I don't actually have a problem with the concept of gambling. I suppose it's like most things in life: some people abuse it. Addiction (and addictive personalities) exist. If you read my blog much you probably know I have a (one) Powerball ticket sitting around. But gambling excessively can cause profound problems in a person's life...
If you must gamble, a good place to find reviews for the top casino online is Pro360.Com. The site provides start guides for people new to the art. They give you a listing of casinos, ranked by specific criteria - like bonuses, payouts, and jackpots. The site makes it simple for you to find information on particular casino websites.
Pro360's service is fairly comprehensive. The site reviews backgammon slots, bingo, blackjack, craps, poker, roulette, and more. Given the hundreds of online sites out there for gaming, Pro360 provides a valuable way to narrow your choices down to a manageable set of sites to look at and choose from. It's a lot better than just trying to wade through Google or some other search engine.
Pro360's site is also easy to navigate.
So if you're going to gamble online anyway, take a look at Pro360 before you start...
Note: This is a sponsored post.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Rain...
It has been raining since sometime on Tuesday. It is welcome weather...
A friend of mine in Wyoming County, WV, told me recently that his half-acre pond is down to a 20 foot by 30 foot puddle. He raises cattle and is worried the water hole will dry up.
The entire state of Virginia had made all outdoor burning a misdemeanor because of the dry conditions. Maybe now that can be lifted...
A friend of mine in Wyoming County, WV, told me recently that his half-acre pond is down to a 20 foot by 30 foot puddle. He raises cattle and is worried the water hole will dry up.
The entire state of Virginia had made all outdoor burning a misdemeanor because of the dry conditions. Maybe now that can be lifted...
Sunday, October 21, 2007
The Coming Week...
My co-worker, Ms. Nunley, wrote a blog entry recently about how hectic life is when your spouse's job and your job have conflicting time demands. Cheryl and I don't have quite the same problem, time wise, that Ms. Nunley does; but this week looks especially hectic...
So the week looks, well, busy...
- On Monday I go to Beckley for a workshop. Cheryl's schedule is more or less normal. Hopefully, we'll both be home about the same time and dinner will be pretty normal.
- Tuesday looks bad. Cheryl has a parent teacher organization
meeting at 6pm. So she will leave here like normal Tuesday morning like normal before 7am, work until three-ish, and wait at her school for the PTO meeting at 6pm. Since the drive home is 30 minutes and the drive back is 30 minutes, why bother. I'm sure she'll just work on paperwork and records from 3pm 'til 6pm. If the meeting last 30 minutes, she'll be home around 7:15pm or 7:30pm. I work a normal day. But I need to go to a training our county is having for election workers because on November 6 I'll work the polls in Virginia. So I'll leave for that 7pm training before Cheryl gets home. Dinner? I'll eat at Tazewell County's best restaurant, Big Daddy's dinner, and order Cheryl something there; then I'll bring her dinner home and leave it in the fridge before I go to the training. I should be home by 8:30 or 9:00pm.
- On Wednesday my school is having a book study on after school. The book is called "The Three-Tiered Model." It is a curriculum approach for reading. I'll probably leave there about 6pm and be home a little before 7pm. Not sure yet how dinner will work on that day, but we do own a crock pot...
- On Thursday Cheryl's school begins hosting the region's middle school football play-offs. So there's a 6:30pm football game and a second game scheduled for 8:00pm. Cheryl is supposed to stay for the games. I suppose I'll go over there and take her dinner from (you guessed it) Big Daddy's.
- Friday is a work day but there are no kids. Cheryl will go to work like normal and I am taking the day off to drive to Georgia. On Saturday I take two tests in Georgia that could add to my certifications. I'll be home again on Sunday afternoon.
So the week looks, well, busy...
Friday, October 19, 2007
My Experience With Marijuana
On the day before kids showed up this year the faculty in my building spent some time involved in some cute little team building activities. One of them involved writing things about yourself on index cards. Someone would then read the card from the front of the room and everyone would try to guess whose card it was. If you guessed right, you got a point…
I don’t remember many of the cards now. One teacher put that she’d been bitten on the head by an ostrich once. Another put that she’d fallen off a boat that summer.
