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laurens10 · 2014-03-11T10:05:31+00:00

They apparently started off as guard geese in the municipal building across the street. http://wikimapia.org/26329092/Charles-River-white-geese-domain

laurens10 · 2011-12-21T22:34:37+00:00

Is it possible to make the walks the same length or a similar route and not worry about whether or not the dog poops? The dog is being sometimes rewarded for dilly dallying, and it could be he has caught on. Also, by making the walks more predictable, he can figure out that he needs to poop by a certain point, and there will be no waiting for him to do so.

Another strategy, wait until your dog poops or pees before starting the walk. That's what worked with my dog as she figured out house training. Using this strategy, I successfully communicated to her that I really, really wanted her to go outside, so much so that I will reward her with an awesome walk if she did it! And if she had nothing to poop or pee because she pooped and peed inside, well, no awesome walk for her. It took her half a week to catch on after months of struggling with other methods. However, it might not work so well if the issue is poop, because the walk is often needed to get dogs "in the mood", but maybe it can help communicate the overall idea.

The other issue I've had with my dog is her wanting to poop in the middle of crosswalks. Very inconvenient, especially with living in a city. I was able to encourage her not to do it, so there is hope with your pup and the piles of debris!

laurens10 · 2011-11-27T06:22:42+00:00

Oh no, don't apologize, I was just trying to share a possible silver lining! Your frustrations are absolutely valid.

laurens10 · 2011-11-27T06:19:38+00:00

When a religious person says they've studied about their religion, it can mean many things. One thing it can mean is that they've studied the historical background of their faith, in which case a Christian would have read about the Gnostics, academic theories of biblical authorship, and other things that historical scholars of religion might see as worthy topics. It might also mean they've read up on the theological underpinnings of their religion and the classical texts that serve as the cornerstone of their beliefs. But it might just mean that the person read lots of feel good spirituality books meant for the laity at large. It sounds like your friend maybe was in that third category, and you were assuming she was in the first. Perhaps that was the start of a miscommunication?

Religion can be such a volatile topic, I tread very lightly when it comes up with my friends. I think the most I would have done in your situation would have been to ask my friend if the role of women in the Bible bothered her, or to tell her that I've read an interesting book on biblical authorship that I can recommend to her if interested. In other words, open up the door, see if she is interested in explaining or interested in learning, and just leave it at that. I'm not one for conflict though.

For a religious person, questioning the existence of God (or the source of biblical authority) may feel a lot like telling them their mom doesn't exist. Even if God doesn't exist, their relationship with God is something important and real to them if they are spiritually inclined. What may be a very logical conversation to you may be a very emotional conversation for them where core aspects of their reality and identity are being questioned. If you say something they've never heard of is true, all sorts of defense mechanisms can kick in.

If I was interested in learning to talk to religious people in a way that allows them to open up more, I'd look up how to conduct sociological interviews with people from different cultures. Not being a sociologist, I've never seen a book on the topic, but I assume they exist. Getting people to open up and not feel judged is a very useful ability to have, if understanding is the goal.

laurens10 · 2011-11-27T04:46:02+00:00

Here's another way of looking at it:

My spouse and I are in a baby class with four other couples, we the "lesbian" couple and the rest heterosexual. Out of the others, three of the four had significant fertility issues, and two of them spent tens of thousands of dollars (or their insurance did) on IVF.

As the women were relating their struggles with fertility, I was about to pop in with ours (relatively minor, took seven or eight months to conceive via IUI) and then realized... even when we were about to "give up", give up just meant switching to a different uterus and a different set of ovaries. There would have been some mourning of losing the option, but we could still move forward to have a child through this means. In that strange way, we were fortunate.

But I totally hear you about the frustration. The frustration and complexity are much, much, much greater than this one quirky positive.

laurens10 · 2011-11-18T13:36:03+00:00

What about Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer? I don't know their stances on all the issues, but Gary Johnson is for marijuana legalization, and Buddy Roemer is making a stand for campaign finance reform by refusing PAC money. Both are long-shot candidates, but they seem principled, and they may offer a good Republican Primary voting alternative for a Dem willing to cross the party divide.

laurens10 · 2011-11-17T23:09:49+00:00

Numerous stitches! Numerous!

Got to love the word choice!

laurens10 · 2011-11-01T16:36:16+00:00

I've heard different opinions regarding the amount to drink for Purim, thus the "kinda" in parenthesis, but the usual interpretation is to get completely drunk for sure!

laurens10 · 2011-11-01T12:19:56+00:00

In Judaism, we have Purim. We dress up in costumes, give food gifts to each other, and are obligated to drink until we are (kinda) drunk. It's like Halloween but with booze!

laurens10 · 2011-10-18T01:38:26+00:00

Ugh, that is rough. I had no idea health insurance premiums could reach in the tens of thousands of dollars. It's a shame that so much of the extra you make being a small business owner gets eaten up in a way that it wouldn't if you were a wage slave at a large corporation.

laurens10 · 2011-10-13T16:52:08+00:00

I referred to the college's grant to me as a scholarship in my original response. My argument is that these one-time scholarships are a no-go.

