I think for a specific demographic this is likely true, and I doubt that another demographic was included in the study. Pretty certain if you ask parents of kids zoned for Hamtramck Schools or Highland Park schools and some other neighborhoods in Detroit, the loe of city life would not be so glowing. So maybe the take away is if one is middle class, and in safe walkable neighborhoods with access to excellent public transportation, and good schools and the street lights work, and there isn't a plethora of empty lots with overgrown weeds and trash, and your water isn't lead laden, and your city is not also Flint, and ... I think the study is representative of a small subset of city dwellers. I haven't read the whole thread though so possibly this perspective has already been covered. Now that said, we have been looking at housing in Aswan, and ya, we are very happy with our public transportation option, and the fact that on the street we would hope to find an apartment or house, we have a pharmacy, hardware, produce market, small grocery where we can pick up staple items, Coptic Cathedral around the corner and only a mile from the international church and hospital, two miles from the Suk (marketplace) and mall, couple of blocks off the Nile, and a reasonable taxi ride from the large, government supermarket, oh and the park is close too along with water taxi's to the West Bank, and still only about $3.00 US dollars taxi ride from the train station. A bit more expensive to the airport, but then that's on the other side of the dam so a jaunt for everyone in the city. The mayor and police of this region are darn tough on crime so it is safe to walk everywhere. Well, from that perspective. On the other hand THE DRIVING! OH MY WORD! Ya....we walked, will walk when we are there again in December and January, but it takes some serious getting used to because it is rather insane there as in New York City is TAME, New Jersey is TAME by comparison. I took friend's children to school one morning and had grip on their hands like an iron vice. I doubt they could feel their fingers by the time we got there!

Nm

Hunkering down with movie, popcorn, cider, and donuts. Oh, and I sent college boy at WMU a four lb bag of candy to share with his buds, and purple bat lights for his room.

Well I could live without spell check because it's evil twin, the devil called Autocorrect makes me nuts!

I have no wisdom on the sink thing. We have a dishwasher and plenty of people do it but so busy we meet ourselves coming and going. I think I chased my own tail last night! No company. Yay for that. I am not in the mood to entertain. I would come to see you and bring homemade whipped cream to put in our coffee.

I have no words of wisdom. I went through this when de graduated and I still had three boys at home with four, five, and seven years left. If felt like I would never be done, and burn out was real. Last day is half through his senior year already, just pouring on the steam to get done early and take a couple extra DE classes next semester. I am so glad the finish line is this close because I don't think I have another year in me. Someone asked me to help her Homeschool her son next year for high school, and I think I really offended her with the look of horror on my face. I didn't mean to be offensive, but she really caught me off guard and there was no masking the initial response of my brain which was violent opposition to the idea.

Increased leg weights and time on the rowing machine. I rowed three miles today, and my body is very much feeling it. I had a break there in September. Got some blood work back and my potassium was so low as to be dangerous, and couldn't maintain a healthy heart rate. Anemic as well. Electrolyte imbalance. Doc made me rest for a while, adjusted diet, taking supplements so am now allowed to exercise again. I probably will not increase the intensity again any time soon until blood work indicates I am not so bad off. Feeling pretty exhausted but unwilling to stop working out at this point.

For what it is worth, I asked my Dh who is a database architect. He had never heard of programmers routinely hacking their neighbors computers and thought is was quite a creepy thing to do. That said, due to so much spam/computer virus crap out there he does recommend everyone have an excellent firewall.

To clarify in an earlier one of my posts giving a synopsis of the Michigan case, I misspoke. The victim did not move to Florida with her parents, but moved in with relatives already living in Florida. The attorney for the perp claims he never initiated anything, but family still living in the area say he did initiate and that is what for it all on Florida and Michigan authorities' radar. Hard to say I would imagine when the hearing takes place on Oct. 25th, there may be a more definitive timeline and clarification of how it all went down. So long as the judge, the prosecutor, and the perp go down....that's all I am saying. I really feel so sad for Jane. So often things like child porn turn out to be the tip of iceberg. She lives in a very scary situation.

