This must be so hard to go through. You've gotten a lot of good advice here, but the one thing that no one has mentioned is homeowner's insurance. If it were me, I'd be reading the fine print on my policy right about now. If the guy does decide to sue you for some large amount of money, I would think that you could file a claim on your insurance to cover it (or would he file? -- dunno exactly how these things work). However, I would also be concerned that your dog would now be considered a "dangerous dog" by the insurance company, and I would certainly be checking what their rules are for that.

Not only would I take one, but I guarantee you that you will see a ton of other people on the flight with some kind of e-reader.

I'm going to be a bit of a contrarian here and say that formal logic is over rated, especially as a basis for rhetoric. I like what David Zaresfky (sp?) says in his great Teaching Company lecture about Argumentation -- that formal logic is rarely useful for argumentation and rhetoric.

From your post, I don't understand if you mean teaching one class in formal logic, or all the stuff that goes along with the "logic stage"? Those are two very different things.

I think it would be very hard to do. I would also humbly point out that architects have one of the highest unemployment rate for any graduate degree. Also, I think there are very few architecture schools which admit part-time students. Back in the stone age, when I went to school, the architects were the ones always pulling all nighters to finish their projects.

I think it depends if you've purchased a lot of books for the Nook that you'll want to read again. If so, they won't transfer to a Kindle, and it would drive me crazy to partition my books that way. If you only use it for pdfs and library books, then some kind of Kindle seems more reasonable.

While this sounds fun, I wouldn't do that. Given that these companies are breaking the law to begin with, and are notorious for swearing like a sailor at people who deign to ask to be put on their do-not-call list, I'm sure they'd feel free to sign you up and bill you for whatever crap they are selling if they just got one "yes" out of a two year old...

This is one group that makes me question the validity of your signature.

These folks in one form or other have been calling us several times a month for years! All robocalls, which are illegal right there. The only hope is to file a complain with your state Attorney General's office. There should be a way to find it online. If their office gets enough about the same caller, they just might go after them.

Doesn't SWB have a bit about this in TWTM? Every library trip, the child is asked to select at least one book from each of the following topics: science, history, arts, crafts, biography, novel, story, poetry plus any other the child is interested in.

If you feel suspicious, I would go with your gut, and back off. Personally, I don't like to use paypal. I'm curious how sellers feel about postal money orders? Clearly, I understand why no one will accept a personal check, but if I'm anti-paypal, what's the next best option?

The same thing happens here, with "Cardmember Services", even though our phone is up to date with both national and state do-not-call lists, and it is a robocall, which is also illegal. Been getting them for years. The only consolation is that any legitimate business would obey the DNC list, so you know right away they are a scam.

I'm curious if someone could list specific principles from the US Constitution that are said to be Christian? Especially the big ones -- three branches of government, representational democracy, ability to amend, federation of states, letters of marquis and reprisal, etc., none of these seem to be particularly biblical.

That doesn't make it any less obscene, it some ways, the formalization makes it worse. I'm disappointed to see so many pro-bonus people in this thread projecting their pre-held opinions of what other people think here, instead of reading what is actually written. Perhaps an analogy will help. From the clips I've seen, I think the TV show "Jersey Shore" is obscene. As a result, I don't watch it, my family doesn't watch it, and if anyone asked for my recommendation, I would suggest that they not watch it. Nonetheless, I don't think it should be censored by the government, rather I try to spend my efforts supporting things I'd like to see more of. The fact that the TV station has a contractual obligation to produce and show it doesn't impact in any way how I feel about it.

Boy, this is a potentially kerfluffle-worthy post, but when I think of obscene bonuses, I think of Leo Apotheker. No one begrudges Steve Jobs for making millions in stock, by turning around Apple, but "obscene" is when you get paid a ton despite screwing up. Leo Apotheker was the CEO of HP for 11 months. During those eleven months he made a number of very bad decisions, some of which had to be un-decided in public. The stock price of HP dropped 40% in those 11 months. He managed so poorly that the board fired him after less than a year. As a results of this poor performance, after he was fired, he was awarded a $2.4 million "performance bonus", $7.2 million worth of severance pay, and $3 million worth of stock, in addition to his salary.

