10:46 – Autumn weather has finally arrived in Winston-Salem. For the few days, our highs have been around 80 (~27C) and our lows in the mid-50’s (~13C). I’m sure the heat will return briefly during Indian Summer, but the worst of it is probably over for the year.
I just shipped another chemistry kit to a Canadian customer. Every time I do that, I keep my fingers crossed, so to speak. I trust USPS to get the package to Canada. It’s not that I don’t trust Canada, exactly. It’s just that I don’t trust any bureaucracy, and every package we ship to Canada has to go through USPS, Canadian customs, and then to Canada Post. That’s a lot of opportunities for problems. Still, I’ve never had a package to Canada lost or returned, so I guess I should just relax.
Yesterday, I made up three dozen small parts bags for the new batch of chemistry kits. Today, I’ll make up a bunch of the chemical bags. The chemicals themselves are already bottled, so it’s just a matter of making up the bottle sets and bagging them.
15:06 – A lot of TV series release DVD’s around this time of year. Sometimes, it’s quite a wait for the discs, but I stick them in our disc queue anyway, mainly to keep track of them. Sometimes, Netflix streaming doesn’t get series that are out on DVD for a year or more. Other times, it’s only a couple of weeks from DVD release to streaming release. I just went over to rearrange our disc queue, and noticed that three series I had at the top of our disc queue are now available streaming: Revenge (with Emily VanCamp), Doc Martin S5, and Grey’s Anatomy S8. I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy–all of the doctors are accurately nick-named McAsshole, McDork, and so on, and the lead character is a world-class whiner–but I do want to watch the other two. Particularly Emily, whom I adore. So I just deleted all three series from our disc queue, which I’m sure makes Netflix happy. It costs them a lot less to deliver streaming episodes than to pay postage for discs. Every time I talk to Netflix support, I beg them to increase the price of streaming from their current ridiculously low $8/month rate. I tell them that boosting the price even just to $20 or $30 a month would lose them few customers and give them the money they need to get more titles available streaming. Even though it’s currently more profitable than streaming, Netflix really doesn’t want to be in the business of mailing DVDs back and forth. And I really think it’d help them reach their goal of 100% streaming if they’d increase prices to boost their revenues.
Congrats on the second Canadian order!
While I share Bob’s distrust of bureaucracies, but I can’t help but point out that he has already successfully shipped chemicals into Canada, yet people coming into the US with chocolates with toys inside are threatened, and in some cases detained for hours:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2012/07/18/kinder-eggs-illegal-candy-canada-border.html
You can buy beer, guns and gas all at the same store, but a toy inside chocolate is a deadly hazard? Can we spell “messed up priorities”?
Oh, this isn’t just the second. Since I shipped the first one to you two months ago, I’ve shipped several chemistry and biology kits to Canada. All of them have either been delivered or are still in transit.
Still, I do wish I lived near the Montana/Alberta border. Straddling the border, I’d keep a small business premises in Montana and live in Alberta, or vice versa. Of course, I’d need to learn to speak French.
Somehow I always get picked on for manual inspection at Customs upon a return from India and one of these days I’m going to throw in a KinderEgg just to see what happens. Of course, I’ll probably end up on a permanent Sh*t List, but watching that kind of stupidity in action just might be worth it.
My solution to the Illinois/Chicago education problem:
1. Repeal any and all state laws for mandatory education.
2. Fire all teachers and staff.
3. Sell/rent/lease all school property to private education institutions.
4. Use proceeds to pay off current debt.
5. Flip bird at Federal Gummint.
Don’t you worry. The AG will jump in and stop that kind of discriminatory thinking.
” I’d need to learn to speak French.”
Mais non, monsieur; not in Alberta. You’d be better off learning Swedish or German. Move to Quebec and you might wanna learn their colonial French lingo a bit. But Nouveau Brunswick is the ONLY officially bi-lingual province in O Kanada. The western provinces are more like our own western states than either coast provinces.
“Autumn weather has finally arrived in Winston-Salem.”
