Ummm...wow

I am headed to Tallahassee on Sunday for a meeting, so I was checking out weather.com to see what I'm in for. Apparently there is some localized flooding on a nearby river and I found this piece of brilliance from the National Weather Service:

SAFETY MESSAGE... ALL PERSONS WITH INTEREST ALONG THE RIVER SHOULD MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS... AND BE PREPARED TO TAKE NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY. DO NOT DRIVE CARS THROUGH FLOODED AREAS. IF YOU SEE FLOOD WATERS... REMEMBER TO TURN AROUND AND DO NOT DROWN.

I really don't have anything to add.

Georgia...Georgia

The week after my second trip to Miami I traveled to Georgia! I spend a lot of time in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport (eight times in the last 26 days) but getting out of the airport and enjoying the state is something I've only gotten to do twice in the last year. Our program recently added eight new courts, including Paulding County, Georgia, and that one is mine! Paulding County is about 40 miles NW of Atlanta and is a really nice little (but growing) community.

This is downtown Dallas, GA at rush hour =-)

I must say it's truly a breath of fresh air to have a jurisdiction with a population significantly smaller than the others where we work. To make a comparison- Los Angeles has around 22,000 children in foster care. Paulding County has about 94. And they already have a great collaborative structure in place, great court practice, a great child welfare agency- I'm excited! It's going to be fun working with them, and in such close proximity to Atlanta! I LOVE Atlanta! I'm not sure if I could ever move there... but of course I don't love Reno and I moved there, so I guess if God wanted to move me to Atlanta I'd have no objections! After a two day site visit where I met basically the whole town and observed court, I drove up to Stone Mountain, GA for a conference. The entire time I was in Georgia it was overcast and foggy- which was nice! It reminded me of Oregon and was a great backdrop for their gorgeous trees.

This is the view from my hotel balcony

The county is growing so quickly that they have decided to build a new courthouse and county administration center, so on my way out of town I got a tour.

Here is our entourage driving up to the new county complex...

And here is the judge in her "new" courtroom pretending to call us to order. She is great!

So that's it for Georgia- thankfully no mishaps hotel or otherwise. I'm actually posting this from Charlotte, NC... and you'll be hearing about this trip in the not-too-distant future!

Miami take 2

I had the fun task of traveling to Miami twice in two weeks. The first trip was to accompany judges from San Jose to see some of the programs targeted to infant and toddler mental health in the Miami court, and the second was to attend a one day conference. The conference was really great and I found some new faculty something we're always on the lookout for. On the down side... the morning I was flying back I had been awake for about 10 minutes when the fire alarm went off in the hotel. 4:15 a.m. Thankfully it was a short evacuation, but for the first time something actually was on fire, I overheard one of the firemen telling another guest it was a lightbulb. Makes you feel very safe.




Here is the nice fireman explaining the situation to a German tourist. Not a good way to start a Saturday morning, but first class upgrades help =-) Thanks Delta!


On the bright side... I may get some bonus Hyatt points out of this!







And here is a fun picture taken above Florida that same morning.






On a MUCH more important note- congratulations to Sally and Danielle and your husbands on the births of your beautiful sons!

Happy Day

Here is a picture from my west-facing veranda from about a week ago. Fall is a beautiful time of year in Reno!

And this is looking to the south. You can just barely see the foaling barn where we put our garbage so the bears won't get it! Thankfully this year we have had no bear sightings so I think we're in the clear.

I hope you're impressed (LOL!) that I was able to keep my word and post so quickly! I have to say that it's hard to concentrate on work given all that's happened to us as a nation in the past 24 hours, but I am feeling truly happy and exceedingly hopeful!

And just for fun, here is a roll call of the places I've been for work since February's Hawaii post: March=Cleveland and Phoenix, April= Eugene, Charlotte, Columbus and Cincinnati, May= Palm Springs and Toledo, June= San Jose, July= Chicago and Norfolk Virginia, August=Winston-Salem, NC and Los Angeles, September= Honolulu and New Orleans, October= Newark, NJ, New York City and Miami, and November will be Miami, Atlanta area, and Charlotte. Whew!