Yes this. James and Katie Sitler. Scum bag molested his own son right under the noses of the wife and grandparents who were "supervising" him with the toddler. UNBELIEVABLE! http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/09/07/things-are-hopping-in-moscow-a-new-website-dedicated-to-steven-sitlers-pedophilia-history/ Wartburg is of course not a regular news source. But the local papers of Moscow, Idaho have also run the story multiple times, and Wartburg coverage does not appear to be inaccurate with what the papers printed. Wartburg provides links to the court documents on this page so you can get it "from the horse's mouth" so to speak.

Another a story that demonstrates the complicit nature of some parents as Josh was found out and went on to molest sisters two more times, still got to come home, parents refused to comply with a CPS well child check, still got to keep their kids, and scum bag went on to become an Ashley Madison duche bag who has four kids of his own and no restrictions. Granted they hid it all out so he was never convicted due to statute of limitations, but that's the reality. His kids have a mother and grandparents plus some aunts and uncles that are all complicit with his continued access to children despite being a pervert himself. Talk about NOBODY taking a stand on behalf of those children. Sickening. Truly sickening. While it would be so lovely to give the spouse of a perp the benefit of the doubt, it would be unwise to do so when safety is on the line.

Absolutely true. And spouses have been known to help their S/O traffic in the stuff or even help them kidnap a child to rape. Having seen what I have seen during the years we did respite care for foster parents in the county, I am actually more likely to assume the mom is just as much of a threat as he is. Sad to say, but complicit accessory to the crime is not as uncommon as people would like to think.

This is absolutely not true. You need to do some research. Many states allow heinous rapists to still have unsupervised contact and even custody of their kids. My state is one of them.

Well, the word here from a friend who is a police officer - we are one county away from Huron - is that he did file for custody but then dropped it which got it on the radar of Huron County and the State. Michigan will allow Hannibal Lecter to be the nanny if it means they could collect a dime of money. Our court system does not have a shred of human decency most of the time! The slime bag has a relative going around social media claiming that he didn't do anything wrong because the parents of the three girls he snatched had given permission for him to date them! (Dry that out and we could fertilize a whole field with it!) People have gone crazy on her posts, just rabid! Scrum is out of jail now and people know where he lives, so if the powers that be do not get some sense darn quick, there is going to be trouble. There is HUGE public outrage against the prosecutor. Some suspect him and the judge of being creepsters themselves. They have a very long, combined history of letting sex offending trash plea out to the most ridiculously low level charges with the judge giving the absolute bare minimum sentences he can possibly manage. A lot of people are hoping it ends with an investigation by the A.G.

Okay, very late to the party, I know. We rented Wonder Woman the other night. It was alright, not too bad. I did feel like the stop motion/slow motion effects were a bit overdone.

Ds and I went to the gym then hit the schoolwork. Rocket team meeting tonight, engineering class tomorrow night, and more college apps this week. Friday night Dh is taking me to the DSO, and Saturday we work at my father future's place of business to get it ready to auction off as no buyer has been found.

OP I urge you to go to your local police station and ask them to look up the case file and find out what he was originally charged with to see if it differs from what he was convicted. It is public record unless he actually raped a child in which case some information may be redacted to protect the identity of the victim and such. But someone should be able to help you find out to what low this guy sank.

Often times, plea deals are normal so you need to find out what the original charges were. What he served time for May not have been the crime he actually committed. Oft times it is much worse. Plea deals on sex crimes is so rampant because the DA doesn't have to do all of the immense work of trying the case, and the victim doesn't have to take the stand. This how some pervs get away with multiple, short sentences instead of being thrown in a crevice of the earth to rot like they should.

