ScooterMac

If you urgently need it (and for K-1 purposes I don't know why you would so desperately need one immediately), you could try to call the office and they could look it up

Just for the record....not all offices will give you the SSN over the phone. The Erie, PA office and many others require you to come to the office in person, with ID, before they'll give you your number. I can't imagine any clerk giving you the number over the phone - there's no way to verify your identity.

Your office may have done it, but others should be prepared to make that second trip if they need the number immediately, just in case (though, in most cases, you won't need the number immediately).

Stupid stupid stupid flu.

This is the first year I've ever gotten a flu shot, and I've been sick more times than I think I ever have been in my life. Granted, I work with between 100-200 students a week, but jeez!

This is at least the third time I've had the flu this winter. I've had two or three nasty colds as well - one of which started before my wedding (in January) and still hasn't really gone away.

Dear immune system,

Quit being terrible at what you're supposed to be doing. I can't miss any more work

-Me.

Glad you made it safely!!! Congrats on the (relatively) easy POE! Hope you get settled in and get your registration soon!

Hope you feel better soon Marilyn!

Spoom and I just got back from a 3 day conference in Harrisburg, PA for after-school programs. Loooooottts of information on programming, financing, grants, finding volunteers, etc. I'm super excited to start implementing some of the stuff we learned!

Happy Friday everyone!

Congrats!!!

This is my last work-related vent for (hopefully) at least 2 weeks. I'll be out of town next week for a conference for youth center advocates, volunteers, directors, teachers, etc. It'll be nice to be around people who are supportive of our goals for a change!

Last night, about 15 minutes after we opened, the police chief wrangled about 8 tweens-to-teens into my building. These are kids who come to our building, but hadn't been in our building yet that day, and who weren't on the way to our building (they were going to a kid's house). The police chief screamed at the kids in front of about 35 of their peers, telling them that if they wanted to smoke, that they should smoke in the youth center (which is illegal, nevermind being against our rules) or on our property (which would cause them to get kicked out, since it's against our rules to have tobacco on our property). He never lowered his voice below bellowing the whole time, and when I asked what had happened, he turned and screamed at me that these kids are "YOUR RESPONSIBILITY! YOURS! LET THEM SMOKE WHEREVER THEY WANT IN HERE, JUST KEEP THEM INSIDE. THEY'RE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!". Again, these students weren't in my building, and weren't heading for my building.

The cop wouldn't give me an answer as to exactly what happened, but from talking to the students it was clear that he caught them and instead of calling their parents, taking their smokes, citing them, etc. he just brought them to the youth center for me to deal with. What the heck?!

*facepalm*

Yep. Crossing the border [generally] works well as long as you're honest, to-the-point, and backed up with documentation.

Glad your girl was able to cross - Buffalo has always been fairly nice to Spoom and me

Good luck!!!

You know what's over the top? Airbrushed eagles, and stars and stripes all over a FORD TOUGH truck, along with bumper stickers all over the back end about how you're AMERICAN AND DAMN PROUD OF IT. Plus the American flags waving from one CB Antenna and a "rebel" flag hanging from the other - That's a little over the top.

Fixed that for you. True story. Our school had to ban students from displaying the confederate flag on their vehicles when I was in high school.

Is this today's version of "The dog ate my homework!"

Except the book is available at the library, likely I bought maybe 10 books during college, borrowed the rest from our library or from classmates who'd taken the course before me.

Also, cars with broken windows still run enough to get you to class! And since (presumably) all the valuables in the car, along with the book, got stolen...there shouldn't be any concern about leaving it out with a broken window!

I wasn't an "at-risk" youth or anything, but some of the kids surely were. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe Scooter can look into diversifying what they offer a bit...give kids that much more incentive. Ultimately the overriding desire is that the kids there are safe and staying out of trouble. Finding things other than drugs or hooliganism to engage them is what will keep them coming back.