Happy Election Day!

So I'm going to guess that this will be the bloggingest day of the year, so I thought- what better day to redeem my blog?! Thanks for reading =-)

If you know me- and I hope that if you're reading this that you do know me (that you're not just some random stalker who stumbled upon this page) you know that my heart beats for politics. You probably also know my political leanings, so no need to discuss them, really all I want to say is that this is one of the most exciting days that I can remember in years and I am super excited regardless of the outcome. To you my friends, I want to say thank you for doing your part, thanks for voting this election (especially to you libertarians!)

The main reason I haven't blogged in six months, is that my camera broke and a blog without pictures is pretty boring. The other is my crazy travel schedule. Without looking at all of the travel documents I have collected over the last six months I really can't even tell you all of the places I've been, although Hawaii (again) New York and Miami are in there. I'll do that in my next post...which I promise will come out before six more months have elapsed!

That's all for now. Hope your day is stellar. And to a truly wonderful friend who apparently is reading this blog now ;) thanks for reading and thanks for coming to dinner, I look forward to seeing you again soon!

ALOOOOOHA!

OK, I am WAAAAAY overdue for an update- I apologize profusely, but life has been insane! Now that I've made amends... here is my Hawaii post!

Believe it or not, it was a really busy trip. When we're in Hawaii we always work hard. That's really true of any site visit that we do. There is always more to do and observe than can really be done in the time allotted, and my co-worker, who planned the trip for her judges and stakeholders from Omaha had us extremely busy.

I flew in on President's Day, and coincidentally shared my flight with a former OJD co-worker and her daughter and partner. What a surprise! We shared a cab to Waikiki and had dinner together that night, which was really nice.

Just for you Will- a Mai Tai at Dukes!!!

The view from my lanai at the Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa...

Tuesday-Thursday consisted of meetings, court observation, and observation of special projects that the Honolulu court has at its disposal. Each night was filled with a dinner meeting, which left little time to enjoy the sites on my own =-( Here is a picture of us with the Honolulu and Omaha Judges.

The view from our table at the Outrigger Canoe Club where we had a dinner meeting with one of the local judges.

Friday was my birthday and I decided to spend it at a wonderful place called Kualoa Ranch on the North Shore. Below are a few pictures from that day. Sadly, the pictures don't even come close to showing the beauty of this place.

This is a view of the front of the ranch from the parking lot down below.

Kualoa was great! They have numerous activities like horseback riding, ATVs, a "jungle" jeep excursion, a movie/television site tour (Jurassic Park, Mighty Joe Young, Lost, 50 First Dates) an ocean outing on a catamaran to Baby Turtle Reef, and possibly my new favorite pasttime... shooting stuff =-)

24 of 40. Not bad for a beginner! Of course they were supposed to be evenly spread between the top (pistol) and bottom (rifle) but I think I can work on that!

"Chinaman's Hat" a small island off the coast of the ranch near Baby Turtle Reef.

Another shot from the catamaran trip.


Baby Turtle Reef. We saw quite a few turtles, but they were too fast for the camera. LOL!!!




The view at the top of the jeep excursion.

The beautiful mountains above the ranch.

Sunset at the Outrigger.

Happy Valentine's Day from RNO...and my idiot moment

First I’d like to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day! Good, now that that’s out of the way… I’m sitting in a place I know all-too-well, the Reno-Tahoe International Airport, and it’s before 5 a.m. I’m not sure why this is called an international airport, because I’m almost positive that there is not one flight you could take out of the country from here. There’s always a stop somewhere else first. There’s no customs here. I think maybe regional airport would be more appropriate, but of course there is a non-stop flight to Atlanta, so I guess that scratches that thought… I digress.

