Real Science Odyssey, maybe? It's very hands-on and would be good for small groups. The Biology 2 course is supposed to be especially good for that.

That's really regional. NY is a big state. A district's union is going to negotiate differently too. When I started teaching a decade ago (PK-6 librarian with a MLS + credits), my salary was $37,200. My mother had just retired from the same position after 30+ years around $75,000. Her retirement is double the number of years she taught. So 33 years=66% of her ending salary, capped at (I think) 70-75%. Also newer teachers (I was tier 4) contribute more to their own retirement than the older (my mom is tier 1). My sister is a second year special education teacher with her master's degree plus 30 credits, and makes under $45,000. These aren't districts that are extremely poor either (i.e. not urban but not tiny rural schools). They're in the center of state, and have decent outcomes on both the 3-8 tests and the Regents. Graduation rates good too. My husband is an engineer, and even his starting salary a decade ago was one I'd have to teach 20 years to come close to matching. ETA: Thinking about some of the urban districts nearby, their teachers do make more because they're trying to hold on to staff. However, we saw on the news this week that Syracuse has closed the graduation gap between white and black students. It's still low (64%), but it's still a rare accomplishment for city schools.

We are in CNY, and when we've had houses with central heat we do 65/66 during the day and 62 at night. We had a Nest thermostat which helped control things and automatically lowered it when we were away. Now we live in a 3300 sf house with electric heat (YIKES!!), and we keep everything at a baseline of 55-60 and control rooms by wireless thermostats when we want things warmer (e.g. schoolroom goes to 64 from 9-12 and bedrooms are at 64 from 7-8:30 pm). Occasionally we use our wood stove insert which helps warm the main living areas (raised ranch). ETA: I freeze from November to May. :p The kids still manage to run around in bare feet and like it. Lol

You could also stay in Cazenovia...not far from Colgate, but a little more a drive (within an hour) to Hamilton College. The Lincklaen would be the place to stay in Caz.

Stay at the Mansion House in Oneida! Super easy to get to Clinton and Hamilton, and tons of history to boot! :D

I spin at home. I bought a bike from Amazon, and use it with the Peloton app ($13/month). You can live stream classes or take them on demand. I really want a Peloton bike for the metrics, but they're $2000 plus $39/month for the subscription.

I'm glad she made it home safe! Just in time...Syracuse, Utica, and surrounding areas were hit last night and today with a foot of lake effect. The wind has been terrible across the fields too. What an adventure!

Michael Scott says swag = stuff we all get. 😂 https://youtu.be/F4GHqevhsqk

Another Central NY'er here, and I live on one of those rural back roads that are rarely plowed, especially if it's not a school day. Just want to add that we've already had more than double our average snowfall for this time of year, and the lake effect machine is just getting started. We were in a white-out on the thruway yesterday between Syracuse and Utica. Out of nowhere! And as Sparkly mentioned, we've also already had nights below zero with daytime temps in the single digits. The next week looks above normal, but I wouldn't want to take my chances after that. It's going to be a hard winter after several milder ones... ETA: and although they do salt liberally in NY, it's not really effective once temps hit the teens or lower. So that's fun.

I HEART NEW YORK! :glare:

Is that Joy-Anna in the family picture on his family's camp's website? https://www.fortrock.org/

We added a third cat to our family two years ago after a similar incident! In our case, it was a friend who found the kitten and brought him to co-op! I talked my husband into adopting him, and we named him Raphael (nickname: Raffi) since we were studying the Renaissance at the time. He's huge now, and takes especial pleasure from sitting on someone's school work every darn day. https://flic.kr/p/N5Xwmn

The local MOMS Club had a bake sale set up when I went to vote...at 7:45 am! :laugh:

No lines this morning in Central NY in a small town...I was there around 7:45. 87th ballot cast, so traffic must have been steady before me. My husband went about an hour earlier and was in and out too.

