| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
So I'm back at work. My weekend odyssey over. I shall now bore you with the details. It really was a good weekend.
Step 1) Pick up my passenger in Bloomington, IL, Friday after work. Aiymi couldn't make the trip due to recovering from a dislocated kneecap. Multiple hours in the car and some hiking wasn't going to work out for her. So with her blessing, Zelda and I got in the car and motored on.
Step 2) There's a little rural dive on US 6 near Utica, IL. I mentioned it before we left last week. Cajun Connection. The place is a dump, the interior is completely tacky, the service is...amusing...but the food is beyond reproach.
Step 3) Head up to US 52. Take it to Savanna IL. Now the amusement starts...
There's a detour sign that said, from top to bottom, Detour: US 52: IL 84: <--. So I turn. The next sign only said IL 84. Um...is this a detour for IL 84 only? I know US 52 goes straight at that corner, so now I'm confused, because in Illinois the detours tend to be marked just as well as the original routes and they clearly tell you when you're on a detoured road. Turn around. Take the original route for US 52 through Savanna and to the north side of town where I know it takes a bridge across the Mississippi River to Sabula, IA, which is a tiny little town on an island in the middle of the river. Get to the bridge. Oh. It's under construction, in the middle of being completely replaced. No traffic through that way at all. But I'm still on IL 84 Northbound. But I really want to be on US 52. Ok, let's look at the map...oh...I can go up about 3 miles and take a winding back road back into Savanna. Cool. Get to the turn...and it's actually the Mississippi Palisades State Park. Well...that's ok...it still gets us where we need to go. Wind up a bluff...sharp turns...dark...oh, I missed the turn. 3-point turnaround. On a steep hill in the dark. No big deal, shouldn't be any traffic, and there's not...and turn left...oh there's a closed gate in the way with a sign that says "Trail Not Advised" and "No Vehicles". Why is this on my GPS at all? Fine. Turn around and head back up the hill. There's another route. Take a SHARP right...onto a gravel road...and about 200 feet in is another closed gate. Son of a...
Step 4) Ok, turn around, back to IL 84. Back to the detour for US 52, since I was apparently right the first time. Cross the bridge. Zelda inhales sharply and grabs my arm. There is a big, brightly lit billboard sign for Poopy's Pub. I kid you not. It's even marked on Google Maps. Zelda asks that we turn around so we can take a picture, because, well, pics or it didn't happen. The next several miles pass with us naming drinks after colon bacteria and bowel movements. And wondering just where in the hell US 52 Detour went since it hasn't been marked at all.
Step 5) Figured it out. Backtrack 15 miles south to Fulton, IL. Cross the river there into Clinton, IA. US 52 detour now marked as joining US 67. Fine. Take that another 15 miles back north to where 52 is supposed to be. Take Zelda into Sabula just to show her the island town in the middle of the river. And drive past the strip club in a tiny little island town in the middle of a river.
Step 6) Don't hit the deer. Any of them. Lots of them. Came within 3-5' of one.
Step 7) Take US 52 up to US 18, take a right and stop in Prairie du Chien, WI for the night.
The hotel was not worth the $90 before taxes. It was one of the worst free breakfasts I've ever seen. There was a waffle maker, but I couldn't find the batter to save my life. The fridge has a coffee can and a jar of jelly in it. That's it. There were biscuits on one counter. The other counter was over 15' away where there was a heated pot of burned sausage gravy. No eggs, no bacon/ham/sausage. No butter for toast. If I didn't know better I'd blame Gran or Vidmaster. I might still blame Vidmaster, just because.
Step 8) Back to Iowa. Effigy Mounds State Park. Beautiful. However, Zelda and I are out of shape, and the first mile of the hike is very uphill. Knees and hips were unhappy. We stopped for a rest, looked up, and saw four vultures circling us. No joke. We were convinced of our imminent death, because Nature Knows Best. But once we were past that it was fine. Beautiful area with views out over the river. Zelda was making far too many Princess Bride references about shoving me down the bluff for my comfort, but apparently that too was a bluff.
Step 9) Back in the car and we realized it was already 11am. Took US 18 and WI 133 to Boscobel, WI, and then took county roads and a couple state highways to meet up with US 18 again just outside Mt. Horeb, and stop for lunch.