Digress from what? From my idiot moment. Here goes: I have not, as of yet, managed to get myself to local, friendly DMV to “make it legal” and receive a Nevada driver’s license. I had every intention of doing this months ago, however- it turns out that you must have a smog check to register your car here, and poor Blanca can’t pass without me putting more money into her than she’s worth, according to those nice people at Kelly Bluebook. As my registration on her doesn’t expire until December 2008, I figured I have some time to determine a course of action.

On the other hand, my Oregon driver’s license expires this month. I’ve been planning the perfect day to go in and get my Nevada license, and figured that I would do it when I return from Hawaii. For some reason I’ve had it in my head for sometime now, that my license expired at the end of this month…and of course when I wake up at 2:45 this morning, what’s the first thing to pop into my head? MY LICENSE EXPIRES ON MY BIRTHDAY…WHILE I’M IN HAWAII. Argh. Seriously? What is wrong with me?! So I had a little prayer session about it. What on earth am I going to do? I think I’m actually going to have to take the full written and driving test in Nevada when I get back. ARGH!!! I wondered why this hadn’t occurred to me before this morning, and I figured that 1. Everything happens for a reason. I firmly believe this and always have. God uses crazy circumstances to do incredible things. I can’t even begin to imagine what that might entail for this one, but I’m open. 2. It’s been such a difficult and crazy month, that trying to figure this out and go get my license would have probably pushed me over the edge to insanity… I don’t know for sure. The only thing I do know is that when I finally go to get it, I will have driven to the DMV illegally. Argh.

I was going to end the post on that note, but I just can't do it. I've had four hours of sleep, too much coffee and I'm starving, so that means that I get to complain a little. You don't have to "listen" though... just warning you =-)...Here goes: For some reason whenever I have a 6 a.m. flight, which is 80% of the time, I end up in the terminal sitting next to a largish group (the group is large, not the people) of southerners (I should say they end up sitting next to me) from like, podunk Alabama. And they talk really loudly...about which seat they have and what they're going to eat on the plane...and how many hours they have to drive to go pick up their dog when they land (three to be exact)...and on...and on. Now normally I am a sucker for a southern accent. Sometimes I think I should have been born a southern belle, but there is just something about it at 5 something in the morning that is less than bearable... that's all. Going to go get something to eat... and listen to the Wheel of Fortune slot machines...
...and you thought I was kidding.

A Perfect 10 in the Month of Love

That is the phrase that my best friend Barb used to tell people to help them remember exactly when her birthday was. Well, it’s February 10th once again, so Happy Birthday Barb!!! I looked for a picture of Barb and me together that I could post here, but much of my stuff is in storage, and I came up empty! Maybe next year… I also want to give a birthday shout-out to Lyndsey, aka ‘Filer’ aka ‘Good Roommate’ Hall, whose birthday is February 11. Whoop whoop! And for all of the rest of you February babies, and there are a lot of us (I mean, it seems like if you know one person born this month, you know ten) Happy Birthday to you!

You do what? And you do it where?

A lot of people have asked me what exactly it is that I do. My job title is Site Liaison (soon to be Site Manager) at the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (The Council). There are four departments at The Council, other than administration, and the one I work for deals solely with child and abuse and neglect (foster care) proceedings. Our administration is located on the UNR, University of Nevada, Reno campus, and we are affiliated with both the university and the National Judicial College. Because of this affiliation, I am considered associate faculty at the university, however the only thing it's gotten me so far is a discount at the local gym!

Other departments at The Council focus on juvenile delinquency, custody and other issues in divorce proceedings, research, and domestic violence. My job entails working directly with courts in a federally funded program known formally as: Child Victim’s Act Model Courts. These aren’t the prettiest, most fashionable courts (sorry, I couldn’t resist) but are courts who are willing to look at their practice and compare it to the gold standard, The Resource Guidelines; a document created at The Council in the mid ‘90s. In addition to conforming their practices to this document, they also agree to dream up and implement innovative ways to serve children and families in child abuse and neglect cases. There are 31 Model Courts across the country, and right now I work directly with Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Jose, Toledo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Charlotte and Newark.

