I have been measuring and re-measuring the layouts of the new labs in the Media Centers and have basically been able to put together a standard look for the twin schools and have come up with a hybrid for one of the smaller media centers and have settled on a design for the larger setup for the last elementary school center. The final look and feel for all of the new centers is going to be basically computer furniture that comes with the connection kits enabling it to be bolted together and made to act as one piece. There are some very precise measurements that I had to adhere to when laying out the furniture spacing of each of the centers. I am a couple of partitions short in my attempt to utilize all the space that I can for the labs at Smithville and Roland Rogers. I had the option of going with 4,5,or 6 foot tables which would have gave me enough flexibility to make the lengths what I needed. I was also able to negotiate a better deal for both the tables and the chairs. The final cost of the entire total coming in at $11,400. I am getting a ton of furniture for that price and if I had paid the state contract price on any of it the cost would have been well over $20,000 so I really can't complain. The company that is supplying the equipment is throwing in the powder coating of the table and chair legs for no additional cost and that was a nice touch by them even after I had worked them pretty good with regard to price and shipping. Shipping is something you can't avoid but if you choose to help the driver with the skids off the truck you can save big, very big. The local carrier will give you the use of a lift gate truck that will make the process a bit smoother and that will also not cost you much more than you would pay with regular delivery by common carrier. The counter tops are grey nebula and the chairs are burgundy (cabernet). The look should be nice except for the ones that are headed to Arthur Rann. Those will contrast very much with the new blue carpet that they put in this week over there. There is a chance that I may be able to change both the tops and the chair colors for those headed to Rann but if it costs one dollar more I can't do it. The budget is extremely slight on this project and it is going to be very close to max after this furniture order. I did get plenty of help from the Board and the Technology Committee when it came time to buy ahead for this years projects. They were very generous with letting me go ahead with all of these projects and they helped us out with additional funding for the projects.
Spent time today working with trying to re-aquaint myself with data and utilizing a matrix format to manipulate the data out of some older systems and put back into a couple of newer systems. I was pulling the data out of a data base that was non-SQL and trying to re-insert and re-index data into a newer 4GL language that I am attempting to use for an inventory system. I was trying to tie the purchasing and inventory system to a new fixed assets program. I have made some progress but I am not making the sort of dent into the data conversions that I thought I could. I have too many other projects going on right now including helping with the new counter tops we are installing into Reeds Road this next week or so. I have 100 sheets of finished plywood to cut and install into the school this week. The idea behind this is sound but the implemtation will be a pain. I have the district's resident carpenter on the site and he will begin measuring and cutting by Thursday and when we receive the rest of the hardware for the project we will start putting them in the classrooms.
Our electrical project is still waiting for wire or at least that is what they are telling me. They have scheduled a job meeting for Thursday morning and forgot to include me in that discussion. I have a chance to see the new Tablets from HP and see the inner workings of a state intermediate unit as well as get a first hand look at the new TLS services from Verizon. As I have written before the availability of the new network connections are exciting to say the least. It is actually a good thing that I had procrastinated long enough about a district fiber setup and had dropped the idea of the microwave towers when it became to expensive a proposition. How would you like to just have spent about $200,000 or more on a dedicated fiber source and then in the blink of an eye you can have the services available to you for a couple of hundred dollars more a month. I am certainly glad that I didn't recommend any of this to anyone.
John Spencer finished the new Blog server for Chartertech and we installed in tonight. I realize that this is a test of "inside" blogging and hopefully we will be able to make use of it in all three of the freshman English classes. I will be interested to see if any of them really take to the creative side of the process. I am also going to re-open Jim Glenn's Interactive Amedeus blog that will outline his historic trip to Vienna this past month. I got a chance to talk to him this week and he was still about 10 feet off the ground. He's a great guy and I can't believe that the kids won't benefit from his trip. Till next post.
9:54:32 PM 
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