Right now, we have 2 PS2 systems and a decent amount of games, a projector and built-in movie screen to watch movies, 5 computers online (working on 6 and 7 as we speak), pool tables, ping pong tables, foosball tables, an air hockey table, weight and exercise equipment, books, board games, puzzles, and free food. We had an xbox 360, but one of the kids knocked it off the TV and now it isn't working....we also have a pinball game (free), but it's broken as well. We try to do field trips, but we've wound up cancelling every trip we've planned - we get maybe 1-3 kids who bring in money/permission slips for outside events. Most of the kids say they can't afford to go on the trips (including a $6 fee for all-day tubing). We have equipment to have a photography club, which the kids really want, but don't have an adult to take the kids out to take pictures (I can't be in the center and with that group at the same time, and I can't let them leave with our equipment without an adult). We've also had programs offered by the girl scouts for the middle schoolers, but again, no adults to help supervise (they have a required adult to student ratio, which we don't even come close to meeting). We do community service activities (when I have enough adults to supervise), and we have homework help for the kids who are struggling. Spoom is working on a program to help the older teens get ready to interview and look for work - we're working with students who are stuck in generational proverty...no one to tell them to wear nice clothes to the interview, and that the correct answer to "Why do you want to work here" isn't "cuz I need money, dude."

I'd like to get some new/other stuff in the building, but we run on.....well, we'd make a shoestring budget look excessive. I don't have any cash on hand to buy/replace/repair stuff (I have about 12 broken pool sticks, and could repair probably 10 if I had the money to do it).

It's a balancing act.....a really, really difficult one, some days!

You know, in the kind of work you're doing, from my own personal experience there is ALWAYS going to be people that think that they can either do a better job than you. I don't know how small the town is that you work in, but getting the support of the leaders in the community is essential. I think I remember you saying earlier that community leaders were one of your critics? It's time that you met with them and came to some kind of understanding. What is it they want of you? How can you guys meet and come up with some type of compromise on what it is that they're looking for? Is it just location that bothers them? That wouldn't suggest to me that it's location if they're supporting the other person from opening up a place so close to you. Bring some of the parents that DO think you do a great job to the community leader meeting. Have some kids that are doing volunteer work in the community take a leadership role in advocating the program you run.

Small towns are SO political! If you really believe in what you're doing though, you can't ignore that the biggest critic's of your program will be your demise if you don't have them on your side. Maybe it's time to get someone involved, just ONE person that can advocate for you...a professional from the community, that will do some pro bono work for your group. It will take a lot of time and effort to do this work, and if you're the person "running" the centre each day, that might not be possible without some help on the "#### kissing" part of things.

Best of luck!

It's a MUCH too small town *LOL*

We have people on both sides - 3 school board members, a former teacher, our guidance couselor, and a few pastors are on our board of directors. Most of the school board members are on our side. The kids advocate for their own program and do community service work as well, but these are kids that most people don't trust (we have a lot of at-risk kids) so when people see them out, they clutch their purses a little tighter and cross the street.

There's one school board member backed by about 10 very vocal people, including the police officer's wife (who stated publicly that her husband is against the youth center), the superintendent's secretary, the head of the teacher's union, etc. I've tried to talk to all of these people, but they're not willing to even set foot inside the building, let alone meet with me there to see what we're working with. We're in the process of finding a new superintendent, so who knows what will happen there. I've sat down and spoken with the police officer, and encouraged him to stop by whenever he notices an issue (which he's never done). I've spoken with the lady on the school board, but she insists that these students must be charged a fee to enter so they learn that "life isn't a free ride". There's no compromise in her mind. A lot of people have a problem with the fact that tax money (from the school) is going to support the youth center, and that we also receive money from local churches. People either complain about their tax money going to "waste" on these kids, or they cry "seperation of church and state!" It hurts my brain.