Amusing. We have one last week of summuh, dude. Leaves have been turning here since early August and nights are in the low fotties. No frost yet, though; and FYI, Indian Summer doesn’t happen a lot; it comes when you have a solid week of summuh-like weathuh AFTER there has already been weeks of solid frost. Once in a blue moon we see this in November, but not often. It is so infrequent that it tends to blow our minds and we run around half-nekkid and all giddy and take off work.
“My solution to the Illinois/Chicago education problem”
I like it. Dr. Gary North is a bit more draconian and detailed with his suggestions.
http://www.garynorth.com/public/10049.cfm
I wouldn’t intend to use French. The Canadian immigration folks have various yardsticks they use to judge whether someone is qualified to immigrate. Barbara and I just barely qualify. I think you need 60 points to qualify and we score something like 62. Speaking French would add enough points to guarantee we’d be allowed to immigrate.
So does anyone here want to be an ambassador for Mr. Obama ? Apparently you will get to be the first to know of any uprisings in your area.
My wife and I took that desirable-immigrant test several years ago and blew it away, off the charts. They’d take us in a nanosecond and our dual-citizenship kids make us a shoe-in. But we ain’t interested. We visit, and we have a cottage up on the northern New Brunswick coast, and our daughter is at McGill right now, but we is Americans, and you gots to dance wid dem dat brought ya. Into the world, that is. Our bones, blood and DNA is in this country, specifically in Nova Anglia and the genuine upstate Vampire State. Especially after this past couple of days, between the 11-year anniversary of 9/11 and reading the first-person accounts and seeing the pictures and videos again, and also the latest ruckus in Libya. I bitch about this country constantly, and have a right to do so, and will continue to do so, but that ambassador was on his way to the consulate to get his people out when he got hit. He deserves a true American hero’s recognition, along with his staff who also got killed. That takes big balls. From a foreign service guy in a suit, no less. I wonder how many others would have done the same; I like to think I would, but hell, I’m an old bastard who doesn’t give a shit about dying anymore and truth be told didn’t worry overmuch about it forty years ago, either. This was a young guy with a family. Hats off!
Mr. Obama has said that he will “prosecute” those who killed our ambassador. Prosecute? Who is he kidding?
I repeat, if they do not respect the USA then they need to fear us.
I pay $95/month for DirecTV and the included VOD downloading is poor. The downloads are in SD format (not widescreen). You can download about 2/3 of the channels now for their series shows if your DVR misses them. BTW, we do not have ANY of the premium channels like HBO or Starz.
The extra cost movie downloads are $6 each and are in HD. They are quite good in video quality but the cost is just too high to watch many of these. Maybe 1 or 2 a quarter.
I would like to move to Netflix but the series shows are just not there: General Hospital, Hot in Cleveland, Anger Management, The Walking Dead, various college and pro football games, Teen Wolf, Hawaii Five-0, Being Human and several others are just some of the shows that the wife and I watch on our DVR. In fact, we probably watch way too much tv.
I just hope the US doesn’t “retaliate” by invading these places. Just send in a few special operations types or some smart munitions to “educate” the bad guys.
More and more I like our host’s adage: “Never send a man where you can send a missile.”
What an odd relationship we have with the Middle East. It’s like the beaten-wife syndrome: we keep getting beat up, but we won’t leave the relationship.
Ah, I think both parties are doing the beating and getting beat up in this scenario. If I was a cop again responding to yet another lousy domestic, I’d separate the parties, keep them outta the kitchen, and away from the steak knives. Also secure all weapons in the house, because there are always weapons in the house. And, one or both parties are under the influence of booze and/or some other substance.
Sound about right here?
Wouldn’t it be simpler just to point people here.
Bob is right, French is and is not required to immigrate to Canada. It’s not required, but you move up the list if you can speak French. A poor method of choosing, really. We get a lot of Haitians, Vietnamese, Mauritians and people from other failed French colonies.
His age group will be working against him, as well. Should have moved ten years ago!
Moving to the Alberta/Montana border would certainly be moving next door to some of the best scenery in the world. The Waterton Lakes/Glacier National parks are spectacular. Winter there is brutal, however, because of those glaciers and lakes.
Actually, I think we probably qualify even without speaking French. I just noticed that one of the categories that’s given favored status is people who would contribute to the cultural environment. I qualify there as a writer (in both the “technical writer” and “science writer” categories, and adding the “novelist” category would take me only a couple months working flat out), as does Barbara, who also qualifies as a librarian.
