jane's daily blah

My puppy, Twitter, plays with Teardrop the kitten

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:48:00 +0000

Okefenokee Humane Society News Update:

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:34:00 +0000

Below is the entire text quoted from this article in the Georgia Times Union:

Okefenokee Humane Society asks sheriff to investigate fired director
By Carole Hawkins

WAYCROSS - The Okefenokee Humane Society board wants the Ware County sheriff to investigate former shelter director Lori Hartmann's use of shelter funds.

Since firing Hartmann three weeks ago, the board has discovered past due bills totaling $8,500, treasurer Sirena Cady said Thursday at a specially called meeting. Cady said it appears Hartmann also made personal purchases on the shelter's Lowe's account and wrote herself and family members checks that the board had not authorized.

Board members voted unanimously to ask the county sheriff to conduct a criminal investigation.
During a telephone interview Friday, Hartmann called the assertions ridiculous. She said she has not hidden purchases or paychecks and had already informed the board that shelter finances were falling behind.

She said she believed she was fired for personal reasons and was being discredited.
In an Oct. 10 termination notice, Hartmann was told she was being discharged for failing to perform her duties in a manner acceptable to the board.

Cady said over the last three weeks she has uncovered multiple unpaid bills, which were unknown to the board.

She also detailed the following financial issues:

- Internet services were discontinued for non-payment.

- Hartmann had purchased a more expensive cell phone service a few months ago.

- Late payments to the IRS and Georgia Department of Labor for payroll taxes had incurred penalties.

- The county paid an overdue fuel bill for Humane Society vehicles and docked its monthly check to the shelter.

- A worker's compensation insurance payment of $754 is past due.

- Hartmann had opened a Lowe's account for the corporation in December that the board, which was seated in January, knew nothing about. Monthly bills were being sent to Hartmann's home address. The account balance is $3,194.

"There are purchases here that don't appear to be items that were used at the Humane Society," Cady said.

That includes two charges for carpet installation, which were made in December at a total cost of around $2,000.

"There is no carpet at the shelter," Cady said.

Numerous payments had been made to Hartmann's husband and daughter, Cady said. Hartmann also wrote herself checks for bookkeeping services and paid herself overtime, even though she was a salaried employee, Cady said.

Hartmann admitted she made some personal purchases on the Humane Society's account but said she paid for them when she did so. She admitted part of the outstanding balance was hers and said she would pay it.

Hartmann said the first time she made a personal purchase on the Lowe's account, it was a mistake and former board president Millie Hopkins had told her to "just work it out."
Hopkins couldn't be reached for comment.

As for overdue bills, Hartmann said she had kept the board informed. She said she had told the board about the overdue second- and third-quarter payroll taxes and submitted regular financial reports to the board.

"I didn't do anything wrong. They knew about everything," she said. "They've been in financial despair. I've been telling them that for months," Hartmann said the board knew both her husband and daughter had worked there and said she paid them as contractors when they did.

She said over a year ago Hopkins suggested she hire her daughter.

Her husband performed maintenance work for the shelter on an as-needed basis.

"Millie knew he was there. And [board member] Jim Morton talked to him last June about building decks for the dogs and fixing fences," said Hartmann. "He was doing it in front of them and they knew he was getting paid to do it."

Hartmann agreed she had written herself checks for bookkeeping services but said former shelter director Kaye Thompson had also done so.

Rather than paying a more expensive accountant, the Humane Society paid the director to prepare the agency's tax documents, Hartmann said.

Hartmann acknowledged charging the Humane Society overtime, but only as an accounting technique to increase her tax withholding. Her take-home pay, including both regular and overtime hours, totaled her agreed-upon salary.

The Humane Society board voted to reaffirm Hartmann's dismissal Thursday.

The organization has been working to negotiate terms of payment with its creditors.

Just a reminder....

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:53:00 +0000

...I still update facebook more often than I do blogger. Join me there! Also, I am sick. Boo!

Alas, no house.

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:59:00 +0000

Well, my mom decided that in the end she didn't want to spend the money it would take to get the house moved out to the land. She had decided to go for it based on an estimate that turned out to be a 50% less than what it turned out to actually be, so it's certainly an understandable decision. Disappointing, though :-(

Purchase the best of my Kyrgyzstan photos!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:21:00 +0000

I finally finished my coffee-table book of photographs from Kyrgyzstan. You can get it in either soft-cover ($39.95) or hard-cover ($49.95) - and believe me, the hardcover is a MUCH better deal. Simply click here or on the picture above. You can see the first fifteen pages of the book on the website... but that doesn't even get you out of the capital city! The book is 114 pages long and contains 188 color photographs, each with a detailed description and/or explanation. Enjoy!

