Erieversible

It seems my hearing is going.  I said, it seems my hearing is going.  Oh, never mind.

The company today gave me a baseline audiogram (hearing test) for their records.  It seems my hearing isn’t as good as I thought it was.  Some hearing loss in the upper frequencies.  However, those frequencies start where normal human noises end, so I can still hear voices, conversations, etc. perfectly well, it is just bats that are no longer part of my conversational repertoire.

I can’t remember ever had a hearing test before, so don’t know if there has actually been a loss of hearing in the upper frequencies or whether it has been like that for years.  I guess if the company ever does another one I’ll find out then if this is steady deterioration.  Probably age….

And on anther medical subject my wife was summoned to remove our 6-year old daughter from school as they believed she had some really infectious, killer disease.  We had thought it was just dry skin.  So, two hours later, a co-pay bill later, the verdict from the doctor was…dry skin.  I can understand the school erring on the side of caution but maybe there should be a scheme for at least partial recompense of the expense incurred due to their demands, otherwise where does it all end?

And to end the day we may have a significant issue with the roof on the house, but that’s probably an entry for tomorrow when further information has been gathered.

So today I get up, the rest of the family are in the same house, we have breakfast, get everyone ready, see the kids onto the school bus, I head for work…..

Just like old times

Put like that it sounds like a boring life, but it is great!  We are all happy.  And that routine life is full of little treats, like in Erie the kids had to walk to the nearest school bus pickup point, but here the bus stops at the end of your drive, just for you.  They were quite chuffed about that.  And they came home from school happy, loving the new school, etc.  Bless them, they are real stars.  It makes the adults’ lives so much easier.

Anyway, the majority of the house move stuff is over.  From tomorrow there will be less self-congratulatory articles and more comments on life.  And the workplace - that’s full of differences between here and over in the UK / Europe.  And much of it is one-sided, but not totally.  Then there’s all the hassles yet about moving to NY state.  And fun reports as we try out all the attractions round here.  So, there’s life in Erieversible yet.

Right now I have to go set up a new piece of network storage (NAS) and a backup system for it.  Now we have a proper home the full-blooded technology solution needs to be implemented.  After all, I suddenly have 3 Chumbys to support too!

Today the kids had to visit their new school, Harris Hill Elementary, to be tested, checked by the nurse and to have a look around.  It was quite different to Asbury School, mainly because the building is somewhat older, but that aspect wasn’t mentioned by either of them.

During the visit the 5-year old, presumably thinking that, like when we arrived in Erie, we were looking round several schools, said “Please can this be my school?”.  Well, it makes life so much easier when something like that happens.  All the staff we met were charming and very helpful, and I’m sure both kids will be really happy there.  Moving school again, after just one term at Asbury, isn’t ideal, but in the long term the move to Western New York is a really good thing.  Thanks, Asbury.  You did a grand job handling the children as they made the transition to US life.

Later in the day the main delivery of furniture that we ordered last weekend was delivered.  You should have seen the look on the children’s faces as their bedroom took shape around them.  Priceless.  It has been a long, hard journey but in another 48 hours it will essentially be over.  There will still be a load of paperwork and admin but all the fundamentals of a new life for the family will be in place.  Next Christmas will be a doozy!