Adk DeCap

My 1st period Seniors are starting Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. It’s the story of the author’s attempt to live on minimum wage. She was really trying to see if a person could make ends meet making 7 or 8 dollars an hour. It’s easy enough to just do the math and realize it’s impossible but that doesn’t really make for a good story, does it?

Ms. Ehrenreich waited tables in the Florida keys, cleaned houses in Maine and worked at Wal-Mart in Minnesota. She set down some ground rules for herself. She kept her car and didn’t figure that into her bills, she refused to ever go hungry. Essentially she let herself cheat somewhat. But she also didn’t allow herself to use her education (she has a PhD in biology) and she had to take the best-paying job offered. One of the first things she admits is that she has the distinct advantage of being a white, native-English speaker.

Class was fun this morning. For an intro to the book, we talked about the price of living: the price of gas, the price of luxuries like cable TV and a cell phone and especially the price of food. Everybody agreed that the cheapest food is not only the most filling but also the worst for you. Think Dollar menu. Then it was on to the experiment. Could they live on whatever low-paying jobs they have now?

I gave out budget worksheets and had them do the actual math. Yes, really, math in English class at 8:30 in the morning. How much do you make per hour, multiply by 40? Take 20% off the top for taxes, 30% if you want health insurance, then multiply by 4 for your monthly income.

Just like the author of Nickel and Dimed, we cheated a little. I let them assume I paid the security deposit and gave them some basic furniture. Subtract rent, utilities, phone and food. Want luxuries? Subtract gas, car insurance and cable TV. Out of the 10 students working out a budget only 2 finished in the black for the month. One with $15 dollars left over, the other one is sharing a one bedroom apartment with a roommate who can’t afford food! The best comment came from the student finishing about $400 in the red. With a smile she summed it up with, “I hate my life.”

Shamrock Shuffle

adkdecap — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:41:09 +0000

Yesterday was my first race of the year. The Shamrock Shuffle is a five-mile race through the neighborhoods of Glens Falls to benefit the Special Olympics (more on this later). Its a well-organized race with a hearty bunch of runners who brave the North Country March weather.

A lot of the runners use this race to kick off the racing season. I overheard quite a few people saying they hadn’t trained or they were just out to run and have fun, not really race. To be honest, that was my view too. The last few weeks’ schedule hasn’t really afforded time or plowed roads for running.

Last year, race day was bitter cold. Maybe 10 degrees and windy. But I had a good couple weeks before, got some running in and was well-prepared for the race. I did my normal “start at the back and pick people off one by one“. I ended up running the race in 40.20 for an average of 8.04 per mile. I was quite pleased but it sure set the bar high for the rest of the season.

This year was warmer: upwards of 20 degrees and sunny. The sun felt good though. My goal way to finish between 40 and 45 minutes (between 8 and 9 minute miles). I ran my first mile in 7.38. Yikes! Way too fast. Mile two was better; I slowed down to 8.03. Good good, exactly where I want to be. But it was starting to hurt. And from thereon out I was never really comfortable. I even walked through the water station around mile three to rub out a cramp.

Mile three has a lot of downhill. My pace picked back up to 7.23. Too fast, I know, but I only had two to go. I can push through two painful miles in my sleep. It was around the end of this mile that I learned the race was to benefit Special Olympics. As we were running down Glen Street in all our late race, ugly-wincing-stumbling, bad-form glory, a driver called out to a marshal to ask what the run was for. The marshal said, “Special Olympics, 5 miles.” My thought was yeah, Special Olympics for sure.

With less than a mile to go I was into my 34th minute. That was when I realized I could tie last year’s time of 40 minutes. A tie, that’s all I was hoping for. I crossed the line in 38.50, a minute and a half faster than last year! My average mile time was 7.46.

So I’m not sure what I learned from this. The pain of the race told me that I was in no shape to be running that. But my finishing time told me to heck with training. Kelly told me I make her sick, but that’s another story lol.