Step 10) Eat lunch at The Grumpy Troll. Fantastic. Brew their own beer, have another local meat company make their brats for them using the beer...they serve a 1.5 pound soft pretzel the size of a large pizza as an appetizer. We did not get that. The table next to us did, then just about Poopy'ed their pants when it came out and offered us half of it. That blew two hours by itself, since it was an hour waiting for a table. They had checkers set up at several tables for while people waited. Zelda won the first game since I ran out of legal moves and she couldn't finish me off (technically that might be a tie, but it makes her feel better to think she won), and I annihilated her in the second game. These things are important to note.
Step 11) From there we went to meet with the infamous/notorious Captain Yesterday. Surprise The General. Check. Tiny T-Rex, as mentioned before, was in performance. Did not care that strangers were in his home. Crookshanks seemed a touch wary at first, but warmed up after a bit. We were there for...I don't know...hour and a half?
Step 12) Time to honor my tradition of stopping at a local game store when travelling. Have to buy something...and ended up spending $15 on a card game called "We Didn't Playtest This At All" and another $60 on dice. $40 of that was a nice, heavy, full set of metal dice that will likely break my glass table. The clerk was very concerned about me not throwing the dice at people's heads. I really don't know where he got the idea that I would do that, but I felt that I must protest. So I protested in favor of throwing the heavy metal dice at people's heads.
Step 13) Meet Zelda's mother in Delafield at the Delafield Brewhaus. It was not as good as it should have been. Zelda's mother also did not want to know the first thing about me. She wasn't hostile towards me, but she really wanted to dominate the conversation to keep it from turning towards anything about why I was with her daughter and where is my wife. I get it. It's not a traditional relationship. She's not ready. But it still wasn't a bad visit. Just...substandard food, particularly for the price.
Step 14) Spend 15 minutes in the parking lot looking for someplace to stay and not repeat our experience of the night before. Called up one place...and it's about 8:30pm at this point..."OH...you want a room...um...well...we're not really ready to receive guests right now." Your website is up. Your phone number is active. You show up on my car's GPS, which means you're at least as useful as a closed-to-vehicles-and-not-recommended-for-your-safety hiking trail. "How far away are you? I suppose we could be ready soon enough..." Well, how much are you asking? I ask this while Zelda and I are staring at the price on their website. She comes back with numbers that are at least $50 higher. Thank you, but no. The Pickwick Inn, a Bed and Breakfast in East Troy, WI, however, was wonderful. I highly recommend that place. Worth every penny we spent. Breakfast was ridiculous - a skillet of potatoes, onions, and ham for four of us that eight of us could have been satisfied with. An entire 9x12 of fresh brownies with melted Andes mints across the top. A casserole dish full of asparagus that again, could have fed 8 instead of the 4 guests he had. Fresh fruit. Blueberry parfait. Thank you Dave, you provided a wonderful place to spend an evening.
Step 15) Head towards home. I43 to Beloit, then back roads from there. WI 81, US 51, WI 223, IL 2, IL 26...stop for a bathroom break at a place on Bloody Gulch Road in Dixon...and then stop for lunch at the 4 and 20 Cafe in Princeton, IL. Again, it was wonderful food. Fantastic. Walking back to our car we saw an antique shop that Zelda wanted to go into...and we found a solid oak and black walnut table that was at least 8' long by 4' wide, with intricately carved work in the legs and table top, surrounded by some very, very tall solid oak and leather chairs, topped with the all-seeing eye of the Masonic Lodge and the 3 unbroken chain links below that. Oh, I have to ask...how much is this whole set...I'll find a way to make this work if the price is right...
Step 16) Head home without a deal in place for 6 giant chairs and a giant table. $14,000.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Step 16) Head home without a deal in place for 6 giant chairs and a giant table. $14,000.
At that price point you could get a week in Hawaii, including airfare, staying at the Aulani.
Just sayin'...
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm pretty sure the entirety of Wisconsin watched every episode of Antiques Roadshow so yes, every store has hyper inflated self worth.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Back then I worked at Saint Vincent DePaul on Willy Street (or Williamson street if you're an outsider (lots of hippies on Willy Street).