On one of my cards I wrote that I’d never smoke marijuana. No one guessed me. But what was really enlightening was that most people were surprised when they found out that I had turned that card in…
To be fair, I suppose I’m about the right age to be a leftover hippie. I like Kenny Chesney and Waylon Jennings, but I also like Hendrix and Dylan (and play them at recess for the kids to hear).
To be completely truthful about it, I have had one experience with Marijuana. At the time I was working as a long term substitute teacher, fresh out of college, at Glenn Hills High School in Augusta, Ga. I’d graduated from Glenn Hills and my new boss was my old principal.
I don’t remember the name of the student who gave me the lid; printing it if I did remember it would probably violate a few dozen laws anyway. But I was outside the building on a set of stairs that took students from the first floor to the second floor and I came upon the boy smoking…
“You know you can’t smoke at school,” I said. “Give that to me.”
He looked confused. He probably was more confused than I gave him credit for. He put the lid in my hand as I held it out toward him. I looked at it as we started toward the office.
“This looks strange,” I thought to myself. “Why doesn’t it have a filter?”
The boy was about two steps up hill from me. He decided to turn around like he wasn’t going to go to the office. I blocked his path back down the stairs. He looked even more confused. He took off running. And because I was confused too by the time and new to teaching, I started running after him.
We were about half way down the top hall when it dawned on me that I wasn’t really sure I wanted to catch him. Classes where changing and the halls were now full of kids. I spotted chasing him.
Of course, he was recognized by half the school. And, being confused, he simply went to his next class. I gave the offending inhalant to the principal. They got the kid out of class and suspended him.
And that was the one and only time I ever "had" marijuana; I held it in my hand after taking it away from a kid. The year was 1983. And I can honestly say it’s been over 24 years since I’ve touched the stuff…
I don’t remember many of the cards now. One teacher put that she’d been bitten on the head by an ostrich once. Another put that she’d fallen off a boat that summer.
On one of my cards I wrote that I’d never smoke marijuana. No one guessed me. But what was really enlightening was that most people were surprised when they found out that I had turned that card in…
To be fair, I suppose I’m about the right age to be a leftover hippie. I like Kenny Chesney and Waylon Jennings, but I also like Hendrix and Dylan (and play them at recess for the kids to hear). To be completely truthful about it, I have had one experience with Marijuana. At the time I was working as a long term substitute teacher, fresh out of college, at Glenn Hills High School in Augusta, Ga. I’d graduated from Glenn Hills and my new boss was my old principal.
I don’t remember the name of the student who gave me the lid; printing it if I did remember it would probably violate a few dozen laws anyway. But I was outside the building on a set of stairs that took students from the first floor to the second floor and I came upon the boy smoking…
“You know you can’t smoke at school,” I said. “Give that to me.”
He looked confused. He probably was more confused than I gave him credit for. He put the lid in my hand as I held it out toward him. I looked at it as we started toward the office.
“This looks strange,” I thought to myself. “Why doesn’t it have a filter?”
The boy was about two steps up hill from me. He decided to turn around like he wasn’t going to go to the office. I blocked his path back down the stairs. He looked even more confused. He took off running. And because I was confused too by the time and new to teaching, I started running after him.
We were about half way down the top hall when it dawned on me that I wasn’t really sure I wanted to catch him. Classes where changing and the halls were now full of kids. I spotted chasing him.
Of course, he was recognized by half the school. And, being confused, he simply went to his next class. I gave the offending inhalant to the principal. They got the kid out of class and suspended him.
And that was the one and only time I ever "had" marijuana; I held it in my hand after taking it away from a kid. The year was 1983. And I can honestly say it’s been over 24 years since I’ve touched the stuff…
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Special Education Vocabulary: Accommodation
The law says that a school has to "accommodate" a student's disabilities. Do you know what that MEANS? Technical jargon can get in the way of understanding your child's rights.
What is an accommodation? The long list of technical terms in special education can be daunting to some parents. And since accommodation is one of the most basic terms, I thought I'd take a little time here to make sure you could find a clear, concise definition...
Schwab Learning has one of the best explanations of the term accommodation that I've come across on the Internet:
Accommodations provide different ways for kids to take in information or communicate their knowledge back to you. The changes basically don't alter or lower the standards or expectations for a subject or test. Through the child's Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 Plan, classroom accommodations are developed formally.
