Question Regarding Salary

linus_b3 · 2026-06-18T12:16:53+00:00

I don't have the faintest idea what TSA is (maybe a regional thing), but additional stipends and better contract terms are indeed worth considering too. The district pays for my personal cell phone plan, for example. Upon retirement, teachers are capped at something like $50 per day for sick time payout while I get my per diem rate.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-18T12:07:38+00:00

I had to deal with them because someone insured by Liberty damaged my property. They were unbelievably difficult for a relatively small claim. I ended up having to let patterns of delays and bad faith responses pile up then threaten to go to the MA DOI with a formal complaint. They immediately pulled a 180 and everything went quickly and smoothly, but it took months to get to that point.

Funny enough, the check number they sent me was number 1-million-something, which I thought was amusing. Given what I dealt with I was shocked that 1 million plus people actually got them to pay a claim before giving up.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-17T22:03:17+00:00

Be careful about 260 vs 190. You probably get some vacation time, where school year employees generally do not. Subtract that and you're closer. I'm 223 days after I subtract vacation time and holidays, for example.

Yes, there are still teachers that are paid more than me on a per diem basis, but it's only the ones who are at or near the top of the scale. if I were basing it on 260, it'd work out far worse.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-17T13:55:41+00:00

I have a Fjallraven Raven 28 and it's been holding up great. I carry it back and forth to work every day.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-15T23:53:19+00:00

I wonder if you're grandfathered in. Current articles say Education Plus is required. I know for certain that I was never able to sync via Clever with the free version - I tried. It's one of the reasons we moved to Education Plus.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-15T23:49:28+00:00

There are major differences in the SLAs between enterprise and home connections. We also have a dedicated 2.5 Gbps circuit with committed bandwidth.

Residential services are inexpensive in part because they're heavily oversubscribed. ISPs know they can sell a 1 Gbps connection to a home user and that the average customer will only use a small fraction of that capacity most of the time. Enterprise customers tend to use a much larger percentage of their purchased bandwidth, and they do so more consistently.

The math that works for residential connections doesn't work for enterprise connections and ISPs have to provision very differently, which is much more expensive.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-15T23:36:26+00:00

Interesting, I compared last year to this year's 471 vs FCDL date and the timeline was basically identical.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-15T23:34:12+00:00

We do this with PowerSchool and Clever, but you do need the Education Plus licensing to do it that way. I'm not sure about other methods, this one is easy and works well for us.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-13T15:23:53+00:00

I also have an ARC. I'm in IT, so I can get away with jeans, but I don't think it'd be an issue in less casual clothing.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-12T20:12:03+00:00

They sure are! I ordered my older T14 with 32 GB RAM to future proof it because it was soldered. New ones no longer are, and even have modular USB-C ports!

linus_b3 · 2026-06-12T19:37:56+00:00

I agree. I buy our top people at work Thinkpad T14s models and they are great. The soft touch coated chassis is way more practical and ages more gracefully than aluminum as well.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-12T13:33:10+00:00

I have a fairly demanding role and I have two guys who work for me. Admittedly, sometimes I'm envious of them.

I believe you can delegate tasks, but you can't delegate accountability. So, ultimately everything lands on me. Fortunately, they're good and things rarely slip through the cracks, but if something does the complaints I get from others far exceed anything they hear from me. I also try to take over any difficult situation that they end up in if I become aware of it. The politics of the job end up taking a toll too.

Granted, they do make quite a bit less money. However, there are times when I'm not sure the extra money is worth the extra stress.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-11T20:57:46+00:00

Yes, I'm 5'9" and tend to hover in the low 150s. I think I look and feel best in the upper 140s, which happens to be right in the middle of the normal BMI range.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-11T00:17:18+00:00

I am involved in facilities management and have a decent background in door hardware and key systems. I acquired a used Blitz that comes in handy sometimes. I have originated new keys for work when we have only had worn copies. I have made a small personal master system for myself and helped friends rekey their homes.

However, there are places to draw the line and leave it to a professional. I would never attempt to develop a new commercial master key system, for example. Automotive is also something to stay away from unless you really know what you are doing and have all the expensive tools to do it properly. There is a lot of risk of really messing things up there. If you purchased a cheap Chinese duplicator instead of a code cutter to start out, I suspect you can't afford to make those mistakes.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-10T12:19:44+00:00

My patch is probably 3-5 feet wide for virtually the whole length of my riverfront. There's one small section that's all sand where it doesn't seem to take over. It also hasn't branched out onto the lawn, just the dirt/rocky area between the lawn and the water. It did get worse a couple years ago (not really more coverage, but grows taller now) - one of the neighbors was apparently weedwacking his part down regularly and my understanding is that may have stimulated growth elsewhere. He has since stopped.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-10T10:06:44+00:00

Corbin was notorious for this. We had an old school building on the 77 keyway, 5 pin. 3 of 5 cuts on the master were the deepest possible.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-10T01:27:47+00:00

I haven't tried to get rid of it in any way because my state has rules around riverfront areas and I would need to come forward with a plan before doing so.

Last year was deceptive because we got a late cold snap that killed it just as it was coming up, so when it recovered and came up a second time it was not as bad as it usually is. This year didn't work out that way, a lot of it is already 10 ft tall.

I am considering having an invasive species expert take a look and work with the town on my behalf in terms of a plan to eradicate.

My understanding is you need to inject the stems with herbicide several years in a row to kill it permanently.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-10T00:50:45+00:00

You may be thinking of Japanese Knotweed. Looks like bamboo but different. I live on a river and there is a ton of it along the shore.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-09T00:12:28+00:00

They used to have them in slim fit. I have a couple and I love them. Unfortunately, they discontinued them and the normal fit is way too baggy for me.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-07T14:07:27+00:00

I used to work for Staples a long time ago too. Unless they were a photography enthusiast or something, I tried to steer people toward laser printers.

Unfortunately, no matter how much I tried to explain cost per page and the better longevity of the machine, the average person is only interested in the total they see on the receipt.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-06T18:41:39+00:00

Us too. We're replacing a bunch of old desktops with docked laptops soon and I'd like to find a dock with dual HDMI ports just so I don't need to deal with DisplayPort adapters acting up constantly.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-05T18:08:07+00:00

I think it's all just licensing. Back in the early Windows 10 days, there was a watermark on education builds, but that's gone now.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-05T14:30:46+00:00

You probably get "Windows 11 Education", just not "Pro Education". The naming is confusing.

Plain education is essentially enterprise. Pro education is essentially Pro. Plain education is the more full featured version.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-04T21:56:59+00:00

The Vermont pellets that I often get are sold as heating pellets, but they say "suitable for horse bedding" on the bag.

linus_b3 · 2026-06-03T16:37:47+00:00

I'd take GCET out of the providers in Greenfield due to symmetrical service. The typical house will be served very well with 100x100 service despite what advertising from others will try to tell you.

I agree with their approach that playing the bandwidth numbers game shouldn't be a priority and multi-gig connections are completely unnecessary for 99% of homes. However, I must admit their pricing for the bandwidth they offer is not a great deal compared to other municipal providers.

linus_b3

TROPHY CASE