I can't tell you how many people would conspiratorially whisper at the register "I saw this on Antiques Roadshow for 500 dollars!" "Okay then".
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
WIth all that money you saved, you’d think you could afford clothes!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Clothes are affordable in Starfinder. :-)
Woke up from sleep. Still sleepy. Put Youngest to nap. He was not sleepy.
Accidentally ate something*, breaking my fast. Oh well, I tried. Sigh.
I’ll get back in that horse this Wednesday.
I have to say, though it’s sometimes bothersome to do the intermittent fasting, the quality of life improvement that it’s made cannot be understated. I feel shockingly good most of the time. I have no idea if I’m actually engaging in weight loss, but I feel so much better I only regret that I wasn’t doing this before.
As to cold in 68 degrees, I have no idea why, either. That said, I noticed that it was remarkably and demonstrably warmer near my some parts of the house than others - my guess is it had a reading for a different part of the House than the main room. Also that I’m a wuss.
*
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
The hilarious part of your visit is not only did I lose track of time and forget to tell my wife, but her work had just had a week long training seminar on web safety, so I was trying to figure out a way to explain that I'd invited from the internet to our house without getting yelled later while it was happening, and then all that I came up with is "it's such and such!" like she would know. Lol!
Later she just said "you know, you could've just said he was from FaWtL and it would've been a lot less confusing" "yes, I realize that, now".
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm pretty sure the entirety of Wisconsin watched every episode of Antiques Roadshow so yes, every store has hyper inflated self worth.
That was in Princeton IL, only an hour to an hour and a half north of Peoria. The guy had some odd prices on some stuff. A 12 inch x 12 inch stained glass ornament to hang in a window - $225. Mostly white stained glass. Another piece, a 48" x 36" stained glass divider with hinged wings made of primarily red and gold - only $200 by comparison. He also does a lot of furniture restoration work and showed me a mahogany chair he had done in one of his back rooms. Beautiful work.
He said he had offers of $3350 per chair, but he wouldn't take it because he wouldn't sell just one of the chairs. I don't blame him for not wanting to split the set up, but...um...that's a lot.
I was silently hoping he'd be coming in around 4-6k for the whole set. I'd be making some phone calls to try to swing that somehow, but at $14k I'd have to sell Aiymi's car. Somehow she doesn't think that would be a fair trade.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Someone from Accounting was asking me about the trip. Told her we took 52 to Savanna and she exclaims, "OH!! Poopy's!!" She has been inside. Zelda and I are wrong. The drinks are not named after bowel movements. The hamburgers are.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
The hilarious part of your visit is not only did I lose track of time and forget to tell my wife, but her work had just had a week long training seminar on web safety, so I was trying to figure out a way to explain that I'd invited from the internet to our house without getting yelled later while it was happening, and then all that I came up with is "it's such and such!" like she would know. Lol!
Later she just said "you know, you could've just said he was from FaWtL and it would've been a lot less confusing" "yes, I realize that, now".
Zelda was a little apprehensive at first too. "Wait...so you're taking me to somebody's house the you've never met beyond the internet? Really?" Yes dear. It should be fine. See? This is what he looks like *holds up phone* so he's a real person. Besides, it's not a random house in Milwaukee*, so how bad could it be?
*Zelda is originally from the Milwaukee suburbs.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Now, to be fair, she didn't actually voice that directly, but I could hear it in her "Oh, okay...we can do that..." responses.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Someone from Accounting was asking me about the trip. Told her we took 52 to Savanna and she exclaims, "OH!! Poopy's!!" She has been inside. Zelda and I are wrong. The drinks are not named after bowel movements. The hamburgers are.
That sounds... amazing.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
See? Proof that I'm even more awesome than Gruumash! People feel the need to quote me verbatim!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
See? Proof that I'm even more awesome than Gruumash! People feel the need to quote me verbatim!
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
See? Proof that I'm even more awesome than Gruumash! People feel the need to quote me verbatim!
Yeah, the internet has been broken at our house for over three weeks and His Lordship's only response is to say, "yeah, I dunno", and meanwhile he just raised our rent.