Their page goes on in other places to explain (correctly, I might add) that an accommodation is a change in the student's classroom learning environment so that the student has better access to the educational process.
Accommodations can be simple. If a child's disability has to do with their hearing or vision, one of the simplest accommodations is usually called preferential seating. Johnny can't see very far or hear very well so we move him to the front of the room - closer to the blackboard and to the talking teacher. And in some cases, accommodating a child's disability with a change in their classroom learning environment as simple as that one makes a huge difference in how well they do.
Some other common accommodations include:
Parents should distinguish between these two ideas. Accommodations do not change what is expected of a student in school; they only change the way the student gains access to learning. Modifications actually change the curriculum and expectations placed on a disabled student. But we'll leave that piece of vocabulary, modifications, for another day...
What is an accommodation? The long list of technical terms in special education can be daunting to some parents. And since accommodation is one of the most basic terms, I thought I'd take a little time here to make sure you could find a clear, concise definition...
Schwab Learning has one of the best explanations of the term accommodation that I've come across on the Internet:
Accommodations provide different ways for kids to take in information or communicate their knowledge back to you. The changes basically don't alter or lower the standards or expectations for a subject or test. Through the child's Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 Plan, classroom accommodations are developed formally.
Their page goes on in other places to explain (correctly, I might add) that an accommodation is a change in the student's classroom learning environment so that the student has better access to the educational process.
Accommodations can be simple. If a child's disability has to do with their hearing or vision, one of the simplest accommodations is usually called preferential seating. Johnny can't see very far or hear very well so we move him to the front of the room - closer to the blackboard and to the talking teacher. And in some cases, accommodating a child's disability with a change in their classroom learning environment as simple as that one makes a huge difference in how well they do.
Some other common accommodations include:
- Extended time - a child with a disability may be given extra time to take a test or complete an assignment.
- Oral testing - if we want to know whether a child with a learning disability knows who the first president was, we can ask him and let him tell us instead of writing down our question and having him write down his answer. After all, if he knows who the first president was he should get credit for that. And if his disability interferes with his ability to write, that's a fair accommodation to make.
- Assistive technology - a child with a vision problem can listen to a story on tape instead of reading it from a book and a student with dysgraphia may benefit greatly from using a word processor instead of a pencil.
- Peer tutoring - simply assigning a classmate to help a disabled student "get it" can be powerful.
Parents should distinguish between these two ideas. Accommodations do not change what is expected of a student in school; they only change the way the student gains access to learning. Modifications actually change the curriculum and expectations placed on a disabled student. But we'll leave that piece of vocabulary, modifications, for another day...
Monday, October 15, 2007
That Special Feeling You Get (When You Think You're Gonna Die...)
Among my favorite parts of my day is the drive to work. It’s about 20 miles from my house to the school where I work. I drive over Stoney Ridge on Rt. 16, through Horsepen, over Gary 14 Mountain, through the community of Skygusty and come out at the Blackwolf golf course – a nine hole course in the crevices between some ridges here. At Blackwolf I turn right and drive to the four miles through Pageton to the City of Anawalt.
It’s a beautiful drive. Turkeys and deer line the twisty, narrow roads. The leaves are changing at the moment so there are lots of colors. Often the roads are shrouded in mist or fog. And there are spots that would be marked as scenic overlooks if I was on an interstate highway.
For reasons unbeknownst to me, Tazewell County has decided to scatter gravel on state road 644 around Horsepen. It’s a bit like driving on marbles at the moment. It reminds me of walking on wet floors in cowboy boots, or perhaps roller skating for the first time.
This morning I got to experience that special feeling you get when you are surprised by something and you think the possibility exists that death in eminent. It’s a brief but acute feeling that people often experience on small roads with the ass end of their car tries to pass the nose of their car. Your muscles tighten up from your waist to your collarbones, your throat constricts, your teeth clench, and your breakfast tries to crawl up your throat because it doesn’t want to die with you.