Actually, I wouldn’t care much if Barbara and I qualified for permanent residency, let alone Canadian citizenship, as long as they’d let us pass freely back and forth across the US/Canadian border. I suspect that wouldn’t be an issue, particularly in that area.
As to the winters, “brutal” would be fine with me. Again, give me a good wood/coal stove, and I’m happy. As I mentioned some time ago, I grew up in the same climate category that Calgary is in. Cold winters with lots of snow and temperatures sometimes down to 0F or lower. Geez, I remember being out in a t-shirt playing in the snow with some friends’ kids when it was -23F, not counting the wind chill. Of course, my Northern Boy antifreeze wore off long ago.
When Barbara and I had dinner Sunday with Paul and Mary, Mary mentioned that there was a big, big difference between Calgary and Edmonton. She lived in Edmonton for a year or two while she was doing her postdoc. She said she nearly froze to death, literally.
If this is true, WTF, over?
http://freebeacon.com/reports-marines-not-permitted-live-ammo/
It’s okay. The article says that Obama is depending on the New Muslim Brotherhood to protect the Marines. What could go wrong?
Obama might not be muslim, but he sure acts like he is. Has anyone ever seen him eat a ham sandwich?
It has always seemed to me that Obama was once a Muslim, which means he’s either still a Muslim or he’s an apostate. I don’t know or care which. All that matters to me are his results, which are in my not so humble opinion an abysmal failure.
That is OK. In a crowd like that, the Marines would be reduced soon to their kabars. Those fit real nice on the end of a m16 or a m4. And Marines practice several days on sticking kabars in things while shouting “kill, kill, kill” at the top of their lungs. Or else suffer the wrath of their DI.
Seriously, what moron would remove the ammo from their guards? It is beginning to look like most of Obama’s people are morons. Looks like if he is re-elected, we will have morons in charge forever.
A rubric I often express is, “X may not be Y, but what would he be doing differently if he were?”
Lynn McGuire, far be it for me to suggest that any of Obumbles’ people or anyone working for State isn’t a moron, but it might be deeper than moronicity. I’d bet it’s a combination of not wanting to offend “our gracious hosts” and not trusting those slope-browed thugs in the military. Plus moronicity, of course.
Regarding Chicago schools:
I did elementary grades 3 through 8 and then high school there. I guess that they weren’t all that bad 60 years ago.
Regarding ragheads, this was sent to me:
I was sitting at a long stoplight yesterday, minding my own
business, patiently waiting for it to turn green even though there was no on-coming traffic.
A carload of bearded, young, loud Muslims, shouting anti-American slogans, with a
half- burned American Flag duct taped on the trunk of their car and a “Remember 9-11”
slogan spray painted on the side, was stopped next to me.
Suddenly they yelled, “praise Allah” and took off before the light changed.
Out of nowhere an 18-wheeler came speeding through the intersection and ran directly
over their car, crushing it completely and killing everyone in it.
For several minutes I sat in my car thinking to myself, ” Man…that
could have been me !”
So today, bright and early, I went out and got a job as a truck driver.
However, now I recollect some of the details. The Chicago system had its own junior college system, although one campus was a four year degree school, Chicago Teachers College (CTC). Now one thing about them was that they had to accept and Chicago public high school graduate that carried a diploma. Once in CTC, just go back every day and easy in and easy out. And it was the same deal with that revolving door, everyone graduating CTC with a BS in education could not be denied employment in the Chicago Public School System.
Think about it….to be denied entrance to the CTC meant that the high school diploma was worthless and then to be denied employment as a teacher meant that the CTC degree was worthless.
Any questions?
I merely note the continuing silence of muslims on this continent and in Europe over the recent events in a couple of Sandbox countries. To be fair, I get the impression that SOME of them are between a rock and a hard place; they don’t dare speak out for fear of hadjis slitting their throats in the night, especially including the women and children. And they also fear another 9/11 attack which would likely result in roughly the same situation that occurred here with our German population during and after the so-called Great War. Or the Japanese during WWII, which, when you look at the record; there were a lot of Japanese spies doing their work out in Kalifornia at that time. And we have numerous, mostly anecdotal reports of young Arab men celebrating in and around NYC on That Day.