We need to move before I kill him.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Verb. That's what's happening.
Thank you for this little bit of "making the day much better," lm!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Someone from Accounting was asking me about the trip. Told her we took 52 to Savanna and she exclaims, "OH!! Poopy's!!" She has been inside. Zelda and I are wrong. The drinks are not named after bowel movements. The hamburgers are.That sounds... amazing.
That word...I don't think it means what you think it means. :D
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Also, gratitude for linking the Hamilton polka~!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
That word...I don't think it means what you think it means. :DSomeone from Accounting was asking me about the trip. Told her we took 52 to Savanna and she exclaims, "OH!! Poopy's!!" She has been inside. Zelda and I are wrong. The drinks are not named after bowel movements. The hamburgers are.That sounds... amazing.
No, no. I'm quite sure I chose the... correct word for that.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oh, I also need to add that when Zelda and I got home, Aiymi had already laid out, printed, and bound a scrapbook with pictures of the places we had told her we were at, pictures we sent back to her, quotes from some of our texts...It was really touching.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No snow yet.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We were at 33 degrees, windchill of 22, and raining when I left for work around 7:30 this morning. We're looking at the snow/rain/ice wintry mix, which is colloquially known as "Well, s*&^."
So, Total Drama is... interesting. Could be quite fun, but it comes with a heavy caveat that there is a lot of vomit in that cartoon.
Netflix's decision to have exactly five out of the seven seasons - the two missing ones being seasons 3 and 4 - is... also strange, especially given that season 5 picks up with presupposing the events of seasons 3 and 4 actually occurred and, in fact, centers on people and events from those seasons.
The twist that you can't ever tell who is going to win because the winners are different (usually between two different teams) in different viewing areas is actually pretty cool.
I found season one the slowest and least interesting, but the characters rather compelling - I suspect that many of the characters I was introduced to in season five might have been more compelling had I any history with them - as it was, they were interesting, but not quite as much as those people I was already used to. "Familiarity" in full force, I suppose.
Season six was an interesting one-off season, and I was surprised that none of them returned.
Season seven was a completely different format, and, frankly, I liked it - it features a race around the world. Though some teams were glossed over or even ignored in some episodes, over-all, I liked most of the people who played and enjoyed watching their antics. It made me happy to see <SPOILER>* and how things worked out... though I do wish there was an ending with slightly different teams as well**.
Over-all, I enjoyed it, but... I wish it had been less gross, and I don't think they always knew what they were doing in their attempts at spoofing "Reality TV" - some of the jokes were solid, others... eh. I also think they could have made shorter seasons or fewer fake-out episodes.
... but five (much less seven!) seasons is a looooooooooot.
Can't say I recommend it... but I will say that I don't tend to enjoy Reality Shows, but this was something I'm glad I saw (mostly).
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Speaking of stupidly-large monetary sums, we're replacing our roof, renovating our bathroom, and installing solar, none of which is cheap.
So, I made it clear to the loan officer that I was in no particular hurry to get any money, since we haven't called any contractors as of yet. (I'm one of these weird people who first secures funding, then has people come out and make bids.) She replied that this was fine, but I'm required to take a $15,000 draw to open the line of credit.
It's such a disingenuous load of horse puckey that I'm disappointed in my credit union for pulling it. "Hey, we'll force them to take money up front, and that'll encourage them to spend it on things they don't need so we can start getting interest from them right away!"
So my officer heard my hesitation and assured me that I can just take the money and immediately pay it back to the line of credit, which is good for two reasons:
(1) I won't be paying interest on money I don't need.
(2) According to my accountant, interest on HELOCs is now "all or nothing". It used to be you could use HELOCs for various purposes (home improvement, paying off credit card debt, etc.) and just deduct the percentage you actually used for home improvement. Now if you use it for anything other than home improvement, you can deduct -0-. So it's pretty darned important that I *not* spend that $15,000.
But they're going to send it to me, and I'm going to send it back.
Business at its stupidest.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I got somewhere you can send it, see!
Real legit, you hear!
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
So with that 15 grand burning a hole in your pocket, I know of this table and chair set...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On a more serious note - are you going with conventional roof and adding solar panels or are you going with a Tesla Solar Roof?
