After arriving 14 years ago this month, the time has come to depart. It’s been interesting at the very least. Perhaps the most difficult task was sleeping while the sun was shining and missing out on great friendships like the one I had with Sister Mary Rose Diani. Unfortunately, my lunch hour is 4am and not noon. And for that, I have regrets about friendships that fell by the wayside. Even so, my upside down schedule allowed me to work independently, unfettered by distraction every night and that made me a better worker.

I have always subscribed to the principle of leaving things in better shape than when I found them. Given that I have contributed well over half a million dollars to the local economy over the years, brought with me the “Coats for the Community” annual coat drive in 1996, donated countless unpaid hours to “Feed-A-Friend”, sat on the Salvation Army Advisory Board and other assisted local charities, I feel good about my time spent.

From a professional aspect, the company got an honest and solid 55 hours a week out of me and had 70+ sick days returned over the course of these 14 years. The company never lost money on me.

From a personal aspect, I have been able to get upwards of a dozen homeless people off the streets of Keene over the years. Some people thought I was crazy driving the streets at 2AM looking for lost souls but having been homeless myself at the age of 15, I know how much it means when strangers care. We are all strangers until we meet.

Things I will miss most (besides Hamel) include my nightly visits with the late “Miss Kissy” my grey and white fluffball who is buried here at the radio ranch. My boy, Mr. Fairbanks is buried at Donna Harwood’s. I will miss my 4AM prayers under a starlit sky. However I hope never to make 4AM the middle of my day, ever again.

I will not miss are the midnight drives into Keene in terrible, terrible weather. Last month’s almost chance meeting with a falling tree during the Nor’easter on Route 12 decided for me, that it was time to move-on while I was still among the living. You see, good luck comes in measured amounts and I used a whole life’s worth the night of February 25th and then again on the morning of the 26th trying to get back home.

Dad once told me that when we are born we come with “x” amount of good luck and energy and it’s up to us how and when we use it. Given dad’s good advice, I still have plenty left of each.

Were there bad times? Sure, many of them. Everyday life is always full of rough edges. Memories smooth them over.

On the plus-side, I now get to spend time with husband, Matt after over a year of not seeing one another and after never ever having been on the same sleep schedule. Wow!

On that note, I say thank you one and all for the memories, and may God Bless.

I’ve been looking for signs of spring everywhere. To that end, an occasional skunk has crossed my path this week, the birds are back at the feeder and the air smells different.

Hamel laughed at me yesterday when I said flowers are starting to pop-up. He laughed for about 30 seconds until the phones started lighting up with similar stories.

We don’t have a lot to complain about in these parts. It really has been a mild winter. Sure, some days were tougher than others, but compared to say, Pennsylvania or Virginia, it was a cake walk.

Bottom line is that as human beings, we feel we have to complain about “something” but the hearty New Englander inside of us, knows we lucked out this winter.

Johnny Cash’s “Guess Things Happen” became the 10 billionth track to sold at the iTunes online store . 71 year old Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia downloaded the single bagging a $10,000 iTunes gift card. Steve Jobs called him personally.

Anybody else finding out that not enough Federal taxes were taken out of your pay?

Suit: School-issued laptops used to spy on kids on Main Line
By Dan Hardy and Sam Wood
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Lower Merion School District officials used school-issued laptop computers to illegally spy on students, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

The suit, filed Tuesday, says unnamed school officials at Harriton High School in Rosemont remotely activated the webcam on a student’s computer last year because the district believed he “was engaged in improper behavior in his home.”

An assistant principal at Harriton confronted the student for “improper behavior” on Nov. 11 and cited a photograph taken by the webcam as evidence.

Michael E. and Holly S. Robbins, of Penn Valley, filed the suit on behalf of their son, Blake. They are seeking class action status for the suit.

The district has issued school-owned laptops to 2,290 high school students, starting last school year at Harriton, in an effort to promote more “engaged and active learning and enhanced student achievement,” superintendent Christopher W. McGinley said in a message on the district website.

McGinley and school board president David Ebby did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement on its website, the district said that “The laptops do contain a security feature intended to track lost, stolen and missing laptops. This feature has been deactivated effective today.”