No. Parent rights trump everything. From my state, here is a story that will make you want to vomit. http://www.wnem.com/story/36550544/man-accused-of-raping-12-year-old-girl-awarded-joint-custody-of-her-child Synopsis, he was 18 and raped a 12 year old while holding two other girls of similar age as well.Court let him plea it down to third degree attempted assault and no kidnapping charges for the other girls. No joke. He served 4.5 months. Parents took their daughter and moved to Florida. She was pregnant from the rape, gave birth, and kept the baby. Scrum bag raped a thirteen year old girl, plead it down, and served another paltry sentence. Got out and sued for custody in Michigan. Huron County courts gave him joint custody of the child who is now about 8.5 years old, and forced the mom to bring the child from Florida for his "patenting time". Huron County is close enough to me that I am attending the protest of the judge, and I have signed a petition to the State asking that he be thrown out of office, and asking the Michigan Bar Association to disbar him, also asking the ACLU to sue on the child's behalf. Several states not only do not terminate the parental rights of child rapists, but allow them custody even forcing some mother's to bring their children to prison to visit the bastards.

My guys only get a half day before Thanksgiving day and then the day of plus Friday and weekend after. One is currently commuting because of health problems, the other one I pick up in Kalamazoo at 1 pm on Wednesday which puts me home at 5pm or even a little later depending on traffic. I would put him in the train, but because the dorm closes at 1 he has a six hour wait for the train. So we make the run. If youngest ds attends NMU or MTU next year he will get an entire week so potentially with the weekend before could be home eight days. But the lower peninsula schools tend not to give much of a break. To be honest, given that there is Christmas Break so soon after, I kind of wish schools kept a schedule, made Thanksgiving dinner for all the students on Thursday, and just only had that one day off but on campus. It is an awkward scheduling mess. If they did that, Christmas Break could be a couple of days longer. Ds at U of Michigan Flint right now only gets Dec 23 - Jan. 2nd off. They run exams through the 21st and then pick right back up after the new year. There is no mid term break either, and since he tutors and heads up some clubs, he is commuting to campus the week before everyone else for meetings. It makes the semester very long, and with such a short Christmas Break, he is pretty burned out by final exams of the winter semester.

Don't assume the cheaper public school does not have the same opportunities. My son has an internship right now as a junior, my next oldest son is a research assistant for one of his professors and is only a sophomore, both have tons of study abroad options, clubs - one is president of his philosophy club and the other is Vice President of the Shakespeare club - and the list of what they can access is huge. They work as paid tutors as well. Youngest toured Northen Michigan University a week ago. He wants to major in Electrical Engineering Technology. Last year this small, public university graduated eight in this major and they all had summer internships before their senior year and the total number of job offers between them by graduation was 121 companies. They all had signed employment contracts by the end of the first semester of their senior year. All of this from the efforts of the chair of the department who is championing his students. Their resumes were impressive. There were tons of opportunities on campus. Tons. And this was a mid ranked, regional university in the upper peninsula no where near an urban center or some well known pocket of culture and vibrant society. It is very individual by school so you need to thoroughly check out your financial safety. It might very well be a true gem. I always tell my kids to pick a safety that has everything they want because knowing ahead of time that we would eventually have three in college at once, our motto has been "Love Thy Safety!"

Lanny, if it's an 8 month gig, could you negotiate that they pay the remaining four months on the lease or the fees to break the lease as part of your compensation package?

Sixty two for both of us. That is when we will have enough saved up, and then dh will do some IT consulting work on the side. We plan to live half the year state side and half abroad. We will be getting out from under our place and renting something small that is much closer to better healthcare access. Right now we are eighty five miles from a good hospital and specialists. That worries us about aging in place as we deal with that for our elderly mothers. Dh is four years older so I will not likely retire the same year.

No full time family here. No flexibility with work at the moment. No room at present because we have been housing some big ticket items like a van, a car, a pop up camper, and a fishing boat for her auction.

Well, if you could make the move to Canada and get him enrolled in a college there then I would think that after the age of nineteen he could apply for a student visa.