Stupid Handwriting

Why do schools continue to teach the art of Scripted Handwriting?

What a dumb, antiquated mode of textual conveyance. Why don't we write in the "Old English" style any more? Because it is inefficient.

Well, talk about inefficiencies. How many hours and hours and hours are poured in by teachers teaching how to write a scripted "L" How dumb.

Think of all the other ways kids could spend their time. Oh wait, therein lies the rub. Teachers would actually have to fill their time with something e-d-u-c-a-t-i-o-n-a-l. Geez.

The skill of "hand eye coordination" and "motor skill" development can be done in many other ways. Why not simply teach kids painting? That would be far superior.

Modern times mean using a damn computer. Not hand scripting writing things. Printing on screen or on paper is just fine. Let's evolve.

Free Summer Entertainment

Check out your local sub-culture nespaper. These are most easily found in cities with a million people or more and in college towns. Look in record stores, or boutique shops in the trendy parts of your town.

These newspapers are a gold mine. Chalk full of free events and nominally priced events, your summer will be overloaded with stuff to do. Many of the events are music or art oriented. The art ones, nicely enough, may include hor’dourves!

The free events are especially pervasive in the summer time. Take advantage of them and all the freebies that are handed out.

Smile Money Smile

Try something this weekend, be extra extra nice to every person you exchange money or goods with.

Being extra nice causes many folks to give you things, including rounding totals in your favor, or spot you a few cents to make the change returned to you “even.”

We use this a lot very successfully for everything from money to free meat (the lady at the local grocery store just loves talking to Val and the girls and always puts extra slices of meat in our stack, plus KJ gets free cookies!).

Remember, every clerk you deal with is a human being too. They probably get shit all day long from folks whom are pissed off about life. Imagine what a treat it is to them to have someone nice. I'm not suggesting you be nice because it is the right thing to do, I'm saying be nice because it pays off.

Billy Bumbleebee and the Magic Nickel Machine

To teach children the power of interest, I wrote the following to help educate my daughters.

Billy Bumbleebee
and the Magic Nickel Machine
by
Bill Peer
(copyright 2009)

Billy Bumbleebee wanted a new blue ball.
But the blue ball cost $3.

Billy Bumbleebee asked his daddy for $3.
"Billy", his daddy said, "If you bring me a basket of blossoms, I will give you $1."

Billy Bumbleebee asked his mommy for $3
"Billy", his mommy said, "If you bring me a bucket of blueberries, I will give you $1."

Billy Bumbleebee asked his big brother Bobby for $3.
"Billy", his big brother Bobby said, "I will give you $3 now if you give me $3 later and you buff my black boots, bag my brown buttons, and boxy my building blocks."

Billy Bumbleebee was bothered by his big brother Bobby's offer.
"But if I do that, I will be too busy to play with the blue ball" Billy thought.

Billy Bumbleebee began collecting blossoms for his daddy's dollar.
While buzzing back with a basket of blossoms, Billy Bumbleebee saw a beautiful shiny silver machine.

Billy Bumbleebee stopped before the machine.
"Billy", the magic machine said, "If you give me a dollar now and come back later, I will give you your dollar back and give you a nickel too!"

Billy Bumbleebee was excited and few home as fast as his wings would fly.
He brought home a basket of blossoms to get $1 to try.

Billy Bumbleebee collected his dollar
and flew back to the machine he found before

Billy Bumbleebee put his dollar into the magic machine and took a deep breath.
"Billy", the magic machine said, "Come back later and I will give you the dollar and a nickel too."

Billy Bumbleebee began to fill a pale of blueberries because
he wanted his mommy's $1 too.

Billy Bumbleebee stopped by the magic nickel machine while doing his work
"Billy," the magic machine said, "thank you for the $1, heres an extra nickel for you."

Billy Bumbleebee repeated this many times while picking blueberries,
giving the machine his dollar and later getting his money back and a free nickel.

Billy Bumbleebee, with his bucket of blueberries and now 20 nickels too
made enough money to buy the ball that was blue.

Infant-in-arms International Plane Ticket

Bill and I decided to take the girls to Rome in November 2008, for their first international trip. KJ was 3 and Dy was 7 months.

In July 2008, I decided to purchase the plane tickets from Delta; since we were using frequent flyer miles for two of the tickets and Delta has direct flights from Atlanta to Rome.

I had heard that when traveling with an infant internationally that most airlines require the infant to be ticketed and it is usually 10% of the adult’s ticket price. Well my roundtrip ticket price was $1,045 and I expected Dy’s ticket to cost $104.50, 10% right? Wrong!! Dy’s ticket cost $445. The reason Delta gave me was that the 10% is based on the ticket price without fees and that they had to add all of the fuel surcharge, FAA, airport, etc. fees to her ticket, as well. Also, I had to pay the Delta booking fee of $25(at that time) twice. This was because Delta doesn’t allow consumers to book an international flight with infant-in-arms on their web site. You have to call Delta’s reservation center. Since there are two people (Dy and myself) they had to charge me the fee twice, talk about hidden fees and sticker shock. I almost didn’t book the tickets and thought about canceling the trip, but I had already booked the reward tickets.

I'm glad I purchased the tickets when I did. By September 2008, the fuel surcharge and booking fees had doubled.

What I Learned (WIL):

(1) Call and check the base fare and additional fees, first, before booking reward tickets.

(2) If you believe that the fees are going to go up, book your plan tickets as soon as you can.