Written by: Amy Lauria
It poured! But that didn’t stop Team Tec from turning up at the
Lake/Geauga County START! HEART WALK bright and early last Saturday, May
22. Or from being a corporate sponsor for the event again this year.
The
location of the Heart Walk was changed for 2010. Veteran’s Park in the
heart of Downtown Painesville was a good choice. As always, the
atmosphere was festive with tables lining the sidewalks and refreshments
provided under a large tent. There was a host stationed in the gazebo
to provide both entertainment and direction to walkers.
It was
lighthearted as we socialized before the walk, with intermittent
scattered sprinkles causing us to put up our umbrellas a time or two. My
son graciously offered to hold an umbrella for the two of us, which was
lovely until he began tipping it so that rainwater ran down onto my
head. Minutes before Go Time, the monsoon was unleashed. Our team
wimped out (only a little) and opted for the 1-mile route. None of us
wanted to trudge 3 miles through a torrential downpour.
We had a
few teenagers on the team who had a blast stomping and skipping through
puddles. I’m not sure they walked around any of them.
Unfortunately,
we couldn’t get our picture taken before the event due to the
intermittent drizzle. As luck would have it, the rain eased near the end
of the walk. And a photographer was happy to capture us all looking
like drowned rats. Of course, the men fared better than the females.
Make sure to check back and see the photo. We’ll post it as soon as we
receive it…
It is often said that you can’t have the rainbow
without the rain. Considering the amount raised to combat heart disease,
what’s a little rain? So many are helped by the American Heart
Association’s fundraising each and every year. That could be considered
the rainbow.
SPECIAL THANKS TO ‘TEAM TEC’ SPONSORS: Slowey Insurance and CS Packaging—both of Mentor.
Molly & Tucker just returned from vacation. They had recently put in a lot of hours, including some overtime. This week Pam & Terry were away at a conference, so they had a dog-sitter for the week. Molly & Tucker returned today, so excited, they ran through the office before finding a comfortable spot up front to lay down. 
Molly sleeping in the President’s office
Tucker in the reception area.
We may be a little behind the rest of the world with our Microsoft Office 2000 version. But it does what we need 95% of the time. As we’ve upgraded hardware, the last few computers we bought came with Office 2007…and the Ribbon. Being the IT guy, I was an early adopter of Office 2007 - “for testing purposes”. I’ve used it off and on for about a year, mostly for quick little projects that don’t require a lot of formatting. Coming from the old version of Office, I found the Ribbon to be a bit frustrating. It was definitely designed for the new user, not the converted power user.
I format project specifications in our office. As a sub-consultant to architects, we try to match the formatting that the architect is using on their specifications. Some are pretty easy to match, others require a lot of effort to match. In Office 2000, I created macros that sped up the process of formatting. I could do all, or most, of the formatting with the click of a button. Unfortunately, with changes to our master specification templates and changes in Word, most of my macros no longer function properly.
Microsoft Office toolbars/ribbons are customizable to an extent, and I haven’t taken the time to customize mine yet. I just worked on my first big formatting project entirely in Word 2007 and felt like I was jumping around on the ribbon way more than I did in the standard toolbars of Word 2000. And some of the features I use regularly, may be a bit obscure to the average user, but I have such a hard time finding them. Sometimes I even have to search the help.
I can certainly see advantages to Office 2007, especially for new user or people who mostly just type. But I have to say, I’m not sold on “The Ribbon”. What do you think of it?