In the very brief moment involved, you be trying to remember when the last time that you went to confession was. Then you remember stuff about driving…
“Steer into it, steer into it. The more you brake the harder it is to steer. Steer into it… Hail Mary, full of grace… Steer into it…”
Okay, I’m not really a Catholic.
I got the car arranged correctly again on the road and continued toward work. For whatever reason, the coal trucks hadn’t started to run yet this morning, so I didn’t have to compete with them. There’s a mile stretch where the road to work bisects an active strip mine, but it was quiet today.
I passed three turkeys on the side of the road near Skygusty, their beards almost dragging the ground. Then came the little white dog with one black eye looks like he fell out of “Little Rascals.”
A squirrel tried to commit hari-kari on the undercarriage of my explorer as I was entering Pageton. I’d decided long ago that I would not roll my explorer to save a squirrel, but today this one escaped harm.
I got to work at about 8:15 with Kenny Chesney playing on my CD player and the windows down so I could feel the cool air…
It’s a beautiful drive. Turkeys and deer line the twisty, narrow roads. The leaves are changing at the moment so there are lots of colors. Often the roads are shrouded in mist or fog. And there are spots that would be marked as scenic overlooks if I was on an interstate highway.
For reasons unbeknownst to me, Tazewell County has decided to scatter gravel on state road 644 around Horsepen. It’s a bit like driving on marbles at the moment. It reminds me of walking on wet floors in cowboy boots, or perhaps roller skating for the first time.This morning I got to experience that special feeling you get when you are surprised by something and you think the possibility exists that death in eminent. It’s a brief but acute feeling that people often experience on small roads with the ass end of their car tries to pass the nose of their car. Your muscles tighten up from your waist to your collarbones, your throat constricts, your teeth clench, and your breakfast tries to crawl up your throat because it doesn’t want to die with you.
In the very brief moment involved, you be trying to remember when the last time that you went to confession was. Then you remember stuff about driving…
“Steer into it, steer into it. The more you brake the harder it is to steer. Steer into it… Hail Mary, full of grace… Steer into it…”
Okay, I’m not really a Catholic.
I got the car arranged correctly again on the road and continued toward work. For whatever reason, the coal trucks hadn’t started to run yet this morning, so I didn’t have to compete with them. There’s a mile stretch where the road to work bisects an active strip mine, but it was quiet today.
I passed three turkeys on the side of the road near Skygusty, their beards almost dragging the ground. Then came the little white dog with one black eye looks like he fell out of “Little Rascals.”
A squirrel tried to commit hari-kari on the undercarriage of my explorer as I was entering Pageton. I’d decided long ago that I would not roll my explorer to save a squirrel, but today this one escaped harm.
I got to work at about 8:15 with Kenny Chesney playing on my CD player and the windows down so I could feel the cool air…
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Conservatives Accuse Google of Being Unpatriotic on Columbus Day
Among the stupidest crap I've heard in recent months in the accusation (reported by CBS) that Google is unpatriotic because of the events it choose to draw attention to (or not draw attention to) by altering its logo.
The LA Times is among the sources that have picked up the story. A conservative web site is criticizing Google for acknowledging the 50th anniversary of sputnik in its logo design last week. The website complains that Google has never altered its logo for Veterans Day or Memorial Day. The sputnik was, well, communist. Google changes its logo regularly and has commemorated such dates, according to CBS, as "World Water Day, Persian New Year, painter Edvard Munch's birthday and China's Dragon Boat festival."
The idea that this discussion started around Columbus Day seems especially ironic to me. I'm not sure what's patriotic about Columbus Day. Columbus was an Italian working for Spain. He discovered Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and the U.S. Virgin Islands. My school system doesn't give kids the day off (which means I work), but my bank closes (so I can't cash my paycheck that day) and the mail doesn't run. To me the holiday is an inconvenience. Perhaps his trips would have been more meaningful if Leif Ericson hadn't discovered mainland North America over 500 years before Columbus. But I digress...
A couple of thought occur to me. One is that Google's logo is a type of pop art. The Conservatives who are complaining about it want to judge pop art based primarily on political correctness. That attitude and approach is part of what has led to the decline of pluralism in America. We don't tolerate people who think of act differently very well any more.