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
On a more serious note - are you going with conventional roof and adding solar panels or are you going with a Tesla Solar Roof?
I am a very simple man. My mother did a HUGE amount of legwork when she replaced the roof on our other house back in 2012. The contractor she finally chose was flat-out amazing; I've never seen a group of roofers do a better, more thorough job.
So I'm going to hire them to do my roof, and I'll take their recommendation as to how I should implement it. Because our house is so old and our attic is uninsulated with a lot of exposed knob-and-tube wiring, my expectation is that they're going to tell me to go traditional foam-insulated roof and solar on top.
We'll see what he says. I've heard both good and bad about Tesla, so I'll wait to hear from an expert I trust.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
4-8 inches (of snow) forecast, with 40 mph wind gusts.
Interesting.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Agreed. I haven't heard much bad about the Tesla roof other than cost (not the cost of the roof itself - that's on par with a metal roof - but the installation costs are high and you should probably pick up a PowerWall to make the most of the roof which is another chunk of change, etc, etc, etc), and it's not like it's going to catch on quickly in the Midwest, but the idea of it fascinates me. I want solar technology to get cheap enough that we add a strip of solar panels to every street and road (and they'd also have to be able to withstand a snow plow scraping over them).
I think we're going to try to get some things fixed around the house and maybe move in a year or two. Aiymi's job is in Bloomington and she doesn't take to driving as well as I do, and Zelda and her kids also live in Bloomington and she doesn't want to have them change school districts again.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Of course, if this was the east coast it would be labeled a NorDaBombPocalpyseCyEaster.
For us it's a case of the Mondays.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays! ^-^
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
So with that 15 grand burning a hole in your pocket, I know of this table and chair set...
Seeing as it's 69.44% of my net salary for the year, I can think of a LOT of things to do with that much money.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
TS, I responded to your p.m.! Sorry it took so long! And… Sorry I didn’t have as much information as you probably wanted! If you still want, I can do research to try and find plenty of specific passages, the main problem with such endeavors, however, is that once you start, you end up in bunny trails that lead you into infinitely spiraling little pieces of minutia and argumentation. That’s mostly why I avoided such things. That said, as noted, I would be more than willing to do so! Let me know!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So with that 15 grand burning a hole in your pocket, I know of this table and chair set...Seeing as it's 69.44% of my net salary for the year, I can think of a LOT of things to do with that much money.
Yeah, except I have to pay it all back, plus interest.
That's one of those things they always carefully neglect to mention...
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Really, Friskies?
My cats subsist almost entirely on dry food, because we have one purebred ragamuffin and one calico who's so far fought off two forms of deadly cancer. So their diet is kind of restrictive.
But every so often, I see some of the high-end, $1.29-for-a-2-oz-can cat food go on sale and I treat them. It makes them very happy, but they only get it maybe once or twice a month.
So I was at the corner store getting this week's groceries and I felt guilty, so since the corner store doesn't have the high-end stuff I usually get I got a can of "Friskies Pate Chicken and Tuna Dinner".
The ragamuffin just sniffed it and walked away. I figured I'd make a hilarious post about snobby purebreds. Then the calico rescue cat, who had survived a year on the streets on her own before we adopted her, took 3 or 4 bites and walked away.
When your food is so bad that a rescue cat walks away from it, you might have quality control issues.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
So with that 15 grand burning a hole in your pocket, I know of this table and chair set...Seeing as it's 69.44% of my net salary for the year, I can think of a LOT of things to do with that much money.
My mother was a single parent working on a teacher's salary in a very rural area and my father was completely useless. Also, after college an old friend of mine became a teacher at a private school and only made $12k a year, so I definitely understand.
I can think of many, many things I need to spend that money on just to get the house in shape to sell. Plumbing, HVAC, landscaping, possibly a roof...and we won't even talk about what Aiymi has been wanting to do with the house, but suffice it to say that she's made "scale models" of it in Minecraft to show me why her ideas would work so much better.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
So with that 15 grand burning a hole in your pocket, I know of this table and chair set...Seeing as it's 69.44% of my net salary for the year, I can think of a LOT of things to do with that much money.My mother was a single parent working on a teacher's salary in a very rural area and my father was completely useless. Also, after college an old friend of mine became a teacher at a private school and only made $12k a year, so I definitely understand.