My work with these courts includes visiting their jurisdiction to observe the judges at work, talking to the other stakeholders involved in the court process (social workers, children’s attorneys, parents’ attorneys, mediators, district attorneys, etc.) and providing feedback to the court on what they are doing well and what could be improved upon. My colleagues and I also have the opportunity to take court teams to visit courts in other cities to observe something innovative that they might want to incorporate in their own jurisdiction. This month I will be traveling with a colleague and a team from Omaha to Honolulu, to observe Family Group Conferencing, and last October, another colleague and I met my team from Charlotte in Chicago, so that we could learn more about how Chicago assigns cases to a judge by the geographic location of the family. There are also many conferences and training events to attend. In future posts I hope to go back and tell you about some of the adventures I had in travel during 2007.

Due to space, the departments of The Coucil are in separate buildings downtown. And just so you can visualize, this is a shot of my office. Notice the floor to ceiling window looking onto downtown =-) I am only slightly spoiled…

...and here is what I see when I look out my office window.

A Hobbit House You Say?

This is the story of the Hobbit House that I alluded to in the first post... When I first moved to Reno on Memorial Day weekend, I lived with my boss in a beautiful apartment that she had rented while looking for a house to buy. Just as I was hired, she and her husband found and bought a house, but the apartment complex wouldn't let her out of her lease until the end of July. That meant that I had all of June and July to find somewhere else to live. While the apartment was great (as far as apartments go) it was really expensive, so staying in it by myself after July was not really an option. I hadn't planned to look for something until mid-July, but interestingly I really felt led to start looking before June was over. I bought a paper and immediately found an add for "a quiet cottage in the country, very secure, tennis court, minutes from downtown." That sounded perfect so I called and that afternoon I went to see it. It was... interesting. The cottage is two stories as you can see from the picture on the February 2, post. Downstairs has a kitchen/dining room, a small sitting room and a tiny bathroom with a shower. Upstairs has two bedrooms- one that opens onto the veranda that you can see in the picture, a much smaller bedroom, and a bathroom with a bathtub. All of that in a whopping 700 square feet. What you can't see is to the right of the house...

Stairs. Yep, the stairs are outside. What's more? The ceiling height on the first floor is 6'2''. I kid you not. And I have no idea why. The ceilings upstairs are normal, other than being sloped on the edges, not abnormal for an old house. So, with all of that- oh wait, did I forget to mention that downstairs has two front doors? Yeah, for some reason Hobbit House just seemed to fit. Every morning I make my way down the stairs for coffee. Everyone I tell about the cottage asks if the stairs are at least covered. They aren't but when you live in a place that averages 7 inches of precipitation a year, it's not really a big deal. It is rather fun after a snowstorm however, because then I get this:

The snow slides off the steep roof, right onto the stairs.

Thankfully we get that fabulous powder snow, and a broom is enough to do the trick!

The house is in a bit of disarray, but in the not-too-distant future, I'll post some pictures of the inside. Very cute, very cozy!

Two, two, two posts in one!

It's been snowing almost every week since I got back from Christmas, so here are a few snow pics. This is the front of the cozy little cottage where I live, and my dear car Blanca.

This is the view of Mt. Rose at sunrise from the veranda off my bedroom looking west

This is a view of the main house during a snowstorm at night, as seen from the veranda off the bedroom to the north.

These are the Virginia Foothills to the east of town as seen from my downtown office building

I've been here how long?

Ok, so I thought about doing a blog for awhile. And then in July 07, I finally started one. And then of course I never shared it with anyone and I never posted again. Chalk it up as a success! Alright, so I'm serious about this now. I will post regularly (so glad that's a relative term) and promise to share this with friends... sigh. I have to admit that the thought of sharing this with others is rather frightening. I'm not sure why. I've just never liked the limelight, but this seems like such a great way to keep friends up to date on my life and hopefully hear from them too! So, here goes. I am blogging. And more than that, I'm sharing it. Enjoy.