Excitement

What a difference a couple of weeks makes!  In my last blog, I was admittedly a bit melancholy, and for good reason.  But I can’t really sustain that kind of mood.  My parents didn’t like us kids wallowing and I really don’t like it either.  So here we are, and I feel…excited!

First of all, school’s almost out. Why do I care if school’s out, you might ask?  Many of you will understand that the last several weeks of school are, well, a glimpse into h***.  And I mean that in the most loving way to our teachers and school administrators.  I know they have to get through the weeks after standardized tests without having the kids (or themselves) lose their minds, so they schedule every activity that could possibly happen.

To name several:

• Field days: which, or course, are on different days for my first grader and fifth grader. For parents, field days essentially means having to remember to have their kids wear their school t-shirts, assuming they have bought them, slathering on sunscreen, and running their giant water bottles to school after you remember they don’t have them when you are halfway to work;
• Talent show: enough said – the drama of getting the right music to the talent show coordinator could fill a book;
• First grade picnic: again, enough said;
• Fifth grade field trip: to skating rink–I think you’re starting to get the picture; and, finally, the piece de resistance,
• Fifth grade promotion to middle school! By the way, does this mean that our kids are going to have to go to their elementary school, middle school, high school, and college reunions? Ha!

Not to mention, during this exceedingly busy time, my kids’ sports teams have their final games and parties while the summer sport – swimming – has already started.  Hence, my excitement.  By the time July rolls around, we’ll have only two things – swimming and gymnastics – a breeze!  My calendar looks almost eerily empty during that month.  So, yes, I am excited about school getting out despite being exactly 30 years away from my high school graduation.  I am even excited that, as I write this blog, I’m on a plane to my high school reunion.

I’m very excited that I will be attending the Edison Electric Institute’s annual convention in Philly the day after I return from my reunion.  EEI has pulled together a great panel of utility and vendor folks to talk about utility communications needs and I’ll be moderating.  If you’re going to be at EEI, come to the panel – which will be at 8:30 on Tuesday morning, June 11.  Thanks to EEI for including me.

I’m super excited that I have been invited to testify at the upcoming annual Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reliability technical conference, again on utility communications and how they aid reliability.  FERC is devoting a whole panel to this discussion.  I don’t yet know who will be testifying with me, but I know it will be a great discussion regardless.  Thanks so much to FERC for focusing on these incredibly important issues.

I am stupendously excited that UTC’s annual Telecom and Technology conference will start on June 17 (through June 21)!  We’ll be in my birth state of Texas – Fort Worth to be exact – and the UTC team has done an incredible job to make the content interesting and relevant and the networking events entertaining and fun.

And, my excitement wouldn’t be complete without sharing the incredibly, fabulously exciting news that we got a new dog!  Her name is Elsa and we rescued her from Lost Dog Rescue (our go to rescue in the D.C area).  Of course, we still miss Lily, but we decided to adopt another dog quickly so that our remaining dog, Taylor, would have a playmate – maybe taking the edge off her grief over Lily.  I’m including a picture of our new cutie pie.

The bottom line…excitement!!  Until we meet again…hopefully in Philly or Fort Worth or D.C