I can think of many, many things I need to spend that money on just to get the house in shape to sell. Plumbing, HVAC, landscaping, possibly a roof...and we won't even talk about what Aiymi has been wanting to do with the house, but suffice it to say that she's made "scale models" of it in Minecraft to show me why her ideas would work so much better.
That is just the awesome.
But yeah, my experience at the upper end of the middle class bracket has really enlightened me as to why so many people who make $150k-$200k a year or win the lottery end up bankrupt within a few years. After all the work on the house, I had a 401(k) loan, a HELOC, credit card debt, and a mortgage. Once NobodysWife had a real, well-paying job I decided to roll it all into a single mortgage. So I calculated how much we needed, calculated the monthly payments, determined that we could afford it, and applied.
The scariest part of the entire application was how hard they pushed me to borrow more than I needed. And not just $5000 or $10,000 more. "With your credit score and income, you could easily qualify for another $120,000. Don't you want to travel the world? Buy a new car? Yada yada yada..."
Abject consumerism at its worst, trying to get me to borrow more than I could afford, all because their computer model said I was a good gamble and they'd make more money if they could convince me to take more.
Is it any wonder people don't trust banks?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Really, Friskies?
My cats subsist almost entirely on dry food, because we have one purebred ragamuffin and one calico who's so far fought off two forms of deadly cancer. So their diet is kind of restrictive.But every so often, I see some of the high-end, $1.29-for-a-2-oz-can cat food go on sale and I treat them. It makes them very happy, but they only get it maybe once or twice a month.
So I was at the corner store getting this week's groceries and I felt guilty, so since the corner store doesn't have the high-end stuff I usually get I got a can of "Friskies Pate Chicken and Tuna Dinner".
The ragamuffin just sniffed it and walked away. I figured I'd make a hilarious post about snobby purebreds. Then the calico rescue cat, who had survived a year on the streets on her own before we adopted her, took 3 or 4 bites and walked away.
When your food is so bad that a rescue cat walks away from it, you might have quality control issues.
I think I've posted more today than I have in the last year. Slow day at work.
I have a 6th generation Savannah and a dumbass. Err. Um...I mean...well...a wild patterned short hair tabby. The Savannah has had a few medical issues so she's on a really restricted diet too. The tabby doesn't know any better so she's on the same restricted diet.
Friskies is not allowed in our home.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Tiny T-Rex has thankfully moved on to Lego Ninjago, which I realize is basically a twenty minute commercial, but it still beats Power Rangers.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
And it has started to snow!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
He'll be five on Pi Day.How old is he now?When you spend four hours with your children gutting and reorganizing their bedroom because you can't stand the sight of it any longer, and discover that the jacket your son got for Christmas that you believed had been lost forever on your camping trip last month WAS ON HIS BED THE WHOLE DAMNED TIME...
Yeah.
Good times.
growing fast...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And it has started to snow!
YEAAAAAAAAAAH
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My mother was a single parent working on a teacher's salary in a very rural area and my father was completely useless. Also, after college an old friend of mine became a teacher at a private school and only made $12k a year, so I definitely understand.So with that 15 grand burning a hole in your pocket, I know of this table and chair set...Seeing as it's 69.44% of my net salary for the year, I can think of a LOT of things to do with that much money.
Back when I was in grad school and NobodysWife was a receptionist at a nurse call center, our combined two-income gross was $29k a year.
The one that impressed me the most was Saint Mary's College in Moraga: My salary as a Ph.D. with 5 years of teaching experience was $37k flat. Student tuition was $40k. So I was worth less than a single student.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Reaper's Eye, by Richard A. Knack, not the General's favorite Pathfinder Tales, but it is her favorite to complain about, so still worth it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Also, almost five and almost seven sharing one ten-by-ten room is not fun. Not fun at all.
I have no idea how Nobody's boys managed to do it for so long without someone getting killed.
has she attempted to sell or mail her brother yet?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Gods. I'm sure this is political, but I'll take the bikes:
How Modern English is Taught in California Public Schools:
Grades K-2: "Well, you're really too young to be learning about spelling and grammar, so we're going to spend our time doing free-form essays, and you'll be graded on your creativity and content. Don't worry about spelling or grammar; you'll have plenty of time to learn about that later."