In a later statement, the district said: “Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature was activated by the District’s security and technology departments. The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen. This feature has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.”

When the computers were distributed to students, the district did not disclose that it could activate the cameras at any time, the suit alleges.

It claims the school district violated federal and state wiretapping laws and violated students’ civil rights.

The suit also claims the district’s use of the webcams amounted to an invasion of privacy and that any intercepted images could show “images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including, but not limited to, in various states of undress.”

The lawsuit did not say what improper activity Blake Robbins was accused of, or what, if any, discipline resulted.

Virginia DiMedio, who was the Lower Merion district’s technology director until she retired last summer, said that “if there was a report that a computer was stolen, the next time a person opened it up, it would take their picture and give us their IP [internet protocol] address - the location of where it was coming from.” She said that that feature had been used several times to trace stolen laptops, but there had been no discussion of using that capability to monitor students’ behavior. “I can’t imagine anyone in the district did anything other than track stolen computers,” she said.

Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy watchdog group, said that she had not heard of a previous case where school officials were alleged to have monitored student behavior at home via a computer.

If the lawsuits’ allegations are true, Coney said, “this is an outrageous invasion of individual privacy - it shocks the conscience.”

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Contact staff writer Sam Wood at 215-854-2796 or  samwood at phillynews.com

I found my house on Google street-view. Best thing is, I was at work at the time, but my car was right there in the driveway. What an amazing feat!

If you managed to drive through this latest storm and not smash up, you must be a pretty good driver. I am an excellent driver in the snow. And for that, I have Mr. Bish and Mr. Murray to thank.

As driver-ed teachers, both Mr. Bish and Mr. Murray forced us to navigate the worst winter weather and made us take roads that weren’t fit for a 4WD nevermind a 1972 Nova.

Anybody who learned how to drive with either teacher was privy to off-road deer-tracking adventures up Coy Hill or over the mountain excursions to Long Hill in West Brookfield.

I would advise any young person learning how to drive, to learn in the snow. I’m sure many of my former classmates would agree.

So, I’m reading about this little 4 year old kid from New Jersey who’s going to Disney with his parents and TSA demands he take off his leg braces and walk through the scanner alone.

Only this kid is developmentally disabled and has physical deformities and just started to walk and can’t walk at all without his braces, but TSA insists.

So, the dad gets all upset and makes a scene and several people have to calm him down, but eventually the family boards their plane and makes it to their Disney vacation.

I guess I’m writing about the story because I am so frustrated about how this country goes overboard about everything. Back in the ’70’s kids were being beaten and molested left and right and nobody cared. And now, if you even say “hello” to a kid, somebody calls a cop.

Hey, did I mention the 4 year old in the airport story is a police officer’s child?

Like I said, this country has issues.

In the name of fairness, those who depend on snow to make a living or just to enjoy their favorite sport, more than deserve whatever snow is coming our way.

Six to eight inches is the prediction from Meteorologist Pat Pagano. And while it won’t end till Wednesday, it may be short lived as temperatures head into the mid to upper 30’s by Thursday.

I’m sick of all the fighting. The Keene Housing Authority is going smoke free in April and everybody’s pointing fingers this way and that, when frankly, no one has the balleros to say “let’s just make it illegal to smoke cigarettes” and end all this bickering.

Smoking is a terrible, terrible habit and it’s deadly. It costs five times the amount to clean a smoker’s apartment as it does to clean that of a non-smoker when moving day comes.

On the flip side, there was a case this week in Alaska where a smoker went outside for a butt and froze to death. Is that what we want to happen? Certainly not! And yet, we’re making it happen.

There’s a proposal in Concord to ban cigarette smoking at the beach. That ought to cause lots of controversy, too.

Instead of fighting with one another, let’s make a sincere effort to make cigarette smoking illegal. I promise you that law abiding citizens will comply.

The end result would be an end to the tobacco industry with governments looking for ways to make up the lost tax revenue. It won’t be easy, but we can figure something out. Me, I like the idea of a toilet paper tax. It’s something we all can share in equally.