My Week that Was - November 9

An unexpected flower. 11/2/2024 dwm

 The first Saturday in November was seasonable, maybe nicer. I was still thinking about what a friend told me a  day earlier, that lilacs were blooming in her back yard.

 When I dropped some letters into the mailbox at the end of our cul-de-sac, I noticed an unusual bloom. A dandelion peaking through leaves to soak in the sun. 

 I don't keep track of such things, but I don't believe I've ever seen a dandelion blooming this late in the year. 

 The first weekend of November is when we turn clocks back one hour, reclaiming 60-minutes we lost in the spring. The extra our of sleep is nice but what I'll appreciate more is seeing the sun before 7 for a few weeks. 

The Wisconsin Badgers didn't embarrass themselves last week against Penn State. But in less than a half of football Saturday night, the Iowa Hawkeyes ran all over Wisconsin.

Bucky has three games left after a week off. They need one win to be bowl-eligible. Next Saturday they host top-ranked Oregon, then play at Nebraska before finishing the regular season the day after Thanksgiving at home playing Minnesota. I hope they win two, but after the Iowa debacle, it seems optimistic to say they'll win one.

In our front garden. 11/2/24 dwm

The Packer game wasn't much better. First, Detroit is a better team right now and Green Bay kept shooting itself in the foot with penalties and poor decisions, the worst of which was a wobbly pass picked off with a minute left in the first half that put the Lions ahead 14 points. Tack on another touchdown on the first drive of the second half and the Pack was down 3 touchdowns. Yecch.

On Monday I think most of us were excited about Election Day because it meant on Wednesday the political ads would be over.

Tuesday morning I got an early start in the gym, then cleaned up and ate quickly so I could get to our polling place. I was 9th in line 20 minutes before the polls opened. Once they did I voted and was on my way to work by 7:05.

9th in line to vote. 11/5/24 dwm

 Tuesday night I avoided the news, and as it turned out there wasn't a result then anyway. When I walked into the gym at 5:40 Wednesday morning, NBC called Wisconsin for President-elect Trump. It was a disappointing result, but the result was decisive win.  By winning the popular and electoral vote, a large number of people were happy, congratulations.

 It's the first week of Standard Time and it's nice having daylight on the drive to work but a drag when darkness is on the horizon as I drive home. We received much needed rain this week. It's still warmer than average, Wednesday was closer to normal with highs around 50.

 Thursday I was able to get ahead on a few things in the office. The monthly article I write for the campus newsletters isn't due yet, so it felt good to get a draft started so it can be tweaked before sending it in.

 Each year we have a number of continuing education courses that need to be finished before the end of the year. This year there are 17, two are an hour, one was 45-minutes, and 9 clocked in at 30. The rest were 15 minutes long. After each video you have to get 80% of the questions right to pass.

Some classes are on the list every year, I could probably pass the test without listening to the video, but since you can't skip over the video to take the exam, there isn't much you can do to finish faster. Most courses apply to my role at Oakwood but several don't.

There was an in-person class Friday morning on conflict and collaboration that shared ideas and techniques on understanding others while getting people to work together. It's an effort to encourage leaders to get more people involved in the process of problem solving.

Thanks for reading, have a great week!