Back to Work and Baby Weekend

Last night was the start of high school football season. Like last year, I'll be working at the TV station, entering high school football scores into the system so that hundreds of scores will rotate on the bottom of the screen,

• To annoy viewers that don't care (but if they don't care, they shouldn't watch).
  
• To get people to wait and wait and wait to see their school's score, even though it might never be there.
• To allow people to have something to complain about if we get the score wrong. Of course, that never happens. If it's on television, it must be true.

Of course, we do our best to get every score right, and despite stories of past years at other televison stations, we don't make up schools or scores. (If I made up a school, I'd want to call it "Roosevelt-Franklin.")

Last night was pretty cool and uneventful from my point of view. For the people more directly involved with the 30-minute football wrapup TV show, well, there is room for improvement, and I'm sure it will improve. There were a few times where things didn't go as planned, but that doesn't mean that there were many problems that the home viewer would notice.

Also, this weekend the wife and big kids are away, leaving me at home with the little tykes. Last night I had to get a baby sitter to watch the remaining kids, while I worked. While experienced and responsible for the job, she doesn't have as much experience with crying babies as do parents, and the babies probably cried more for her than they would for their parents. So, I'm sure having crying babies was more stressful for the sitter than would be, for example, popping a video in for bigger kids on other (hypothetical) baby sitting jobs. Because of this, I was directed to pay well. What is "well" for this day and age? I didn't really know, but I gave $30. Am I overly generous or a cheapskate? I was gone about 5 hours, but then the kids were sleeping for a lot of that time (except when they were crying, of course).

I also got a taste of what child care expenses must be like for people who need it. It's probably not 75% of income for most people, but I'll get paid $40 for the night. Subtract the $30, and then another $1.40 for a snack and pop, and I'm left with $8.60 before gas and taxes. Hey, can I deduct the $30 for income tax purposes. I probably can! I'll have to look into that.

Finally, as I mentioned, this weekend I'm alone with the babies. I don't anticipate any major problems, as long as I stop them from chewing on banana peels they get from the trash and things like that, but I see that we're already off schedule. I was left with a detailed schedule of daily activities, but we're way off. Lunch was supposed to be at 11:00am. But, as I type this, it's 1:17pm, and they're probably about ready to get up from their pre-lunch nap.

If the weather holds up, we'll go to a park or for a walk or something.