Michelle went to Claire's school this afternoon to meet with Claire's teacher and also pick up Claire's report card. In this school the primary grades have their school year split up into thirds, not quarters. They also have a strange grading schedule -- not the usual A, B, C, D, and F. It's almost as if getting a 'D' would be "too damaging for the child's self-esteem". In any case Claire has done very well so far this year. I took her and Abby out for ice cream at Blakes as a reward for their hard work. (Abby has been doing well on the homefront with her workbooks, projects, and CD-ROM software...)
Abby did drive us crazy yesterday morning on our way to church. We were about ready to leave and Michelle said she couldn't find Michael's lamb. This lamb is a stuffed animal that Michael often carries with him to soothe himself. I joined Michelle and we searched the house for about five minutes -- upstairs, downstairs, under beds, behind couches, etc. In the end we asked Abby if she had seen it. Abby smiled, lifted a couple of throw pillows, and revealed Michael's lamb. Clearly she had hid it from him. A stuffed animal doesn't just get buried in throw pillows like that. Abby clearly knows what Michael's lamb means to him and what it would mean for him to not have it. She got in major trouble.
I was about to go crazy this afternoon at work. I was trying to use the C compiler from Hi-Tech. It didn't complain or produce an error message, but it wasn't producing any output. I spent hours trying to figure out why, which wasn't easy without an error message. Those are some of the worst problems to debug. No traceability. Just take something that works and try to narrow down the differences. Bleah!
My employer, ARC, announced late last week that it intends to spend $50 million from its cash reserves to buy back shares of ARC stock. I'm not financially that savvy but this is supposed to be a good thing. It's an indication to the public that we believe we'll achieve profitability soon. I would have thought it might have been better to spend it in development and infrastructure but I don't think like a CEO/CFO. They must have insights/motivations that I don't see working on the front lines. On the other hand ARC did recently offer all of it's employees new stock options above and beyond existing stock option agreements, so I really can't complain there. I'm employed, it's interesting work. In this economy that's nothing to sneeze at.
Tomorrow Michelle has another OB/GYN appointment to check on the status of our newest son. Pray that everything is still on track.