As for parents, most of them are absentees during these hours - we have one parent who volunteers, and we occasionally see others when they pick their kid up (on the way home from work or whatever). We've tried repeatedly to get them involved, but even the ones who are home during those hours don't have any desire to help. One mother actually said "You take him during those hours so he's not a pain in my @$$, why would I want to help there?"

I'm about burned out with trying to do my own PR work while running the place. I know there will always be people who think they could do it better, or that I'm not doing the right thing, and I can handle a lot of it. Right now it's just absurd to me that I have a group of people who think I'm not doing enough, and another who think I'm expecting too much to expect the kids to behave civilly.

Arrrrrgh

When we opened yesterday afternoon, my volunteer came flying in the door flipping out that someone in the community was going to open a rival youth center across town (less than a 1/2 mile away) to put "me" out of business. Mind you, my volunteer was *way* overreacting, but still....This person is a parent of 2 kids who come to our youth center, was once very active in our project, and thinks that our youth center is way too strict and that kids "need a place to act like kids." Our rules are actually fairly reasonable (Respect the staff, each other, and the equipment, don't make out with your girlfriend, don't scream obscenities across the room, etc) and we don't let kids skateboard inside the building because of liability reasons.

So now, on top of battling a group of people who think we don't do enough with these kids, I've got opposition telling me that I expect too much of these kids.

Anyway, this guy wants to open a youth center in a much bigger building, allow kids to skateboard, have arcade games and let the kids do whatever they want. And, to make it even better, he has his kids telling all the other students about how cool its gonna be, and how they're opening in less than two weeks, and how "I'm" totally going to be out of business. What mostly bothers me is that this guy keeps referring to me by name, and talking about putting me out of work and stuff. It's bizarre.

What the heck is wrong with my town?

As funny as this is going to sound my FiL swears it works. He was getting really bad leg cramps at night and found out somewhere that a bar of soap helps. Can't remember if there is a specific kind it has to be, but he says he hasn't be woken up by leg cramps since.

I dunno if it will work with charlie horses.

I remember reading that on snopes at some point. I'm gonna try to get my potassium levels back up and make sure I'm hydrated this weekend too....hopefully that will help

I swear I'm going to gnaw my leg off if it doesn't stop hurting!

I had compartmental syndrome in my lower leg (about an inch above my ankle) about 10 years ago. I had a series of muscle relaxer injections, two surgeries (4" scar on my leg!), and various air casts/splints/crutches/etc. Right after the last surgery, I tore the scar tissue training for my softball team, and wound up back in physical therapy (and benched for the season). From that point on, my leg has been gradually regaining feeling...I can feel most of my leg except for maybe 2-3" in either direction from the area the surgery was in.

Unfortunately, as the feeling has been coming back into my foot and ankle area, I've been getting these god awful charlie horses in the middle of the night right at the site of the surgery on my leg. They're so painful I wind up waking up Spoom (even when I try not to), and I can't rely on my foot and leg to work properly during these spells (so I can't "walk it off" like I used to do with charlie horses). I had two of these spells last night.

So much pain, so little sleep! I think I'm just frustrated today because I'm tired, but I needed to vent.

Someone predicted snow, so everyone's in panic mode. You'd think living in the snow belt, everyone would just be used to it by now. Pfft, they're only calling for a foot.

Down 5lbs as of today! Onto the next 5!

This is still mostly me losing weight thanks to giving up restaurant food and pop for Lent. I don't really have the opportunity to work out at the moment - I get up for work at 6 and leave at 7, work from 7:30am - 7:00pm (more like 7:30 before we're out of there some nights), and then come home, eat dinner (thankfully Spoom is an amazing cook!) and then fall asleep on the couch. I don't really get a lunch break since I go right from one job to the other, so delaying dinner a bit to work out would likely cause me to pass out (usually dizzy by the time I get off work). After dinner, I have no motivation to work out whatsoever, and I'm usually asleep a half hour after we finish dinner. Neither job gives me an oppotunity to work out - no breaks at either job, and I'm on my feet the entire second job chasing middle/high schoolers. It's frustrating.

