I worked on a startup with a couple of other guys. Two of them were friends and had 28%, I had 25% and another person had the rest. The last guy left in the beginning itself. The initial idea was that of one of the guys, he worked fairly hard, the other one didnt do much work and i developed an entire website for them. Since the idea was nothing without the website, I was the only one working hard and they would do testing. I was very enthusiastic about the idea and gave so many new suggestions. So after 6months, I asked them to reorg the company equally among us and they refused, saying that this is what I signed up for and that they would be the ones raising money. I felt that I had worked hard and needed to be treated equally. It was just a matter of principle more than the 3% I would have gotten. I was working really hard. So i left and I said I would give them the source code, it was essentially on the website anyways. Now they are asking me to sign another non disclosure and a mutual release document that would have me give up any claims. I had no regrets about leaving and would have never used the idea anywhere anyways, but now that they are playing hard ball, I am also pissed. So I am not inclined to sign anything. I would probably go see a lawyer at some point, but wanted some feedback as to be prepared. thanks

thank you both - good points sigh, I know the vocab is an issue, he has to drill them down, but he hates memorization.

DS who is a junior consistently gets around 680-690 for CR and 700 for writing. He most of the time gets 800 for math. Any tips on bumping up the CR and writing scores??

Joanne, please do share, depends on what the approach is thanks for all the replies everyone. It all sounds so sensible, but sticking with it is the hard part. I might give tracking a try and see if I can write down everything I eat at home.

I am not talking about binge eating, but just eating a meal because its that meal time. Sometimes, I am not even hungry but if I am feeding the kids dinner, then I also eat. I am snacking while prepping dinner and then I will eat with them, even though I am not that hungry How do you control that or snacking because you are bored? So I end up eat too much, even if its of the healthier kind. I know I dont need to eat, but still eat anyways What has helped you?

How does ACE reader work? I read the reviews in Amazon and still dont quite understand what it does. I might do the free trial and see how it works

I also prefer Colin Firth a close tie with Richard Armitage as John Thornton in North South http://emspeaks.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/north-and-south-north-and-south-32024163-1280-720.jpg

I am not trained in any musical instruments, so please forgive my ignorance in asking this question DS, who is a rising junior, has been playing cello for 6 years. He is not a great player, but a decent player. In his youth orchestra, they have many groups and he is in the second advanced group. For his audition to the next group, which he didnt make, the feedback that I got was that for the conductor the intonation is a deal breaker and that DS did poorly there. what exactly does this mean? Given that he is a rising junior, and he has been playing for so many years, is this something that can be fixed? due to scheduling conflicts, he will not be playing in the school orchestra, so even less practice. I hate for him to stop playing, but he doesnt want to play anymore as most of his friends have moved on to the higher group. The highest group currently has only 5 cello players who are seniors, so unless he improves substantially, he will run into the same issue at next years audition. this will be his third year playing in the same group and if he doesnt make it next year, then four years without any improvement doesnt sound very good to me. time to give up and move on??

pull grapes from a bunch and freeze them. Its a great snack for sweet tooth

what should we do if we feel uncomfortable with a traffic stop and are alone in the car? Lock the car and call 911? obviously we cant drive away from a traffic stop. Never had to deal with anything like this but now that my teens will be driving soon, I need to know all these things

I havent seen either of the shows, but took a peak at wikipedia to see what Great Doctor was about and sounded to me like similarities with Outlander??

I agree with all the posts above. Do you live in a community where there are not a lot of other chinese people or are the kids the same age as yours? then these couple might just be looking to make some new friends also. They might be just as nervous what to serve :-) >>Don't be surprised if you receive thanks for your gift, but it is then set aside unopened: this is normal behaviour. this is very normal in asian culture. Do americans open gifts when you give them? Other than wine bottles or food, I havent noticed people opening gifts

Its a big deal for the dancer. Its her debut dance on the stage after years of learning. It has become a big business also, like a sweet 16 or bar mitzvah. The gifts would be the same as for a graduation or a milestone birthday, but your presence is much appreciated anyways more than the gift. ==== For those not familiar with the term, 'Arangetram' is the name given within the South Indian dance tradition Bharatanatyam to a dancer's debut performance. - http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=820 ==== Its usually a series of dances where there could be costume changes in between. 2-3 hours of solo dancing is not uncommon. So you might want to ask your coworker how long they are expecting it to run and plan accordingly. To be honest, it can get boring for small kids if you plan to take them. Since its your first time, you will have an amazing time, the dance form is exquisite and the amount of hard work that goes into the performance is staggering. She probably would have been practicing 6-7hours on the days leading upto the event. Usually they will serve dinner at the end of the performance. If you choose to leave in the middle, make sure you get there early and meet the host, so they know you were there :-) yes definitely dress up, most of the other guests would likely be in indian clothes. Have fun and let us know how it went

I did this last year for my deck vegetable gardening. At $2.20 or so, it was the best price for close to 30 pots. All the plants did well. Tomatoes probably could use a bigger pot, but eggplants, peppers all grew well in these

DD 13 received invitation to spend a couple of days with her friends family in Vermont. I know the family and have allowed sleepovers, but I wouldnt allow her to go away. So both DH and me firmly said no and had to deal with the drama and tears. She kept saying, give me a good reason other than you dont allow it. I didnt want to talk about all the worst case things that can happen to her, but I also felt that I couldnt explain clearly why I wouldnt let her go. Its not this family, I wouldnt allow her with any other family for overnight trips How would you have phrased this?

