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After talking with ISB parent, Vlade Divac at Parent-Teacher Conferences on Tuesday, I learned that the Adriatic Basketball League is sort of a minor basketball league. He follows the Euroleague Basketball

The league consists of 24 teams from around Europe. The teams each year are selected by the ULEB, a consortium of professional basketball leagues. The teams are selected on their performances in recent domestic leagues and contracts with ULEB. There are three teams from the Adriatic Basketball Association that Serbian teams play in. There is one team from Croatia, one from Slovenia, and two-time defending league champion, Partizan of Belgrade, Serbia.

The Euroleague Basketball has a strange format of play. The 24 teams are placed into 4 groups of 6 teams. Each group plays a round-robin schedule of 10 games. Partizan is in Group D along with teams from Moscow, Madrid, Athens, Milan, and Istanbul. This stage is from October 22 – January 15.

The top two teams in each group moves on to the next round of 16 teams, appropriately called, The Top 16..The 16 teams are put into 4 groups of 4. Once again there is a home and home round robin format so each team plays 6 games. This stage is from January 28 to March 12.

The top two teams in each group advances to the Quarterfinal Playoffs. First place teams are matched with second place teams. Each pair plays a best of five series.

The winners of each quarterfinal series advance to the Final Four. The final four is the same as the NCAA Final Four, in that it is a knockout round.

In summary, it goes from 24 to 16 to 8 to 4, and then a champion. A team that wins the league, could play 21 to 23 games.

The Serbian representative, Partizan, last year made it to the Quarterfinal Playoffs. This year they are second in their group with a 2-1 record. Below is their first round schedule.

2008-2009 Games Regular Season

I am blogging live from the Ambassador’s party at the Sava Center in Belgrade, Serbia. There is around 500 people at the party and there are TV’s tuned to CNN and plenty to drink and eat. They did a vote of party attendees and Obama won 313 – 41. This was expected as it is a very cosmopolitian, liberal crowd of American expats, diplomats from everywhere, and important Serbs. Time to go, photos coming soon.

I have had no time to blog this week. We worked extremely hard at revamping the secondary schedule and have put in 14 hour days consistently. The first day of school is today so the boys and Nadia are quite excited. I’ll blog more this week when things settle down.

We made it to Belgrade and we are in our new home! The flights went very well without delays. The kids were well behaved, especially Owen and Oliver. They had their own personal movies on the flight that they loved. Ocean was a bit of work as she would only sleep on me and that was after a lot of bouncing and fidgeting. Goran and Gordana Z. were at the airport to greet us with the school van. We lost one piece of luggage out of the 13. We flew Northwest Airlines over the Atlantic and then the Serbian national line JAT to Belgrade. We were not impressed with the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, it was a bit shoddy. The only thing nice about it was the Concord placed in the middle of the airport.

Our home is much bigger than it looked in the photos. We are in a very nice neighborhood of Belgrade called Senjak. Gordana prepared the house with food and bedding etc. so we are settled in quite nicely. The school really set us up well!!!!

Lots of work to be done around the house. I wish my brother Andy and Dad were here with their handyman abilities and tool kits! I just didn’t get that construction gene they have. I’ll start blogging photos of the settling in as soon as I can.

A big thank you to my parents and brothers for a wonderful summer! My Dad and Andy dropped us off at the airport and Shelly came over with my nephews to say a goodbye to our children. It was very sad to leave my mother – we love you! We were surprised at the airport by my Aunt Darlene, my mom’s sister! She came up and fed Ocean and had dinner with us before our flight.

The office will be open today from 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Local Employee Update: We finished printing the local employee contracts for 08-09. It is the last day of work for the local teachers and assistants. We will have a party after school today. Refreshments are provided by the parents. Thank you!

Farewell: I met with Weatherford Inc. Board Member Nial Shepherd yesterday. He is leaving for Mexico later this month and we discussed the transition. Nial was a very supportive board member and was very dedicated to the students of Escuela Anaco. His presence and that of his wife Marisela and son Diego will be missed in our community. Thank you! We wish them the best of luck in their new post.

Summer Construction: We finalized the list of housing work to be done in June and July. Every summer, we do repairs and buy appliances for the homes. We are fortunate to own our expatriate teacher housing as this reduces our costs greatly. The following is the list of projects for each home. We plan on spending over 20,000 bolivars.