Grades 3-5: "We need you to get ready for middle school! Read 6 books a year and write up book reports on them. You'll be graded on creativity and content, not spelling or grammar."
Grades 6-8: "We need to get you ready for high school. Read these higher-level texts and perform literary analyses on them. You'll be graded based on the strength of your analysis, not spelling or grammar."
Grades 9-10: "You're now in comp lit. You'll be graded on your ability to interpret symbolism in late 19th and early 20th-century novels."
Grade 11: "You guys are TERRIBLE at spelling and grammar! Didn't your previous teachers teach you ANYTHING? That's it! We're spending a month on basic grammar!"
Impus Major put it best: "They want me to figure out why the author made the curtain blue, and how that symbolizes the overall theme of the book, but they can't be bothered to tell me whether to use 'their', 'they're', or 'there'. That's modern English for you!"
... I thought CA was supposed to have better education than "hick" Florida...?
O.o
Nope. Having spent two years of high school in both states, both in poor rural districts, similar political leanings, (admittedly, over twenty-five years ago) I can say that my experience was that the FL school gave me a better education in language and math. CA was better in history. They were pretty equal in sciences.
The history part was because the history teacher at my FL high school freely admitted the he was nor going to say anything that might piss off people's...
interesting....
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Interesting...The history part was because the history teacher at my FL high school freely admitted the he was nor going to say anythingGods. I'm sure this is political, but I'll take the bikes:
... I thought CA was supposed to have better education than "hick" Florida...?
O.o
Seriously. He flat-out refused to cover anything more recent than the end of WWII, and only skimmed over Hiroshima by saying "read the textbook". Any other question any of us had about the Cold War, Korea, Civil Rights protests, Vietnam, socioeconomic issues around the draft, or, God forbid, any of the history of the Middle East leading up to the Persian Gulf conflict (this was 91-92), he would say, "I'm not going to answer that. Ask your parents if you have questions. It's too recent."
Meanwhile my history teacher in CA my sophomore year had let us watch The Killing Fields in class over the course of a week to include time for Q&A and detailed exposition at the end of each segment.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
So I'm back at work. My weekend odyssey over. I shall now bore you with the details. It really was a good weekend.
Step 1) Pick up my passenger in Bloomington, IL, Friday after work. Aiymi couldn't make the trip due to recovering from a dislocated kneecap. Multiple hours in the car and some hiking wasn't going to work out for her. So with her blessing, Zelda and I got in the car and motored on.
Step 2) There's a little rural dive on US 6 near Utica, IL. I mentioned it before we left last week. Cajun Connection. The place is a dump, the interior is completely tacky, the service is...amusing...but the food is beyond reproach.
Step 3) Head up to US 52. Take it to Savanna IL. Now the amusement starts...
There's a detour sign that said, from top to bottom, Detour: US 52: IL 84: <--. So I turn. The next sign only said IL 84. Um...is this a detour for IL 84 only? I know US 52 goes straight at that corner, so now I'm confused, because in Illinois the detours tend to be marked just as well as the original routes and they clearly tell you when you're on a detoured road. Turn around. Take the original route for US 52 through Savanna and to the north side of town where I know it takes a bridge across the Mississippi River to Sabula, IA, which is a tiny little town on an island in the middle of the river. Get to the bridge. Oh. It's under construction, in the middle of being completely replaced. No traffic through that way at all. But I'm still on IL 84 Northbound. But I really want to be on US 52. Ok, let's look at the map...oh...I can go up about 3 miles and take a winding back road back into Savanna. Cool. Get to the turn...and it's actually the Mississippi Palisades State Park. Well...that's ok...it still gets us where we need to go. Wind up a bluff...sharp turns...dark...oh, I missed the turn. 3-point turnaround. On a steep hill in the dark. No big deal, shouldn't be any traffic, and there's not...and turn left...oh there's a closed gate in the way with a sign that says...
came for the nudity, stayed for the detailed reviews. Hope to find some of these places next month...