The other thought that occurs to me is that making Memorial Day and Veterans Day a measure of patriotism is a symptom of the narrow view of patriotism Conservatives take. Patriotism is about guns and war and beating the enemy to Conservatives. I'm not anti-military by any stretch; but I think patriotism is about more than war and uniforms. I agree with John Edwards: it's time to be patriotic about something other than the war...
The LA Times is among the sources that have picked up the story. A conservative web site is criticizing Google for acknowledging the 50th anniversary of sputnik in its logo design last week. The website complains that Google has never altered its logo for Veterans Day or Memorial Day. The sputnik was, well, communist. Google changes its logo regularly and has commemorated such dates, according to CBS, as "World Water Day, Persian New Year, painter Edvard Munch's birthday and China's Dragon Boat festival."
The idea that this discussion started around Columbus Day seems especially ironic to me. I'm not sure what's patriotic about Columbus Day. Columbus was an Italian working for Spain. He discovered Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and the U.S. Virgin Islands. My school system doesn't give kids the day off (which means I work), but my bank closes (so I can't cash my paycheck that day) and the mail doesn't run. To me the holiday is an inconvenience. Perhaps his trips would have been more meaningful if Leif Ericson hadn't discovered mainland North America over 500 years before Columbus. But I digress...
A couple of thought occur to me. One is that Google's logo is a type of pop art. The Conservatives who are complaining about it want to judge pop art based primarily on political correctness. That attitude and approach is part of what has led to the decline of pluralism in America. We don't tolerate people who think of act differently very well any more.
The other thought that occurs to me is that making Memorial Day and Veterans Day a measure of patriotism is a symptom of the narrow view of patriotism Conservatives take. Patriotism is about guns and war and beating the enemy to Conservatives. I'm not anti-military by any stretch; but I think patriotism is about more than war and uniforms. I agree with John Edwards: it's time to be patriotic about something other than the war...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The Change of Seasons
Less than a week ago we were having high temperatures in the mid-80's, lows in the 60's, and speculating about whether we would break 90F degrees in October for the first time in recorded history in Bluefield.
Today the high was in the mid-50's. For the second night the mercury has dropped to 40 or below. And even though we were running our one window unit air conditioner three days ago to cool the bedroom, we are now running our furnace for the first time this Fall to heat the house up...
Today the high was in the mid-50's. For the second night the mercury has dropped to 40 or below. And even though we were running our one window unit air conditioner three days ago to cool the bedroom, we are now running our furnace for the first time this Fall to heat the house up...
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Blogging for Money: Step II
When you look at blogging for money, there are a variety of income models.
Suite101 was where I started. I eventually stopped editing a site for them because the work load wasn't worth it to me at the time. They wanted a blog post a week and a short feature each week. The Suite pays based on ad revenue - a profit sharing model. It's entrepreneurial: the potential is there to make some money if you can attract traffic. It's also a fairly low bar in terms of getting in to start with.
They have a new model since I left that allows contributors to simply write content instead of carrying the responsibility for maintaining a topic. I will probably start doing that soon, without taking on a site for them...
I blog for Creative Webblogging now.
I have two sites with them: China Venture News and The Universities Weblog. I write 20 blogs a month for each. If I do that, I get $112.50 a month for each. They want me to go out once each week to another blog on each topic and comment there in a way that leaves a link back to my blog. That's not hard. If I meet some traffic minimums, there's the potential for bonuses. If my traffic does well, there's the potential to go to 40 blog posts a month for $250 a month.
I've mentioned Smorty before. Smorty will pay you to blog about products and companies. It's $6 and up for 400 words or less. You have to have a personal blog that's 90 days old and has a minimum of two posts per week.
The top end of the spectrum is About Dot Com. There was a service that used to do something like Neilson ratings for web sites. About Dot Com always ranked in the top ten. When I worked for them they had about 500 writers ("guides," they called them). My site was about the middle of the pack and I had between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors a week. About Dot Com is demanding. I probably spent 20 hours or more a week on their stuff. Their tools kept changing. When I left they'd started wanting me to look at making video content. They wanted a blog post a minimum of three times a week and they wanted original content articles at least twice a month and they wanted a catalog of links on my topic. They had a lengthy application process that judged you on something like a portfolio. If they liked you, your portfolio became the start of your site. There were people on the travel channel making a couple of thousand a month for them.