EA Housing Construction Summer 2008

House # – Work / Appliance – Cost
0 Split AC 1800
0 Leak in roof of play room
0 New toilet in second bathroom 300
0 Buy new part for fridge (Phillip will do this in USA)
0 Buy blender glass
0 Fill hole where a dryer used to be
0 Swap the AC’s in living room and play room
1 Fix the bathroom plumbing 600
1 Move Desire’s stuff to the house
2 Put mouse trap to catch last mouse
2 Buy new plates
2 Fix drawers in dressers
2 Fix lighting in living room
2 Buy microwave and blender 350
3 and 4 Connect the two to expand the day care
3 and 4 Move utensils, furniture to House #6
3 and 4 Put small porch near front door 1200
3 and 4 Take out dangerous cactus plants move to garden
3 and 4 Put cement where plants were
3 and 4 Complete overhaul in electrical system
5 Move Gary’s stuff to House #9
5 Split AC 1800
5 Buy an iron
5 Fill archway made for Gary last year
5 Put a front porch roof 1200
6 Renovate kitchen
6 Washing Machine 2200
6 Buy an iron
6 Fix lock on front door
6 Split AC (24BTU) 2500
7 Split AC 1800
8 Put water tray under kitchen AC
8 Split AC 1800
8 Move utensils, kitchen ware, Desire’s things to #1
8 Move dryer from #9 to #8 for the Denkers
9 Split AC 1800

Estimated cost for items above w/ no cost listed 2000

Total Housing Expenses for Summer 2008 19350

Priorities for Today: We will be finalizing the school construction projects. I am meeting with a new prospective family this morning. I also will be completing the purchase order for physical education among other items.

The office will be open today from 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM to the public.

Monday’s Accomplishments: We cleaned and organized the storage room #19 on the second floor. With increasing enrollment, we can convert one of the storage rooms to a classroom. In years past, the rooms were used as secondary classrooms. They are located above the art studio. We also checked out all of the expatriate teachers. In office news, we determined the Apostille process for students wanting to enter the Venezuelan school system, organized transport for the expat teachers to the airport, and sorted out keys and pay roll for June and July.

Expatriates Leave EA: The bus arrived on time this morning to take the outgoing expatriate teachers and their luggage to the Barcelona airport.

Summer School: Ms. Doreen, Ms. Lisa, and Ms. Ann will be holding summer tutoring sessions at the school during the month of June. This is good for the students to maintain their level of English during the long summer holiday. We encourage our families to use as much English as possible, and some ideas would be to watch English television programs and internet videos, read English magazines and books, etc. If you are interested in having your child come in for the summer, please contact the office and we’ll put you in touch with one of the three ladies.

I will be out of the office after 1:00 PM this afternoon.

This past Saturday evening, the parents surprised the outgoing expatriate faculty with a grand farewell party. They wanted to show their appreciation for the staff’s dedication to their children. It was a very special evening for me. The parents went to great lengths to express their gratitude. They had Jay’s mega-BBQ truck and plenty of delicious food and drink. There were many speeches, tears, gifts, and thank yous for each staff member.

Shown above is the mariachi band and you can hear a bit from their set. There was much dancing and merriment long into the evening. They had a karaoke machine and the crowd was so uplifted of my version of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” that they got out of their seats and begged me to stop! The students had a great time running in the gym and park, and riding the bicycles around the school.

I want to thank our community on behalf of the staff. Escuela Anaco is a special place and we’ll never forget your kindness and generosity. It has been very rewarding to work with the children and parents of our community. We leave much richer for the experience!

I uploaded many photos from the evening. You can see all of them in my flickr.com account.

The office will be open today from 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM for parents wishing to pick up report cards.

Happy Birthday to Anthony M. today!

Saturday’s Accomplishments: Thanks to the teachers for helping out Saturday morning. We cleaned out storage room #19 and the AV room behind the stage.

Teacher Check Out: Most of the expatriate staff will be flying out tomorrow. Before they go, they will need to have their classroom and home cleaned a secured, their mailbox cleaned, summer contact information, and the keys labeled and returned. We do a final payroll later this week.