Henry's Web Log

Thursday was an ACI covered dish lunch, Friday the President's Council hosted what may have been the first gathering of all 3 groups for a sendoff lunch. Both days were interspersed with "final" client and employee meetings, since there's always just a few more things we need to take care of. Kevin Litten's article about this deployment and its effect on our business appeared in today's Virginia section of the Roanoke Times. The online edition put it under business. It was a great ink, got everything right, and captured our sentiment: this is a challange, but we're up for it and all of us (family and employees) see this as a patriotic responsibility.

Saturday's swan song was at the Virginia Tech tailgate: not a celebration tailgate, but our golden opportunity to sell Cub Scout popcorn! We piloted a popcorn sale last year, visiting our well-to-do tailgaters and found them very supportive. It helps that our Cub Scouts are enthusiastic, pull a red wagon full of carmel corn tins, and tell the fans about the great activities we do in our Pack. Plus the cuteness factor. We managed to sell over 28 cases, 12 cans/case. As over-priced as Cub Scout popcorn is, many fans supported our boys with tips and donations.

Sunday we made waffles at home, a delicious family tradition, and I zipped through a quick IASO course (information assurance/computer security), some reading I had been doing over the last 2 weeks. The boys and I enjoyed some horseplay, helped me put on my uniform and we headed out. While traveling in uniform wasn't required, Lisa suggested it would help the boys understand that this is no ordinary business trip. Message received! We stopped at the new R/C flying field on the way to the airport: the Radio Controlled airplane club was hosting a fun-fly and cook out. The weather was great. We enjoyed a few flights for me, Eric and Ethan, then had a burger before continuing to the airport.

Good-bye was certainly tough. Eric was stoic, Ethan was emotional, and Lisa was wonderful, supporting both boys and me.

The NewVa Corridor Technology Council, NCTC hosted its Fall Gala on Wednesday night. Lisa and I enjoyed the event, including a VT business professor known for his rapping and other gimmicks to hold the attention of students. Lisa and I enjoyed meeting a few business contacts, but also got to talk to several First Lego League coaches and supporters. I was honored to lead an NCTC committee, prompted by a generous donation from SyCom Technologies, to stimulate Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education in our region of Southwest Virginina. We were specifically targeting robotics at the upper elementary and middle-school level. In short order, we were able to fund most of the startup costs for 5 new FLL teams, and are planning additional recognition not only for the teams that win Blacksburg's regional competition, (Nov 16, 2008), but also recognizing the volunteer coaches on each of some 30 expected teams. Lisa and I enjoyed the night out and meeting some of the people who have been touched by this program.

With Lisa, I visited her grandmother Ilse today, in the Blacksburg Kroontjie care facility. She's wonderful, a German immagrant who gave birth to Lisa's mother in the middle of WWII. In a German brewery during a bombing raid, according to Lisa's mother. Wow.

Ilse has her good and bad days, and she was sharp today- she knew from the early morning that there were plans in the works, and she wanted to know what was up. So we sat with her and told her about the Army call-up, and how we'd like to stay in touch. The staff at Kroontji said we should tell Ilse about a week out, because we didn't want her to worry too long or be confused about when I was leaving.

The photo is me and Lisa visiting her on her birthday, last May, while she was recovering from a hip injury. Kroontjie is nicer than the room shown...but it helped that Lisa filled the room up with colorful balloons to celebrate the day!

I found out that the National Guard provides an infrastructure of regional family support advocates. Last Friday evening, I fired off an email to an address in Abington, and actually got a response within minutes, loaded with useful resources...including a reference to Elaine Dumler's "flat daddy" photo. The idea is that a life-size cutout of your soldier can be photographed with your family and shared with others, creating a virtual presence, and generally make life apart a little more bearable.
Well, what a good idea! So I shot several photos and fired off emails to several local graphics companies. Tech Express refered me to Radford's Sign Systems and a DC firm. The DC firm responded the next day with a decent quote, and agreed to go a little extra: we made a flat Henry with a big smile on one side, but precisely fit the back with an angry flat Henry! This one is for use at work: the flat Henry sits in my office, smiling his normal self, until some month in the future, I get a note that profits are down. I'd email Angela, our CFO, and say, "Turn the Henry around!" and out comes flat angry Henry. Angela was good enough to even practice: she held it in front of her and went office-to-office and in her best angry voice (well, there was quite a bit of laughter mixed in) said, "Get to work! Earn more money!"
Well, a few days later, the fine folks at Sign Systems in Radford generously provided my family with all three flat-henry versions: the "happy henry", "concerned henry", and "angry henry." They printed each and mounted them very professionally (of course), and got it done quickly.

Last weekend, we told the boys about the deployment. Why the wait? Well, school started Wednesday, and we wanted to let them adjust a little. Eric, our new teenager, took the news quietly and thought on it a while. It wasn't until Monday that he started asking me some questions, as I walked him up to his bus stop. That in itself was a big deal: it's not cool to be seen at the bus with your parents. So we talked.
Ethan took the news to heart immediately. He's more emotional than his brother. In fact, they're pretty close to polar opposites. It was a big help to assure him that I'd be in touch with email, phone calls, maybe even a webcam. And especially that this was an important mission for our country. Ethan's a big fan of the Military Channel, so his view of war is certainly dramatic, if not a little too premature for a 9 year old. I recommend an adult be with anyone under 13 who watches the Military Channel.
Lisa has had some trouble sleeping, and her mind is full of gotta-do events. She's a fantastic organizer (yet the military wants me for Logistics!). Lisa can't go to church without a small notebook: she makes great plans in the form of 20 to 30 item to-do lists, and juggles it all with a smile: Cub Scouts, Pool Manager, Red Cross Instructor, Reflections chairperson (fine arts contest), Lego team coach, substitute teacher, recreation center child-fitness instructor, and the lists go on...