Note the title of the thread does not match the article -- the article states that 50% of recent college grads are unemployed or UNDERemployed. I wonder, though, if many "unskilled" jobs are being taken by college grads, what the unemployment rate (and UNDERemployment, if there is such a thing) of high school grads is?

Around here, good babysitters are hard to find, so they (almost) can earn whatever they ask. But that's the key -- they gotta ask, and establish rates up front. Also, regarding times, isn't the blame on your ds? Maybe the couple told him what movie they were seeing, and when they expected to be back? The fact that he didn't have his phone on him, and didn't call you on their landline seems like that's more his fault that theirs?

I think Lands End has been slowly going downhill every since Sears bought the company. The good news is that Sears is now doing so badly that they are talking about selling off Lands End, which I think would be a very good thing for those of use who liked the old Lands End.

I don't think it requires turnout, just the ability to do the 'eggbeater' movement with the legs. And I doubt you'll find more rigorous cardio.

Do you have a synchronized swimming group nearby? Those girls are tough!

Do you have an air-mattress or two you could bring along, and put on the floor? That might help a lot.

How many nights will you be staying? A big question to me is the bedtime planning. I assume :-) that the 2 YO and the 5 YO go to sleep substantially before the bigger kids and the adults. If you are all in one big room, how does that work? Can they sleep with lights on and activity in the room? Or does everyone go to sleep at the same time? I've always liked suites, or at least rooms where I can put little ones down in a separate room with the light off, and the adults/bigs can stay up later and read, discuss plans for the next day, etc.

I would consider myself blessed to be able to run such a group when mine are this age. How lucky you are! If I were you, I'd try to stretch out into more genres if possible. Non-fiction always seems to get short shrift, for some reason, especially once you get outside of biography. We ask our kids to write all kinds of essays and reports, but never have them read really good non-fiction. (I think Barbara Kingsolver has a book of essays, come to think of it). Our library has a bunch of books in the series "The year's best xxx", where xxx is travel, essays, short stories, crime, sports, etc. This might be a fun source of non-fiction. "How to Read a Book", by Adler and Van Doren is a classic that every book club should read, ideally first. I didn't see much drama on your list, it might be fun do to a group read-through of a play, especially if you have a theater group in town doing something interesting. I didn't see anything from the magical realists on your list, I know they aren't for everyone, but maybe they'll enjoy it? The Man Booker prize was just announced, it might be fun to go through various literary prize lists to look for suggestions, the Pulitzer and Nobel prize for literature would be interesting venues to investigate (as well as all the genre prizes).

I understand where you are coming from in the general case, but I think that if a student is on track to do calc in 11th grade, you can get the benefit of holding off physics until then, and doing calculus-based physics. And I could not more strongly agree with you that physics is for everyone, not just STEM kids. Everyone who drives a car should understand the formula for kinetic energy, and what it means, for example. I think ideally, it would be valuable to do science in kind of a spiral way, but that presents a problem if you want to take AP or SAT II tests. Most middle school science I've seen is pretty informal. I wonder if you could cover the basics of physics, chemistry and biology better in middle school, if you then get the interdisciplinary benefits you cite in high school without doing the sciences in the "backwards" order.

This is a great thread. When thinking backwards, inter-relations between disciplines should be considered. For example, Physics is more interesting if you've studied Calculus beforehand (or maybe concurrently, if you are lucky). If you've learned a bit about statistics, both laboratory sciences, and understanding of History and Economics can benefit. Certainly a knowledge of the history of a given period is valuable input before reading literature written or set in that period. e.g. reading "Tale of Two Cities" without knowing anything about the French Revolution seems unfortunate.