Long time no post....
I know I know. But if you only knew the half of it. So here is the skinny.
WE HAVE PLANE TICKETS!!!!!!!!
Yes you heard me right. Nothing can stop us. Well, except our creditors....oh well. We will be heading out December 13th and returning January 8th.
You might not have heard from us but I promise we are hard at work. We have just days now until we hit the road and there is so much to still get done.
If you haven't heard, Tiff and I were battling some unforseen happenings lately. She finally recovered from the Flu that would never end long enough to get her immunizations and food posioning. I was taking my car into the shop unexpectedly long enough to borrow my roomie's and total it on the freeway. But we are recovering. She is fit as a fiddle and trying to wrap up work. I am moving a bit slow from the accident but luckily work isn't that tasking right now and I was able to take the sick days I desperately needed. I promise....no matter what you heard the trip is still on!
Thank you letters are hitting the mail tomorrow and we are sending out one last round of donation letters. Then the careful task of packing begins. Since we are going even lighter than we orginally anticiapted it will be carefully planned out.
More to come in the next few days!
Excuse me, can I have just a minute of your time?
So this past weekend in an effort to educate the community on Women in Progress and get some support I hit the streets at the Silverlake Farmer's Market. Since Silverlake is a notable bohemian/ hippy community I figured this was a good place to start. I was in good company with my clipboard along side Get out the Vote, Greenpeace, and some guy raising money for his indie film. I coerced casual shoppers to give me a few minutes of their time while I spouted off about the benefits of the organization and our role in their progress. As always there was an overwhelming urge for people to just ignore me and continue with their shopping but there were a few smiling faces. I have yet to see any hits to our email or giving site for my three hours in the sun but I am optimistic.
Another email conversation with Renae over in Ghana ended with the fact that her internet connection keeps kicking her offline as she is trying to send me a copy of their current database. Grrr. With time running short I am eager to start work on this. I can say that I will get some of it done on my flights back to NC for Thanksgiving but I know better. I will be dead to the world asleep before the wheels are even up. So the earlier we get this the better.
That is about all that is happening right now. More to come soon.
And then....
So all the donation letters are in the mail. Now we just wait.
MS Access? It always comes back to haunt me...
Now we are in contact with Renae the technical lead there in Ghana. She is a indispensable resource. Our emails tend to be obsessively long and spread out but she is helping us hammer down what they truly need over there to get business streamlined and not living day to day.
One major task. Get their database up and running that has been in the design phase for a year and a half now. It is all designed in MS Access. I really hate that program. It seems that the minute that you tell anyone that you have an inkling of how to use it they want you to build them a database. And I am less than stellar. So in an effort to get them a usable product with the fewest amount of bugs to work out I have enlisted a friend who is a champ at it. Thanks Mark. Now the question is whether the current version of the database is small enough to be emailed reasonably.
Second task. Inventory management. I think we can surely handle this but we are still defining the problem. More to come.
Third task. They need computer keyboards. They have plenty of mice but are short on keyboards. If anyone has an old one they would like to donate drop me an email.
The trip planning is going well and we are almost to the point of having an itinerary! A few more conversations with the most traveled folks over in Ghana and we will be at the travel agent! This all will seem so much more real once we have a ticket in hand.
That is all for now. More to come soon :)