There are other places to make money by blogging, but those are some good starting points...
Suite101 was where I started. I eventually stopped editing a site for them because the work load wasn't worth it to me at the time. They wanted a blog post a week and a short feature each week. The Suite pays based on ad revenue - a profit sharing model. It's entrepreneurial: the potential is there to make some money if you can attract traffic. It's also a fairly low bar in terms of getting in to start with.
They have a new model since I left that allows contributors to simply write content instead of carrying the responsibility for maintaining a topic. I will probably start doing that soon, without taking on a site for them...
I blog for Creative Webblogging now.
I have two sites with them: China Venture News and The Universities Weblog. I write 20 blogs a month for each. If I do that, I get $112.50 a month for each. They want me to go out once each week to another blog on each topic and comment there in a way that leaves a link back to my blog. That's not hard. If I meet some traffic minimums, there's the potential for bonuses. If my traffic does well, there's the potential to go to 40 blog posts a month for $250 a month.
I've mentioned Smorty before. Smorty will pay you to blog about products and companies. It's $6 and up for 400 words or less. You have to have a personal blog that's 90 days old and has a minimum of two posts per week.
The top end of the spectrum is About Dot Com. There was a service that used to do something like Neilson ratings for web sites. About Dot Com always ranked in the top ten. When I worked for them they had about 500 writers ("guides," they called them). My site was about the middle of the pack and I had between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors a week. About Dot Com is demanding. I probably spent 20 hours or more a week on their stuff. Their tools kept changing. When I left they'd started wanting me to look at making video content. They wanted a blog post a minimum of three times a week and they wanted original content articles at least twice a month and they wanted a catalog of links on my topic. They had a lengthy application process that judged you on something like a portfolio. If they liked you, your portfolio became the start of your site. There were people on the travel channel making a couple of thousand a month for them.
There are other places to make money by blogging, but those are some good starting points...
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Cooking Lunches with Orzo
On the weekends I try and find time to make something to eat that I can take to school with me - something that is more appealing than a TV dinner or a cold sandwich. This weekend I made one of my favorites...
I like to make pasta and vegetable dishes with a neglected little pasta called orzo. The stuff looks like rice. The Italian word means "barley," but it's made from the same ingredients as most other pastas.
I usually start with a stick of butter and a large non-stick skillet. Pick your favorite Italian veggies. This time I used mushrooms, zucchinis, eggplant, red onion, and bell peppers in both green and yellow. I slice the zuchs long ways, split them long ways again, and cut them into one-inch segments. The peppers, onion, and eggplant get diced into reasonable sized chunks. The mushrooms get quartered. Then they go into the butter on low hear for 30 or 40 minutes.
Mix in some pesto, an herb or two (this time it was oregano, last time it was basil, next time who knows?), some red wine, and some black pepper. Cover it and set it aside...
I boiled a pound of orzo. After I drained it I mixed the veggies and the orzo together. I had a little left over red pasta sauce in the fridge that I pour into the mix. Then I added turmeric - just for color.
The whole batch made me six lunches. I put one in the fridge for tomorrow and froze the other five...
I like to make pasta and vegetable dishes with a neglected little pasta called orzo. The stuff looks like rice. The Italian word means "barley," but it's made from the same ingredients as most other pastas.
I usually start with a stick of butter and a large non-stick skillet. Pick your favorite Italian veggies. This time I used mushrooms, zucchinis, eggplant, red onion, and bell peppers in both green and yellow. I slice the zuchs long ways, split them long ways again, and cut them into one-inch segments. The peppers, onion, and eggplant get diced into reasonable sized chunks. The mushrooms get quartered. Then they go into the butter on low hear for 30 or 40 minutes.
Mix in some pesto, an herb or two (this time it was oregano, last time it was basil, next time who knows?), some red wine, and some black pepper. Cover it and set it aside...
I boiled a pound of orzo. After I drained it I mixed the veggies and the orzo together. I had a little left over red pasta sauce in the fridge that I pour into the mix. Then I added turmeric - just for color.
The whole batch made me six lunches. I put one in the fridge for tomorrow and froze the other five...
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