Not enough fridge space

If you’re living on-campus with a family, you may know that the campus apartments aren’t huge by any means.  Although it’s really hard to complain because it’s FREE!!  As our daughter has gotten a little older, she’s received more magnetic toys which are now too numerous to keep on the fridge.  Do you have this problem?  Are you looking for a cheap and easy way to get more space for magnetic toys?  Well, my wife (@ajungers) has come to the rescue.

We visited our local Menards (where we save big money) and purchased 6″ x 18″ welding steel sheets, a roll of purple duct tape, and some velcro.  The steel edges are pretty sharp, so to keep our daughter’s fingers from getting cut, we just tore off a piece of duct tape long enough to cover them.  Once you’ve got a piece long enough, you can rip it in half the long way to use less, if you’re into that sort of thing (For aesthetic purposes, make sure the straight/untorn end is on the side your kid will be utilizing).  After you’ve made the edges safe, just attach the velcro to the back and stick them to the wall.

Once the velcro “sick-em” has had enough time to set, put all your child’s magnetic items on the wall.  It’s like a second fridge, only cheaper!  Granted, it’s not as cheap as painting the wall with magnetic paint.  However, at my institution, it’s against college policy for me to be painting my walls.  Sticky stuff can be removed with this and a little elbow grease.  I also don’t like the idea of creating something that permanent.

This post feels like it should be posted here.  However, since I’m not “The Clever Dad”, I don’t post there.

Thanks for reading.  My daughter’s awake now.  I can hear her chatter.  Perhaps we’ll play with some magnets?

A high school summer for me?

Probably not.  I didn’t have vacation time in high school, so I actually had to work daily to make money.  I worked here (now defunct), here, here, and here.

Now that I have full-time employment, I use very little vacation during the academic year.  This isn’t surprising to me as I’ve always considered taking “vacation time” while living on campus somewhat silly, especially when, as a family, we’ve got very little funds to actually go anywhere.  So, what does my opinion of “taking a vacation” while living in a residence hall entail you ask?

1. The necessity of not answering my apartment telephone since students and staff usually call. This is mostly doable because of caller ID.  However, I don’t always ask for cell phone numbers of my student staff so I could just pick up the phone to a call anyway.  Strike 1.
2. Not answering the door when I hear a knock, or if I do answer it, tell the student: “I’m on vacation and won’t deal with your issue right now.”  Followed by, “But you can call the Area Coordinator on duty though.” This just feels wrong, which would lead to my wife always answering the door and telling students that I’m not available, which she doesn’t like doing anyway.  Strike 2.
3. Take a vacation to my parents’ house or my wife’s parents’ place. Although this would get us off-campus, and we’re always welcome with open arms, this isn’t always ideal.  Sometimes, it just “different” spending the night at they’re places. Strike 2 and a half.
4. Not really take any vacation. This is what I’ve done the last three years.  Sure, I’ve taken a couple nights here and there.  A campus interview, weekend away, etc.  However, I’ve never really planned any sort of vacation.  In my wife’s terms, Strike 3.

So, after talking to my supervisor last week, I found that I have 24 and a half days of vacation to use before August 1 (that’s a lot, I know).  Since we already have Fridays off, I’ve now planned to work only Tuesdays and Wednesdays until professional staff training in August.  And even that could be in doubt because I still have 8 and a half days left to use or lose.  I could probably stretch my days left to only work on Tuesdays for most of the summer.  However, much like Strike 2 above, it seems silly to me.

Perhaps my wife will attempt to talk me into it, but I don’t think it’ll work.  There is work I need to be doing, and I don’t think 8 hours a week will get it done.

What am I going to do with all this new-found free time?  I’m already surfing the Internet trying to find parks, playgrounds, and other various free (or dirt cheap) family activities south of the river.  If only there was a single website of listed events like this to make my life easier.  Someone should really get on that.

Oh, one more thing. Quite possibly the best game has a sequel coming soon.

Do students read policy pages on the Internet?

I’m nearing completion of my first full week of summer employment. We’re set up much differently this year than the last two as I’ll be spending a significant amount of time in one (or both) of my offices. I’m excited about my project which includes website review and possibly creation. Perhaps those of you on the Olaf Res. Life and Code of Conduct pages will notice changes in the coming weeks. Perhaps not though.

I always wonder who actually reads these pages. Do students ever read their Code of Conduct? Is it only used by full-time professionals, maybe only Area Coordinators? In my opinion, the $$$ crunch forces more and more info to go online that used to be available in print for each resident. Ignorance of the rules still isn’t an excuse for violations, but hopefully my work this summer will create more streamlined process.

Who knows…maybe a student will actually read it.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

I wish there had been more to add during the past week, but life has been busy.  We’re in full swing with finals week, so checkouts are happening on a regular basis.  It was my daughter’s birthday yesterday, so there’s been party planning happening.  My friend’s twin boys finally made it home from the hospital, and I’m sure that’s exciting for him.

