Blogging

You know, blogging was funner, for me, before everyone was doing it (I'm quite aware of how teenish that sounds).

But now, I use blogging in my teaching and in professional development workshops.
Last year, everyone in my circle was talking about blogging in their courses and the news has also been using blogging more and more.

Of course I'm glad folks are blogging--writing and writing. But once blogging hit mainstream, I just lost interest. Now it's twitter and facebook, so I'm kindof back. But the pizazz isn't here.

It seems pointless to log these historic days from my insignificant (I'm just being realistic) point-of-view when thousands upon thousand are blogging theirs.

I wonder what Ruby Payne would say about this case I found on Yahoo! News:

Neal Wanless' [23 year old from South Dakota who won $232 million in a state lotto] winnings are certainly enough to set him and his family up for life, but past lottery winners have burned through vast fortunes in spectacular fashion or found that they were better off before they struck it rich.

Evelyn Marie Adams won the New Jersey lottery twice in the mid-1980s but still managed to lose the entire $5.4 million.

And there's West Virginia's Jack Whittaker, who won $315 million on Christmas day, 2002, and five years later was blaming the money for causing his granddaughter's fatal drug overdose, his divorce, his inability to trust and hundreds of lawsuits filed against him.

"I don't have any friends," he told The Associated Press in 2007. "Every friend that I've had, practically, has wanted to borrow money or something and of course, once they borrow money from you, you can't be friends anymore."

Susan Bradley, whose company in Palm Beach, Fla., the Sudden Money Institute, provides financial planning to the abruptly wealthy, said it's a good sign that Wanless took his time to come forward.

"No opportunity to buy or invest in all that is going to go away," she said. "They have plenty of time."

But she said Wanless will likely experience the same sense of isolation that many other large jackpot winners do.

"They've lost their peers. They are substantially different from everyone that they know," she said.

Bradley said lottery winners should make sure they have enough money to live a modest lifestyle and take a year or two before deciding to buy real estate or make risky purchases. It's important that the winners communicate that strategy to others hoping to direct their financial planning, she said.

These folks who do "backbreaking work" have no framework for economics--that's something people are born into. Instead of knowing how to invest, they are socialized to "take care of each other" . . .

I'm alive!

Security is tight though and I don't use this computer any more.

I've become a mac person.

Last Words of WIsdom

Try Healthy Choices

Chicken Tortilla soup.

That is all.

November Dreams

I dreamed that Michele Obama and I were best friends.

She was preparing for a major coming out party in DC
snce she was a princess from abroad,
so she and her two daughters hid in a trailer,
in the back woods of Appalachia. I had just bought the place
because it had a pool--a pool on cinder blocks.

Michle let me wear her ground fatiques from the first
Desert Stoem. I knew it was a rare privilege, even if
she swore they meant nothing to her and the press
was always trying to get her to say they did.

Life at the trailor was going well, and I couldn't believe
my good fortune. That is, until my MIL decided to visit.

I was shocked to see her there, trying to climb up the steps.
I knew I should introduce them, but to my horror, MIL said:
"Well, if it isn't Condoleezza Rice!"
What an utterly racist thing to say! I was ruined! Having my brain
splathered with such a statement, I stuttered; I had forgotten
the First Lady's name. I ran and hid in the bathroom, deperately
racking my brain for a name that started with a "V."

Jump cut to the inaugration. Somehow I snuck in and was trying to
convince those who stood by that Michele and I were best friends.
No one bought it. Instead, we all wanted to talk about her dress
and the fact that she got to design it herself.
What a lovely peach, frilly, sequined sloofa.

I tried to get her attenetion, but, understandably, she had
cameras to worry about. Well, I had a camera too, so I decided to
focus on her girls, who recognized me and graced me with affection.

They swam in the fountains and I took underwater pictures of them.
I knew they could open their eyes underwater and snapped a shot
to show Michele. She was watching, kindof sadly. There was no way she could
join us and she knew she was missing out.

Awww. . .Did I really miss September?

I had the neatest post figured out
during my long commute yesterday . . .

but now it's gone.

If I had a duaghter,
she'd skip school and go see Obama speak
at our Court House today.

It Must have went Something like This:

Oh! Oh! And then, yeah, then Peter Dinklage
pops up from the casket,
foaming and cracked out of his mind on LSD . . .


Guess that tune.