Blog Your Blessings: Good, Good, Good, Good, Bad

Good: The innernets came back last Friday. Very late on Friday because Comcast did not know they had sent me a new modem and had the old modem on record and accused me of buying a third party modem. So the confusion and paperwork literally took hours to unravel. But it's done and it's working well. I can blog again!

Good: Vermont Public Radio has two stations: VPR and VPR Classical. VPR went to talk radio a year and a half ago, leaving me without my tunes. They had plans to build a transmission station in Island Pond and finally it began broadcasting this fall. But I couldn't get the signal here between mountains. When Matt moved in, he brought a stereo with him, and even the new stereo couldn't get the signal. A week ago, I went to Radio Shack down in St. Johnsbury and bought a $7 antenna and now my music is back! My Saturday Afternoon at the Opera (from the Met Opera) is back. Rigoletto was last Saturday's performance.

Good: My Carpenter Pump Reed Organ was finally delivered last Saturday (above photo)! This is eleven months after I bought it. I broke some of the decorative trim on it. And it doesn't play. But I have it.

Good: After being sick with colds, bouts of bronchitis, and laryngitis since October 1, I am now healthy. My voice occasionally disappears still, and at night it is very weak. But every day sees improvement. This has been a tough winter so far.

Bad: My teaching position is being cut 50% when my contract ends on August 1. I have six months to find another 0.5 FTE position or simply another 1.0 FTE position. The depression is here: unemplyment in the Northeast Kingdom is now at 10% (source: The Barton Chronicle).

I admit that I was knocked off balance when I was told about the cut. But I am still very fortunate and as I work myself back, I will continue to count my blessings, keep my faith, and imagine the possibilities for my future.

Thank you for visiting.

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Technorati Tags: Carpenter Organs, Brattleboro, Vermont, VPR, VPR Classical
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Dogs on Thursday: Being Grateful on Thanksgiving

This is one thing I am grateful for: even on a bad weather day when the cats refused to go out, there were no fights. Sophie the dog even gave Buddy the cat a bath.

I am grateful for this bad weather because it is creating dense fog, which I love, all around the mountain.

I am grateful that even though Vermont Public Radio went all-(boring-political)-talk, which essentially cut me off from their classical music, I am now able (just today, in fact, for the first time) to listen to VPR Classical by streaming the music over the Internet. I plug the computer speakers into other speakers so that I can hear the music wherever I am in the house. But shame on VPR for stranding us in remote areas without our music. Marketing trumps goodwill again.

I am grateful for the phone calls, e-mails and computer chats that I had today. I have not been forgotten. Except by the church ladies. I will be resigning my seat on the parish council in two weeks because their meetings conflict with my new class schedule at the college this next semester. The church and I have grown apart, which breaks my heart. I am losing yet one more family.

I am grateful that as an instructor at the community college, I can audit classes for free. I will be taking a digital photography course in the spring.

I am grateful for four days off from work.

I am grateful that Buddy will now sleep in a cat bed next to me and my MacBook instead of on my MacBook.

I hope you all had a quiet and peaceful Thanksgiving with those you love, as I did.

Technorati tags: Thanksgiving VPR+programming
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Vermont Loon Recovery Project

Eric Hanson (click for more photos)

Yesterday, VPR's Vermont Tradition (August 15, 2007) (click here the mp3 archive of the show) interviewed Eric Hanson of the VINS Vermont Loon Recovery Project. He gave us some interesting loon information:

Loons are swimming and flying birds. They leave the land after birth and may not touch land again for seven years, when they have their first chicks.

• In a 10 year period, a pair of loons will produce, on average, 5 living chicks.
• In Vermont, the loons are producing an average of 7 living chicks in 10 years.
• In Maine, the average is down to 3.
• The difference could be mercury pollution.
• There are now 200 loons in Vermont. I saw five of them!
• Loons share chick-raising responsibilities 50-50.
• Because of the sharing of chick rearing, and the same plummage, there is no way to tell which loon is male and which is female.
• Loons often will raise one huge foot out of the water and waggle it as if waving hello.
• This is probably a stretching movement and not a cooling mechanism.