Woo-Hoo! Tenth Post :-p

adkdecap — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:14:27 +0000

These things are really starting to take shape. I think the ones that are the most fleshed out are Tyler’s (who could use a hyperlink or two), Melba’s (who needs to layoff the hyperlinks a bit and balance them with pictures) and Ken’s (who could use both hyperlinks and pictures). Anna has a good couple of entries too even if she doesn’t like poached eggs.

You all are doing great so far. I threw this new assignment at you, made you guinea pigs and you are thriving. Thank you.

Here’s what I was thinking would come next. I’d like to see a new post added once a week through 4th quarter for a total of at least 11 or 12 posts by June. How does that sound to you? I’m going to build a list of entry suggestions for those of you struggling with direction. You’ll be able to find that with my pages.

Lastly, here’s the video of the reporter falling crushing grapes in case you missed it.

Just a funny list…

adkdecap — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:59:30 +0000

A bicycle can’t stand alone; it is two tired.
A will is a dead giveaway.
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
A backward poet writes inverse.
In a democracy it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism, it’s your Count that votes.
A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
If you don’t pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I’ll show you A-flat miner.
When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.
A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.
You are stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.
Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.
He broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.
A calendar’s days are numbered.
A lot of money is tainted: ‘Taint yours, and ‘taint mine.
A boiled egg is hard to beat.
He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
A plateau is a high form of flattery.
The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.
Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
When you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.
If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.
When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
Acupuncture: a jab well done.
Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

A Brief Message From Our Sponsor

adkdecap — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:20:31 +0000

I noticed a couple of you have your settings set so that you have to moderate your comments. That means before people’s comments appear, you would need to go into your comments tab and approve them (under comments–> awaiting moderation).

You can change this option if you’d like so that they go directly to your site (under options –> discussion). Just keep it so that the commenter has to log in to comment.

Up and Running

adkdecap — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:53:48 +0000

Hey hey. It looks like everyone is catching the hang of this thing. Many of you have first posts created, some of you are playing around with hyperlinks and tags and categories. Definitely check out the other blogs being created. The diversity is pretty cool- from fashion to smoothies to platypi! Feel free to leave comments back and forth. Remember, you have to be logged in to leave comments, so the paper trail is there. Be nice.

You might want to explore wordpress in general too. See what other people are writing about. On the right-hand side are current popular tags being used in the wordpress blogosphere. Towards the bottom, the blogs are arranged by category. (I wonder if anyone else is writing about Highlander or tumbleweed?)

I found another cool toy called Tag Surfer (in your dashboard). If you have been labeling your posts with tags, this will show you other blogs that have been using the same tags.

Charlie bit me!

Our Blogroll, our Blog Surfer

adkdecap — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:02:52 +0000

Ok, at the bottom of this post is the masterlist for the class blogroll. I’ll also create a page in my sidebar to list them. Add your classmates and whoever or whatever you want to have linked to your site. Generally they are topically related links (runner’s blog has other runner sites in the blogroll, finance has finance, etc.).

WordPress also has a thing call Blog Surfer. It’s like its own Reader. It is still “in beta” which means they are still working on it…which means it may not work all the time. In any case you can add other wordpress blogs to this list as well to keep track of new posts. You’ll find it in your dashboard, under Blog Surfer. On the left you only need to type in the blog name. You don’t need the entire “.wordpress.com” stuff. You can adjust how far back you want it to search for posts as well, from as short as your last log in, out as far as a week ago. Just like Google Reader, it may be easier to use this than to visit 15 different blogs to look for updates.

Ken: kyotain Chelsea: chelseaw47 Maddy: mbarrows

Anna: Annabee174 Emily: promisemetragedy Melba: mx3288

Tommi: swiminchic08 Lesley: sevendustxf2f Tyler: ttyyyyllleerr

Holly: hmiron Becca: beccad7740 Chelsi: chel01

Doug: arsenalfootball14 Jess: jsuss10 Cathy: zimm620