I am known to bang on the walls going up to the stairs. Even with things stuck on their ears, they will feel the vibrations

Everyone wants to fete Mother - whats she to do!!! Sat morning - special rehearsal for both kids for sunday concert Sat evening - daughters concert with the choir. I have to drop her off 2 hours before the concert and then go back for the concert Sun afternoon - both kids orchestra concert At the end, after all the driving around, Mothers are walking around like zombies i complain every year, but I guess I will still miss it when the kids go away to college :-)

I was in DC last week and I got a hotel near the Capitol and Union Station for around $100 through Hotwire that had two queen beds enough for 4 people. If you are planning to see the monuments, i would recommend this tour company. I did a tour around the National Mall and Tidal basin and later the Lincoln Assassination tour with them. http://www.freetoursbyfoot.com/ I loved their guides so much, just the right amount of info and then you can go back later to spend more time at each monument. Now I am tempted to visit other cities where they run tours :-)

but he also had 10 or 11 AP classes, so his grade could have come down a bit due to all the hard courses that he took. all in all, he applied to 12 colleges. Do they all have different essays to write or some of them are part of common core? Writing all those essays would have been tedious... very impressive in any case...

Thanks Lori. Some good suggestions. I have started sitting with her and reading through the book, i looked at the book "Pig that wants to be eaten". I dont think she is there yet, but its a good discussion to have. I am going to start with something simpler and then take it from there

DD -13 is in 8th grade. She has no reading issues per se, but is not a natural reader. She does not love to read books. She always needed hooks to read books. For eg, she started to read Hunger Games only when she learned that her idol Taylor Swift was singing for the movies and then she read all the books and then moved on the Divergent. Now the school has assigned To Kill a Mocking Bird and she cannot focus her interest in the book. Finally the teacher directed her to an audio version and she has been listening to that. But she is watching something on the ipod and listening to the audio book, so i am afraid that she might not be absorbing the whole book and would be missing some vocab skills here. Once she moves to high school, she has to read at higher levels and of course the reading comprehension in the standardized tests are also looming... What can I do to help her out? Is there some software that has an audio component as well as visual component that advances through the words, so she is reading and hearing at the same time?? I see these for the smaller kids learning to read, but not sure if there are versions that deal with books for older kids. I am hearing about the new Spritz program, and looking into it also. thanks

only unpaid ones would count right? In his freshmen year, he worked as the umpire for the younger kids baseball teams, but he got paid for it, so I wasnt thinking of them as volunteer hours.

Thanks everyone, some very good points to chew on. He wants to continue volunteering on areas that he is interested in. I have sent him a list of the local childrens summer camps that he can reach out to as well as the senior center to see if he can arrange a movie night etc. There is a youth film festival that seems to be in disarray due to lack of interest, so thats something he is going to look into also. Last year he did a few hours ushering at the local play house, so he will have to find more of that type of stuff... >>For example, my son sings with a choir, which we list as an extracurricular activity. If his choir participated in a choir festival with a bunch of other choirs, >>even though it took place outside of regular rehearsal times and involved other groups, we would still count it as part of his normal participation with that >>same group. LOL, there goes half the meager hours that he has :-) at least I think he still has time to catch up...

Thanks Jenny. He will have to find something to work on then. For the past two summers, he worked as production crew for the high school drama club. This was a summer camp that was offered through the continuing ed and open to students from other towns also. The actors had to pay a fee for the camp but the production crew was voluntary and he easily put in 80 hours each summer. But now the guidance counselor tells me that since he works with the drama club during the school year, the summer work he did would also be considered as an extra curricular activity and not as volunteer hours.

My sophomore son has 2-3 activities that he spends a lot of time on. He is an assistant director in the drama club, he plays the cello for a youth orchestra, he has a movie reviews blog that he writes. But nothing much for volunteer hours or community service hours. Is there anything in the college application process or scholarship applications that will ask for specific hours of volunteer work?? Our school doesnt have a minimum volunteer hours requirement. I just dont want to get to senior year and find that we missed something. He doesnt have much interest in national honor society but he would try to make the national merit semi finalist or finalist. Do they need specific number of volunteer hours for that? I dont see it in the website in their requirments thanks