This morning, my wife and a photographer trekked around campus taking pictures of our daughter.  It seems selfish, but I slept with the wrong pillow last night, and my body is still aching.  Instead of going through campus, I showered and did a little Internet searching for positions at colleges and universities throughout the country.  So far, the best thing to happen was the impromptu party, cake, and picture with one of my staffs.  It warms my heart knowing they care.  Hopefully I’ve done a good job as a supervisor this year.  I look forward to seeing each and every one of them graduate.

Later today, if I can get a babysitter, I’m looking at taking my wife out to dinner and a movie.  She’s been working hard the last couple of days and deserves a little bit of a break.  If no short-notice babysitter can be found, perhaps it’ll happen tomorrow.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  Not much exciting happening in these parts.  However, you’ll be the first (or second, or third) to know when something does.

Could’ve had a V8

After getting into another spat (it seems like a regular occurrence these days), I have come to the realization that it’s probably time to move off-campus.  I’d like to say we cannot afford it, and I may be right.  However, I said the same thing about my daughter two and a half years ago.  Somehow we’ve made it this far on what little money we have, even after stopping WIC (I’m not sure why or even how that happened.).  Tonight was a turning point for me as I didn’t see my wife or daughter for the entire afternoon and evening.  After lunch, my next stop to the apartment was after 10:45 PM, except for a quick stop for chicken tacos (yummy).  It’s time for us to work together more effectively.  It’s unfortunately, but necessary that I walk down a couple of hallways to do our laundry.  It’s unfortunate, but necessary that we have very little cabinet or counter space.  I’m not as disappointed as my wife about not having a dishwasher because I’m the dishwasher.  Although, with our little ant problem I’ve learned that it’s really important to not leave dirty dishes overnight.

Tonight, although I was beat down from my long day I realized that the dishes still needed to be done, and my wife’s work uniform needed to be washed.  So instead of going to bed and waking up early, I’m frustrated by a desire to stay up late and wake up lat(er).  I don’t feel too bad as it’ll be about the same amount of sleep for me.  More disappointed with me be my wife who doesn’t like sleeping alone.  Of course most of the washing machines and dryers are being used, which will force me to stay up a little later.  Oh well, that’s what these blogs are for.  MSNBC is on in the background and my iPod touch alarm just went off signifying two washing machines should be done with their cycle.

For those of you reading this at St. Olaf, I can’t say that I’ll be officially gone immediately, but for my sanity, for my family’s sanity, I’ll be looking for off-campus positions.

For your reading pleasure, I just saw this story about Sarah Palin: http://bit.ly/7XR30

Kwik Trip Greatness

I’m confused why anyone living within driving distance of a Kwik Trip would buy milk, eggs, bananas, and other fruit anywhere else. Perhaps the reason is the store relies on word of mouth advertising. Maybe it’s because people don’t think milk in a bag is a good idea.

Whatever the reason, people need to know. This evening I bought a half gallon of milk for $0.89. That’s right, eighty-nine cents! Bananas are $0.30 a pound. I know that price isn’t a huge difference from the large grocers, but if you’re wanting to look for the best deals, and you live in Minnesota and Wisconsin, drop into your neighborhood Kwik Trip and check it out.

You will not be disappointed.

Post from your wireless device?

This evening I found that WordPress has an iPhone/iPod Touch application. It looks like posting is made very easy if you have a blog. I know you can post to Blogger using a wireless device, but an app is much easier for me.

One reason for the switch to WordPress. It’s easy to post using my wireless device.

Video Game Complaining

My wife pulled out the Game Cube this afternoon, and we played a round of Mario Party 5.  The Game Cube has sat unused for months as we’ve been using the Wii.  However, with the Wii now with its rightful owners, she and Rachel were looking for something to do.  Now, I haven’t played Mario Party very many times (I could probably count them on one hand), but it was a frustrating experience today.  I had the least amount of coins, zero stars, and nowhere near close to winning any of the mini-games.  It had to be annoying the other two players because of my losing, but my luck soon changed.  In a comeback reminiscent of Bo Jackson is Tecmo Bowl, I was able to switch out coins with my wife, get one of the little mushroom things for multiple block additions, and it was off to the races.  With me new-found luck I found two stars in a single turn, and in the end declared champion (It was almost like the system wanted me to win.).

Ok, that’s enough technobabble.

I always seems that I start complaining about losing a video game but often end up winning in the end, unless I’m playing Guitar Hero (some people are just really good…really good.).  Perhaps I should stop complaining, and accept it?  This idea would include not just video games, but my general well-being.  My wife tells me I sound like I’m dying and need hospitalization when I’m sick.  Perhaps I should stop complaining?  It may just make our quality of life a little better.

I wonder if a drastic change like this will be noticed.  We’ll see.  I’ll attempt to change.  I say attempt because I’ll really try.  I don’t like being negative, but sometimes not being able to breathe, blow your nose, headaches, etc. are bad things.  I’ve spent much of my formative years with my wife like this, but it’ll stop now.

At least until I get pink eye, again.  Ask her about that one.