Technorati tags: VPR VINS loons Eric+Hanson Vermont
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Counting On Grace by Elizabeth Winthrop

Summer Read-Alouds

Wingnut and I read one or more books outloud at bedtime every summer. This year we read Counting on Grace by Elizabeth Winthrop. I chose this book because it was the Vermont Reads 2007 selection of the Vermont Humanities Council. The Barton Public Library handed out copies of this book to anyone that cared to read it. I picked up our copy months ago when I attended the library movie night in May. Vermont Public Radio broadcast readings of the entire book earlier in the year, which I missed (there is an audio CD available). However, on September 29 there will be a VPR Vermont Reads Day focused on this book.

Counting On Grace is the story of a 12 year old French Canadian girl who lives with her poverty striken family in Vermont in the early twentieth century. The entire family works at a fabric mill and as each child reaches the age of 14 they are expected to work in the mill to help support the family. However, corrupt enforcement of the weak child labor laws enabled children much younger to work in dangerous, life-threatening conditions. Winthrop (click on this link to read her blog) uses this family to detail not only the conditions in which these children lived but also the remedy. Winthrop introduces us to the photographer Lewis Hine, whose photography helped reform the child labor laws in the United States.

This is an excellent book. I was concerned that the story would not keep the interest of an 11 year old boy but there was enough action, injustice and gore to keep him asking for more. The gore in the book is entirely appropriate and is needed to document the conditions under which these people worked and lived. As you know, Wingnut has become an excellent photographer, so the descriptions of ancient photography methods fascinated him.

I expected Counting On Grace to be another bland look at life one hundred years ago. I'm glad I was wrong. There are dozens of topics a teacher can integrate throughout this book in language arts, science, history, technology and mathematics. I am always very careful and skeptical of integrating mathematics with literature because the mathematics curriculum topics in literature usually are not rigorous enough or are below grade level standards and expectations. I think this is probably because of most authors' fear and/or lack of knowledge of mathematics. But Elizabeth Winthrop doesn't flinch. Careful planning and integration with the mathematics curriculum can enhance and expand the understanding of the conditions described in Counting On Grace.

Now if only I could get Wingnut back for the VPR Vermont Reads Day.

Remember: if you buy this book now by clicking on the book image or on the title, I will get paid. Then I can buy my Canon Rebel XTi (and give my little Kodak Z710 point-and-shoot to Wingnut).

Technorati tags: Counting+On+Grace, Elizabeth+Winthrop, book+reviews, Vermont, Lewis+Hine

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Verizon and St. Mary Star of the Sea

St. Mary's Church in Newport overlooks the entire city on a high hill. Because of this, Verizon sought a contract with the church to install cell phone equipment in the bell towers around 2003-2004. The diocese in Burlington signed the contract, which would give St. Mary's (or the diocese) an estimated $18,000 to $20,000 in income.


However, when residents in the neighborhood heard about the deal, they objected. They said that transmissions from the towers are detrimental to our health and that Verizon and the Catholic Church could not implement the contract without neighborhood meetings. Which were then held.


Vermont Public Radio also at that time broadcast a call-in show with Scandinavian "experts". These people told us how radiation from the equipment can heat up the fluid within the cells of our bodies. It is a minute amount of heating, but it is unnatural and, therefore, dangerous.

The view of Lake Memphremagog from the church steps.

Verizon was beaten back with testimony such as this. The church lost extra income. There is spotty cell service in Newport. I am not an advocate of cell phones and feel them to be unnecessary (but if you want to give me an iPhone and an AT&T contract for service for one, I will accept the gift valued at $2,500). I think the expert testimony could be challenged and I think the deal with the diocese was a lost opportunity. But I will also fight on to keep cell towers off of Barton Mountain.

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