findtheriver's profile

Online nowFindtheriver: d'Zhuoy is a 41 year old woman from Ex-Urbs, New York, USA.; Likes 845 pages, 30 videos, 75 photos • 98 fans • Received 27 reviews; Member since Aug 13, 2006

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May 11, 7:32pm: So ... Mother's Day. I picked all of our tulips and set them in front of me on the patio. Cried only once and quickly reminded myself how lucky I was to have had her at all. And it did help.

Chasing the American Dream with $25 & The American, A Maga…: May 9, 4:43pm 22 reviews poverty, stupidity, puh-leeze
http://www.american.com/archive/2008/april-04-08/chasing-the-american-dream-w...; What a specious little shit this author is. This college graduate played poor for a year and succeeded despite not using his connections or his college credentials the whole time. His thesis is that people can pull themselves up by the bootstraps if they are as virtuous and self-abnegating as this product of the upper middle class. He concludes that poverty is not cyclical.

The problem with his thesis is this faulty logic: The indigent don't have the right attitude to succeed, even with the plentiful government support they receive. Middle-class people come from a culture of expectations and don't require government intervention to make their way to the American dream. Therefore it is virtue, not government support, that enables the American dream. Thus, poor people, because they aren't raised in the culture of success, don't have that virtue. QED: It is their own fault that they remain poor.

Now this, to me, is the very definition of cyclical poverty. This guy is probably a Freeper troll or some other flavor of insufferable prick.

In The Triangle on Flickr - Photo Sharing!: May 7, 9:02am 1 review birds, bird-id
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11437102@N00/2228015749; I believe my little bird is a Carolina wren. Right now it's picking through the woodpile looking for bugs.

May 7, 8:46am: Among the many flying critters buzzing about my patio today, as I sit here and write, is one honey bee who I can describe only as insane and obsessed. He (?) hovers around my computer, occasionally trying to crawl into its various ports. He is not dissuaded by the numerous carpenter bees careening around the patio. He is not repelled by cigarette smoke. And I believe he spent the night in the cap of my ballpoint pen, as I saw him lodge himself in the bee-sized hole in the cap and never saw him emerge from it before I went inside for bed around 10:30.

The tulip beds are going full throttle, the scent of lilac bushes wafts past me on the occasional breeze, and the clematis has sprouted some buds.

One of our ruby-throated hummingbirds showed up two days ago and I immediately fixed up the feeder for him and his mate, but he has not come back; I think the aggressive carpenter bees are discouraging him.

The goldfinches, purple finches, titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers -- and a couple of times a rose-breasted grosbeak -- are thronging to the feeders six feet away from me.

There's this other bird that I have yet to identify -- a gorgeous little brown & white-streaked songbird -- that hops along the ground, picking through the unraked leaves to find bugs, and sharpens her beak on one of the chairs near me. I'll have to try to identify her today.

Meanwhile, this insane, obsessed honey bee continues circling my macbook. It makes me wonder whether the decline in hives is at all related to the ubiquitous electronic vibrating things that humans have introduced into the environment. After all, my honey bee seems indifferent to an authentic honey bee social life except whatever my macbook is "telling" him it can offer, and to the work and natural interests of a honey bee. Passing strange.

May 7, 7:06am: Before I became a teacher seven years ago, I was in a managerial position in publishing. The last press I worked at called me and asked me to come back (see Apr 6 & 25 entries). I went the day before yesterday to have a sit-down with the guy in my job and the VP. Everyone I know at the scientific institution where the press is said that the VP is easy to get along with and I'd enjoy talking with him. Okay, I thought, I'm looking forward to meeting him.

I don't know whether he was nervous or bored, but he kept looking out the glass wall of his office, and at one point he even started cupping his hands together to make a series of almost-farting noises. And although it seemed like he couldn't bear the conversation we were having -- including my very good (if I may say so) answers to his questions -- he and the guy in my position kept saying things like "when you get here..." and "you'd be able to -- er, the person in that position will be able to..." So it was a strange interaction.

I put them in a position of convincing me to come back, since I already have a job and these guys gave off a stench of desperation (the guy in my job is leaving on June 6 to move to another country). And that stench repelled me to some degree. As I put it to one of my friends, it was like a drunk popular guy striking out on a booty call as he goes down the list of likely suspects, and in desperation he calls the ugliest girl on his list because he knows she'll jump at the chance. (How's that DBT working, findtheriver?)

I remained interested but noncommittal the whole time, citing my selling points but keeping my options open.

The upshot is that, over the next week, the VP is going to press the finance office for approval of the two positions he wants to fund in the press. At that point we can talk about salary & I'll try to negotiate some other stuff. If they play ball, it's possible that I'll go back, if only for a cushy place to park myself for a while. But frankly, I no longer have a passion for publishing.

FLARE-facade: May 6, 1:26pm 42 reviews architecture, i-want-that
http://www.flare-facade.com/; Leave it to the Germans. Watch the video.

I wonder if I can budget this in to our remodeling....

Create you own secret pheromone to attract females using your sperm and urine: May 6, 12:15pm 2 reviews
http://lolegag.com/?p=3683; All I can say is ... EWWWWW!!!

Your Site Name - Tales of Teaching: May 6, 10:41am 1 review education
http://mrcclass.squarespace.com/a-blog-from-the-front-lines/; If you think teachers of little kids lead a sheltered life of snack time and rainbows, go visit Stumbler mrcclass's other blog. It's new, so there's not a lot on it yet, but it's worth putting on your RSS feed to see what he drudges up from memory next.

Eugene Mirman: May 4, 2:42pm 165 reviews bizarre, strange, funny
http://www.eugenemirman.com/; The crooning child is by turns hysterical and creepy, and, I admit, it did amuse me for an uncomfortably long time. But the real gems on this site are the Anti-Gay Phone Company conversations he had with some Christian telecom that wanted him to press 1 to ban gay marriage. Those folks were very informative though -- who knew that Canada permits man-boy love and that Sprint and ATT actively advocate hardcore child pornography!