You might be able to, but I've understood that not everyone is allowed to.

It seems to depend who you ask - my husband (then fiance) was planning to volunteer at my youth center (non-profit) for our summer park program which was dreadfully understaffed. When he called to confirm that this would be okay, he was told that the government considers volunteer work "taking a job from a US resident/citizen" and that he was not allowed to volunteer anywhere in the states until he'd received his EAD.

Granted, this was over a year ago, and we were in the midst of the K-1 process - it might be completely different for you (and if someone can provide evidence that I'm wrong, I would *love* it! my husband would still like to volunteer, we're still dreadfully understaffed, and the only thing holding him back is what he was told during the visa process).

The pledge is something that is decided on individual states whether to use it or not.

This is a bit off topic, but...I think there are only about 7 states in the US who don't require schools to have students say the pledge. The other 7 have the option to have students say it or not. Only about 6 states require students to say the pledge.

My school didn't give students an option. We had a kid in our homeroom in high school who wound up getting suspended for not saying the pledge.

But nooooo! Texas > The World!!!1!!1!

Good luck!! Here's to a quick and painless POE experience and trip!

Find a doctor willing to help you better then who also will let you make payments (what you can).

There are options out there if you're willing to look for them.

Granted, every state in the union is different on what you can find out there, but usually if you look there's options.

One thing that we have here is for those who cannot qualify for medicaid and fall in the 'middle' on of the health groups specifically helps those people out. Any co-pays are minimal and you're basically 'covered' without having to worry about extra costs. Check your city, ask local hospitals especially public ones if they have any 'extra care' options for those in the middle income bracket.

I've looked for something like that and haven't been able to find anything. There was one option, but I make about $2000 a year too much to qualify for that help. The doctors (under my health care plan, anyway) who allow patients to pay after the visit still require that payment in ONE payment, and right after the visit.

My personal situation wasn't even the point, more the ridiculous cost of an individual healthcare plan. My rates, deductible, etc. would be the same no matter what I weighed. For a healthy person to pay nearly $4000 a year just to get coverage, plus have a $3000 deductible on top of it, is ridiculous.

Which is something I'm trying to do. As I said, I've already lost over 100lbs, and I'm continuing to lose weight. Also, I should note, the cost of my insurance has nothing to do with my weight - that's what they charge per month, same deductible, to someone who was a stick figure. It's just a ridiculous amount of money.

That said, my doctor is concered that I have a problem with my thyroid which is causing a lot of my issues. My mother had thyroid cancer and was going through treatments while pregnant with me. He wants me to get my thyoid tested, but I can't afford to have the tests done. See what I mean?

Is it also amusing that I work 12 hour days 5 days a week and 2-3hrs the other two days of the week, and I can barely afford health insurance? And that's just health insurance for me. My "primary" job doesn't offer health insurance, and my "secondary" job won't add me on their plan because I'm not full time. I make too much to qualify for medicaid or gov't assistance. (And no, we don't have a 60" plasma screen TV).

My health insurance costs about $320/month. I have a $3000 deductible. Going to the doctor for *anything* costs me at least $50-$75. It costs more if it involves bloodwork (not covered), shots, etc. My perscription (single) costs over $60/month. This is the --absolute best deal-- I could get on health insurance. I was denied by 4 different healthcare companies in the course of a year due to not meeting their "height/weight ratio requirements", even though I had a complete physical (at my own expense) and a letter from my doctor with the results, the notation that I'd already lost over 100lbs and was on a weight management program, and that I had no pre-existing conditions or co-morbitities.

But yeah, there's nothing wrong with the US health care system. I like having to cough up a huge chunk of money each month to not be able to afford going to the doctor.

Yeah, Seiden does the medicals really early. Be prepared to be there for two to three hours since it's first come first served.

Edit: This is actually Spoom posting, I didn't realize my wife had logged in on my lappy