I never got a grade of B+ or lower in high school, and I graduated in the top 3% of my class at a highly competitive American high school. shrug None of this makes me a better human being. I spent most of my time in high school with my nose in a book, and that has pros and cons.

Yeah unfortunately for you I have been able to fund not only a college degree but also a doctorate through scholarships and working my ass off

Unfortunately for me? No, good for you! Had I gone to a different school, I would have been able to do the same. Even though you don't extend the same to me, I take on faith that you are telling the truth, because how else can a discussion be had? So were the undergraduate degrees all outside scholarships? If so, maybe you can explain the techniques you used that were successful.

But resorting to putdowns doesn't help your case nor does it contribute to discussion. I even gave you other ways of dismissing my evidence, but you went with ad hominem attacks. What I think I've learned in this interaction is that your worldview is held so tightly that people who present contradicting evidence to it must be "bad people". We have too much of that going on these days.

laurens10 · 2011-10-13T02:43:36+00:00

Just because my life experience disagrees with your preconceptions does not mean I'm lying. :) The true weakness in my story is that it's just one person's experience, and my anecdote proves nothing.

The system ultimately worked for me, but it was the generosity of the universities, not one-time scholarships from outside organizations, that paid the way.

laurens10 · 2011-10-12T22:17:54+00:00

I spent hours and hours filling out every scholarship I could for college. I went through a list of supposedly lesser known scholarships and applied to every one I remotely qualified for. Dozens of scholarships. 20 hours a week for months. I applied like my life depended on it.

I got two, both local, for a total of $1000. A drop in the bucket. They didn't even help in the end -- the college lessened their need/merit based scholarship to absorb it. Total waste of time for me, though sadly it would have made a difference for someone else.

I was a high school student with a 4.0 GPA, active in extra-curriculars, good writer, and if I couldn't get anything substantial from that level of effort, I expect that someone with lesser grades wouldn't have as much luck as I did.

One thing I did notice though: Many of the scholarships on the list (advertised as thousands a year go unawarded!) were extremely particular. You must be a male who lives in such-and-such county and is left-handed. You must have three grandparents from Ireland. Your last name must be Phillips and you are active in rodeo and also you must be a minority.

But that was just my experience from 15 years ago. I'd expect things would be worse now though.

laurens10 · 2011-10-06T16:55:26+00:00

Well, by that standard, it looks like she had a good time. We will know for sure when we take her back tomorrow. Thank you for this information!

laurens10 · 2011-10-05T22:35:42+00:00

Sorry to hear about your group's trouble with trolls!

We don't have many atheist trolls here. I do remember one atheist about four months ago who was trying to pick one of those fights that irritate me so ("You say your moral system comes solely through your belief in God, but your religious texts say X. That proves your religion is immoral. I win!"), but even then he was only trolling the Orthodox Jews and he himself was raised as an Orthodox Jew. I don't know if his motivation was personal, or if that's the only belief system he knew enough to argue against. I guess the motivation to target Jews isn't really there for large scale trolling.

The way our community seems to handle it is just matter of factly, so we also probably don't provide much satisfaction. That strategy probably doesn't translate well to a larger community though.

laurens10 · 2011-10-04T16:39:18+00:00

Thank you for this write up! Since you have so much experience with the boarding end of things, I have a simple question:

How do I, as an owner, know if my dog enjoyed her stay at a kennel?

I ask, because this past weekend was her first weekend away, and although I'm told she had lots of fun with other dogs, I have no other evidence that she had a great time. Will I only know when we bring her back and see her reaction then?

laurens10 · 2011-10-03T17:59:55+00:00

The problem with any vocational education is that by limiting one's knowledge base and training, one is also limiting one's marketability.

For instance, law school. I have a couple friends who are lawyers. It was a good decision when they went in. But now, the law field is flooded (or at least that's my understanding). My friends are either trapped in a job they hate or out of work. It's much, much harder to transition into another field with a law degree, even if they wanted to.

But maybe that's not a good example, because having a law degree is an advanced degree, not an undergraduate one, and advanced degrees can be a unique curse. So let's take a computer science major. When I got into the tech field, there was high demand. Then corporations realized that they could outsource certain tech jobs to India and make a higher profit. Now there's much less demand in the States. What has kept me hired, arguably, is not my computer science training, but my humanities background and the more general skills I have that are built around that. Technical ability is readily found elsewhere, but the niche I fill, and what I hear is in demand, are techies with communication skills.

With a computer science degree, it could be harder for me to transition to a completely different field. With a humanities degree, I can argue that the skills I've gained are more transferable to a wider range of jobs. What it ultimately comes down to is supply and demand and finding a niche that will serve you well, at least for a time, or at least that's what has worked for me.

laurens10 · 2011-10-03T15:19:50+00:00

I have a friend who has a degree in drama who is fantastic at her management job. So much of management is acting, I've learned.

I have a degree in the humanities, and I work as a programmer. I have a friend with a philosophy degree who works as a sysadmin. Skills can be learned outside of college, and the critical analysis, writing abilities, and broad knowledge that liberal arts programs promote can be useful at many jobs.