And among the decent ones, there are probably a few who realize that if they do speak out against the atrocities, our cops and State can’t and won’t protect them, just as it does not for the rest of us.
DaveB wrote:
“It has always seemed to me that Obama was once a Muslim, which means he’s either still a Muslim or he’s an apostate. I don’t know or care which. All that matters to me are his results, which are in my not so humble opinion an abysmal failure.”
Everyone in the world is born Muslim, but most of us apostatize by becoming atheists, Christians or whatever.
I have a good friend with a nephew who has just started first grade in one of the Indianapolis suburban school systems. There are 2 autistic children being “mainstreamed” in that class. As a result, the mom says no learning is going on. She tried to get the child changed to another class; no go. The autistic kids cannot be silent, unless they are asleep. They are a constant and serious distraction to most of the other kids, including my friend’s nephew, who tells his uncle (a career high school teacher) that he often does not know what he is supposed to be doing, because he cannot pay attention to the teacher from the noise of the autistic kids. I thought the state mandated one teacher assistant for each such mainstreamed child, but there is only one assistant, who takes breaks while the class is still going on. And the one assistant cannot handle both kids at the same time.
So, the family is moving to another county and another school system, where they do not mainstream.
And here’s a question on a first grade test: “What is the number that is one less than 65?” Although my friend’s nephew is a bright kid, he told his uncle, “I can’t read. They have not taught us how to read, so I had no idea what that question was.” Nevertheless, he was marked down for not knowing the correct answer.
Geez, I don’t think we even started with tests (other than letter-forming excercises) until second grade. But we definitely were at the “See Spot run,” stage. I would not have been able to answer that question, either. I know we counted to 100, but we did not get to the 60’s in anything like the first 3 weeks of school. Seems like the lunatics are running the asylum. I’m glad my friend’s family is moving.
Mainstreaming is, generally speaking, a lousy idea. It fits too well with NCLB, and it saves the school budgets, but putting disabled kids into a normal classroom is death for the rest of the kids.
we did not get to the 60′s in anything like the first 3 weeks of school
I find it really weird that the 60’s are seen as any different from the 30’s or the 20’s. When I taught our kids to count, I taught them the system of stringing digits together. As soon as they understood 2-digit numbers, they also understood 3-digit, 4-digit and 6-digit numbers. In first grade, they amused themselves by adding and subtracting numbers with as many digits as they felt like writing down.
Meanwhile, the school taught 2-digit numbers. Hundreds were a completely separate topic. And thousands, wow, 4 digits. This makes no sense! It’s all the same, whether you have 2 digits or 20. The only extra work is learning the words used to put names to the numbers.
My parents were—at the time—believers in letting the school do the teaching, so I only got remedial help at home (when necessary), even though both my parents had a Master’s in education. All the teachers around Tiny Town were trained at Ball State Teachers College, so there was no lack of confidence in teacher abilities back then. Until our first grade teacher taught us that ‘sixty’ followed ‘fifty’ I had no idea. As I recall, we spent quite a lot of time on one’s and teens, before even approaching the twenties. Yeah, as an adult it is easy to see how the system works, and maybe I grasped that back then; all I know is that the teacher paired up smart kids with not-so-smart, and my partner was a distant cousin, whom I remember had significant trouble with the eighties. I do remember that counting out-loud to 100 was an exercise we still did in the third grade.
In other words, the teachers weren’t doing their jobs.* Not teaching the slow children. Not giving the “advanced” students — you know, the intellectual demographic on whom society relies for all progress — even enough stimulation to keep them from being bored.
* Assuming the job is to educate all of the children as best they can absorb. If the job is to train the children of non-elite to be quiet, unquestioning drones, then I guess they were doing a good job.
All the teachers did that. Must have been something they were teaching over at Ball State. Up until fourth grade, quick-learners were always paired with slower. Then in seventh grade we were grouped according to IQ. After trying to help the unteachable, that was seventh heaven. Bet they cannot do that today. When it is the very thing they should do.