That's it! I don't know why the link wouldn't work! I could get to the page from Google, but anytime I copied and pasted here, it wouldn't connect. I don't think buying them all would be amiss. :D The story is a little different, and you can appreciate all the styles of illustrations!

My 10 year old plays with them too. :) We had only Magnatiles for years, but last Christmas Amazon had lots of good deals on Stick-n-Stack, so I added several of those sets. They are nearly indistinguishable from the Magnatiles, so you could start there if you don't want to jump all-in. If you get Lakeshore Learning coupons, though, you could use a 20-25% off on the Magnatiles brand.

We have all of these: https://www.amazon.com/Nutcracker-E-T-Hoffmann/dp/0385348649/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478366077&sr=8-1&keywords=eta+hoffman+nutcracker https://www.amazon.com/Nutcracker-Susan-Jeffers/dp/0060743867 https://www.amazon.com/Nutcracker-Janet-Schulman/dp/0060278145 https://www.amazon.com/Nutcracker-Stephanie-Spinner/dp/0375844643 https://www.amazon.com/George-Balanchines-Nutcracker-Joel-Meyerowitz/dp/0316569216 (photos from the movie version of the NYCB with Macaulay Culkin) I would do Hoffmann if you want the "real story," but I'm not sure I could pick one of the picture books! Maybe Jeffers, but I also really like the illustrations in Stephanie Spinner's. Edited to fix link.

Yes, like the family in this post. Scroll down to the Kershaw gravestone. A family lost ALL EIGHT of their children in less than three weeks from diphtheria in 1897, not to mention three others as well. :crying: http://lincolnlog1972.blogspot.com/2014/08/hunting-for-homesteads.html

I don't hate A Christmas Story, but I don't love it as much as some other holiday movies. We have an ornament that I gave my husband (who does love it) ages ago depicting the tongue-stuck-to-the-pole scene, complete with the sound. My kids haven't seen the movie, but they think the ornament is hysterical. :lol: Ah, this one: http://www.hallmarkornaments.com/2010-triple-dog-dare-a-christmas-story And if you want to hear it, lol:

Santa Claus is Coming to Town! With Fred Astaire, Keenan Wynn, Mickey Rooney as Kris. My favorite! I feel the same way about Holiday Inn vs. White Christmas. So weird: I was thinking about that this morning before I read the thread. Me too! :hurray: Edited because I forgot how to grammar.

I don't think this would fit the bill for exactly what you need, but I stumbled across this book earlier in the week: 1001 Inventions and Awesome Facts from Muslim Civilization. Next time I do an order, I'm grabbing it. Our library system doesn't have it. :glare: Edited to fix link.

I think I heard a Radiolab about that science winner...not too long ago. Oh, it was The Moth. Is that the same person you were thinking of? https://themoth.org/stories/ralph-was-right Must be since it's so rare, right? I remember it was such a moving story. As they usually are. :crying: Edited to add link and info.

I'm not sure they were ever there. I remember bootleg recordings of the CDs on YouTube that were shared around some online groups until they were taken down. Otherwise, I think it's been only hard copies. I looked 6-7 years ago with no luck, and finally started collecting CDs and burning them for our own digital use. If they were available more recently, however, and are now gone, I'm not sure why that would be.

We live in a small town in CNY, having just moved from the Syracuse area. We drive back to a Syracuse suburb for piano lessons every week. It's 40-45 minutes. Our teacher is amazing and then I can go to Wegmans. ;) We drive 20-30 minutes from home in the opposite direction for organ lessons, art classes at a local museum and institute, and other shopping. The Y, however, is only 10 minutes away and a decent library is 15. My husband's "regular" job is 45-50 minutes away, and his music jobs are 30-40 minutes. All in totally different directions from each other, of course. Our entire extended family on both sides is 8-12 minutes away, and that makes everything else more than worth it. :)

I've only seen a few (all for the same candidate), but this week a neighbor down the road put a huge sign in a picture window broadcasting his choice