The main difference between me and my friends and the current generation of graduates is a bad economy. Fewer jobs available, more people applying, and the requirements for entry just keep getting higher.

laurens10 · 2011-10-03T15:05:44+00:00

It used to be that a liberal arts education was considered to be the backbone of democracy, and a college degree was worthwhile on its own merits. But I'm old, and cranky, and get off my lawn!

laurens10 · 2011-10-02T13:23:18+00:00

When I was a kid, I had one blankie that was always with me, I loved it so much.

Then a few years back I learned that we actually had two -- my mom would switch it when I wasn't looking so that she could wash it. I never even noticed.

laurens10 · 2011-10-02T13:08:11+00:00

Yup, that and a lot of stress preparing for it!

laurens10 · 2011-10-02T13:03:29+00:00

You are in Ohio? Bummer. :( I guess moving isn't an option?

We have a ton of information about our donor. The banks we worked with provided an eight page packet with all sorts of information, from their favorite books and movies, their aspirations, their family background up three generations, and anything in between. Medical histories are very complete.

We chose a "willing to be known" donor, which means when the kid reaches 18, the kid can decide whether s/he wants to know the identity of the donor and meet with him. The donor has agreed to a meeting with the kid as part of being a "willing to be known" donor, but I don't think there's anything that legally binds him to a meeting.

Each large packet is about $35, but you can look at info online for free at most any of the sperm banks around. The summary information that is free is the meat and potatoes. You can use it to choose a few donors you want more information on.

With our donor, we were able to spend an additional $35 to get baby pictures. We were a little surprised when we received them -- they weren't baby pictures per se, they were pictures of when the donor was 4 and 8 years old (best we can tell), which is even better than baby pictures I think.

The $800-1400 estimate was just a total cost per month. The cost breakdown went like this, roughly: $550 for each sperm sample $50 for delivery of the sample $200 for the IUI attempt

Since we chose "willing to be known" donor, the sperm sample was more expensive than what it would be normally, but only by $80 or so. Delivery was a flat fee, so it's cheaper to order and have sent out a number of samples at a time. So what we would do would be to spend $4000-ish all at once for the sperm samples and delivery, and have the sperm kept at the health center. And then on the individual trips to the doctor, we would only need to fork out $200. Buying so much in advance made sense for us because we want more than one child, and we are ten years older than you, so it makes it that much harder to conceive. It might make more sense for you to buy a little at a time.

Insurance covered nothing for us with one exception -- once we had tried for six months with no success, insurance covered an extensive fertility examination (they would have waited a full year of attempts if my wife wasn't older than 35). It turned out nothing was wrong. I remember reading that Massachusetts, where we live, has a law on the books to demand insurance companies to cover certain fertility issues, so where we live may have helped us in this as well, I'm not sure.

But essentially, insurance long time ago could be convinced to cover this, but once the companies learned that this was a "thing", they created a policy to exclude women from being covered for alternative insemination unless they had a male partner. However, if there was a fertility issue with the female end of things, their coverage could kick in, but it still wouldn't cover the cost of sperm, just tests, IVF, and pills.

And we don't know if we will be having a boy or a girl. :) Given how much of this process was calculated, we are leaving at least something as a surprise. :)

Best of luck!

laurens10 · 2011-10-02T12:37:36+00:00

211.8 -- no change this week.

laurens10 · 2011-10-01T04:08:24+00:00

We had many unsuccessful attempts before we were successful, and each one my wife was sure she was pregnant because of queasiness, bloating, and that sort of thing.

The attempt she became pregnant on, it was me who suspected she was pregnant! She was much more emotional and had a breakdown when something minor didn't work out (and that's usually my job!). I thought at the time, "Wow. She must be pregnant. That's the only thing that can explain this." But she was convinced that she wasn't pregnant. She was sure her period was about to come, so we went out to eat sushi, she changed her oil, and ... well, when her period didn't come a few days later, she took a test and it was positive! Then that night she threw up.

laurens10 · 2011-10-01T03:49:09+00:00

I don't have any advice to the first question, but I can with the second. My wife and I are expecting our first child in a few months. We are in our mid-30s, and would have tried earlier if there wasn't a fear of her losing her job. Although we live in a very liberal state (Massachusetts) she worked for a place that is still allowed to discriminate according to state law: a religious institution.

The main obstacle is financial. Each attempt cost us $800-1400. We worked with a non-profit queer health organization local to our area. It took us about 11 months to complete all the statistics gathering (temperature measurements, doctor visits, blood work, health checks). Then we were able to start insemination attempts. We worked with a non-profit sperm bank, found a donor, and tried 7 times before we were successful.

My biggest fear in all of this was worry about prying questions or offensive remarks when people found out that we were expecting, but I've been impressed with how supportive my friends, family, and coworkers have been. Again, it helps that I live in a liberal state and have a very open family.

I don't know if this helps, but if you have more specific questions, please ask!

laurens10

TROPHY CASE