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Well, a rather belated Happy New Year to everyone. Over 4 weeks belated, in fact. As you may have guessed, it's been a rather busy 5 weeks since the last 'Thoughts', what with Christmas, New Year and the project at work going live on Jan 1.

That saw me working longer hours than I really wanted to, including weekends. After spending the whole day either working or driving I had little enthusiasm for firing up this puppy and doing more. However, things have stabilized now, and so I'm back to spread forth my wit and wisdom. (Not much of either, I'm afraid. No change there!)

Christmas was a quiet time, but none the worse for that. Some photos are available on the Christmas '98 page. We had Christmas dinner with our friends the Keatings, which was most acceptable. Must do that again.

What's happening around here at the moment? Colin's playing indoor soccer at CostCo SportsNation with a team I put together. They're mostly Rec or Rec+ level playing against Classic level teams, so it's all pretty well one-sided. This was the sort of thing I feared, and I'm not sure it was worth the bother. Still, if they enjoy it, then it's all ok.

Still on the soccer front, I've got a refereeing course over the next 2 weeks. That will give me my basic referee's card. I quite enjoy refereeing the kids, but the older ones are more trouble, as they start learning the tricks. The younger kids haven't starting thinking about that! The older soccer levels, e.g. over 35 Co-Ed, is also easier. One of the referees who used to run our games said he looked forward to these as being more relaxing than the youths/mens games. Everyone is more interested in playing and having a good time than a win at all costs attitude.

Colin is sticking more into his school work. He had allowed a large backlog of uncompleted work to build up, and just didn't seem interested in doing it. We've now changed all the kids' allowance such that it's now tied into the completion of school work and other things. They get 'gems' (small, green, glass stones) for certain things, which they can trade for computer time, or cash to buy things. Seems to be working so far...

Graham and Catriona seem to be just getting on fine, no real worries at all. Graham's reading and writing are coming along fine, as is Catriona's school work. Colin took part in a geography test at school and came about 4th in the entire school. Not bad!

Cathy is really getting into this forensics stuff. She's reading lots of textbooks and stuff. She'd quite like to go to school to study it properly, but that will have to wait for a while yet, as we'd need our green card before she'd be allowed to apply. Even assuming we could find a class nearby.

On the subject of green cards, things are moving along. The project has extended me for 2 weeks, so my start at Oracle has been delayed. I have handed my notice in to CPi, so they officially know now. My future manager at Oracle has said that she is going to start the paperwork for the green card immediately I start, rather than wait for the 6 months we're supposed to. This is in recognition that I've been helpful in Oracle's client relations. I'm certainly not complaining. It will take about 2 years to get a green card, and will allow us to come and go more easily, not worry about work visas and also allow Cathy to take a paid job or go back to school.

I've also decided to reorganize my 'bit'. I'm going to make 'Thoughts' more just that, musings on life, and separate out the 'boring' day to day happenings. All I need is a spare moment. You've all heard that before...

Well, that's enough for this week. I'll catch you all next week.