a catastrophic failure! Apparently it got dropped or badly jarred while the hard drive was reading/writing and the hard drive is toast. I have passed it along to my friend to see whether anything can be salvaged, and to get the hard drive replaced. I am mourning a major loss of files. (Why weren't they backed up?!)

Special events are the order of the day at school, so Haaken and Liam are involved in trips and special days, and kindergarten graduation. They are also getting ready for their starring roles in the wedding.

And that's the kind of week it has been.

Golfing 201.5

I practise with my newer driver, the Taylor-Made Burner Bubble with the stiff shaft. Then I decide to retire it as well! I just can't make it go with that stiff shaft. I shall try to trade it in on something usable. I would like a Burner Bubble with a regular flex shaft. We'll see what Play It Again Sports has to offer.

Then I head back to the golf course with my new swing, and my newly refound confidence and my new discipline. You will remember that I scored a seven over, 78, the last time out, for my lowest recorded score! And sure enough, I also scored seven over this morning. I hope I do better on the back nine! Well, I had a little talk with myself and reviewed my swing, my confidence... and I scored a very satisfactory plus four on the back for a total of 82. Quite satisfactory all the way around but with lots of room for improvement in the consistency department.

Golf, an endlessly interesting game; much more than a good walk--spoiled!

Golfing 201

I had plenty of time to think about my golf game while I drove back to Thunder Bay. A couple of comments that Tom had made continued to percolate from my subconscious. "On the shots that go astray, it looks like you're hitting at the ball, rather than making a swing. You have to swing; just let the ball get in the way." I recall telling lots of friends and family that same advice! Now why wasn't I heeding it myself?! Tom also noted that a weaker left hand might help to avoid the snap hooks. So, this afternoon, I was back at it. And it worked. And it works!

I determined to take a practise swing before every shot. I figured that this might help me keep my mind on the swing, rather than on the result. I took the precaution of giving my driver the day off, which may have contributed some benefit as well! I had a consistent draw with my three-wood, so if I started it out down the right side it usually ended up in the centre of the fairway. Wow! So this is how Wayne feels! I still pulled a few irons, including the tee shots on two par threes right into the water hazard! I only played fourteen holes before coming in for supper, but I was at six over! And four of those strokes were penalty strokes. I went back after supper to complete my round. It continued to go well, except for a visit to the sand trap on the 7th hole (I played the back nine first.). I had pars on the other three holes, although one took a putt from the fringe to make it! I scored a new low of 78! Now I need to see if I can figure out how to swing this well on a consistent basis. The 89 and 91 the past two weekends were frustrating, although Chapples is two strokes easier than White Bear, and one stroke easier than Quarry Oaks. I will also dig out my newer driver and try to learn to hit it, or replace it. I hope I have permanently retired ol' scatter-gun!