House-Moving Woes

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:09:00 +0000

Mom just spoke to the other house mover in the area. His price is all-inclusive (roof removal, foundation pouring, permit/escort acquiring, etc) but it would come to $25,000! He seems to be a lot more competent than the other guy as well. (The other guy didn't think that we would need to pour any sort of foundation under the pilings, whereas this guy says that would be a definite requirement, which was what I had thought.) While that's a hell of a house for $25k (there's no way we could get something like that built out there for that price), we don't have that kind of cash on hand. And while normal people would just go get a loan, my mom is very Ayn Randish in a paying cash for items kind of way. Mom is going to think on it for a day or two before making her final decision. What do you guys think?

House moving decisions and dilemmas

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:02:00 +0000

So initially, we'd spoken with a local house-mover who had quoted us a price of $1500/day to move the house. He also said he "didn't think it would take too long to move." At that point in time, he had already seen the house and had told us that it was definitely moveable. After getting the go ahead at the end of last week from the current owners of this house, we called him back, and agreed to meet Saturday morning to look at our land (and the "road" to our land) to make sure it was somewhere he would physically be able to move the house to. We also planned to then go with him to take a closer look at the house. He checked out the land and the road, and didn't think that there would be any problems there whatsoever. Then we drove out to Blackshear to take a look at the house. We got there, and the first thing he told us was that we would have to get a carpenter to remove the roof. (I don't mean a roofer taking the roofing off, I mean a carpenter/contractor/construction worker with a crane who could separate the attic space, rafters and all, from the rest of the house, and place it on the ground, and who could then reattach it to the house once it was moved.) Now, we had assumed that since the house mover had already seen the house when he gave us his quote of $1500/day, that would be all-inclusive. This having-to-hire-a-contractor thing came as rather a shock. It was also somewhat bizarre that the house mover could not (or would not) recommend anyone to do the roof removal. He told us to just go through the yellow pages and select whoever gave the best rate. Now, surely, as house moving is his business, he has encountered tall houses before, and therefore should (in theory) be able to recommend a contractor. Right? This just seemed a little odd to us. There is one other house-mover in the area, and we are going to call him and get an estimate and see whether or not he does the roof removal himself. Right now we are trying to get recommendations for decent contractor who has the necessary equipment (like a crane...) needed to hoist a roof off and then back on to a house. No idea how much that part of the whole experience will cost, although chances are, it will double the costs. BOOOOOO! Suddenly the entire project is looking a lot more expensive than it did just a few days ago, and looks very well like it might drain all of my mom's savings in one fell swoop. That being said, even if it ended up running $20,000 to move it, there is no way that we could get a house of that size and quality built out at the land for $20k, so it still seems like a good deal. Thoughts? Also, for those of you who wanted interior pictures, here they are. Keep in mind, the current owners are using the place for storage right now, so it's somewhat full of junk at the moment.

Front porch

Living room, looking straight back from the front door

Livingroom, full view from front door - the ceilings are something like 12ft high!

front bedroom (just back from the living room)

This is the only room in the entire house with water damage.
(Located in roof and wall and furniture underneath leak)

bathroom behind front bedroom

The diningroom (to the left of the front door when you walk in) also has incredibly high ceilings.

The ceiling in the kitchen, however, has been lowered.

first rear bedroom

second rear bedroom

rear bathroom

laundry room

House Moving!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:00:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, and ad appeared in the local paper, offering a free house to be moved off someone's land. This is what my mother and I have been on the lookout for, although previous such offers have turned out to be for houses so far gone that they would have disintegrated on transport. One such house was in great structural condition, but was filled with bats. And bat guano. When we saw this house, however, we thought that we must simply be in the wrong place. It looked to be in too good of condition to be offered for free... but nope, it was the one. The owned warned us of "really bad water damage" - and after seeing some of the other houses that have been offered for free, we were prepared for disastrous conditions inside - but it turned out that the water damage was minimal and easily repairable. The house itself was huge: 3 bedrooms, a huge kitchen/dining area (bigger than mine, for those of you who've seen my house), a huge living room, two bathrooms, laundry room, and a screened in front porch. The owners told us they were going to wait until the following Tuesday, and that they would be in their business at 9am on that day... and that the house would go to the first person to make a commitment. This gave those of us interested enough time to track down a house mover and to make an estimate. We found a house mover and got a reasonable sounding rate, and waited for Tuesday at 9am. I called them at 8:50am that Tuesday... only to find that someone had just beaten me to it. My mom and I were second in line for the house. We expected that meant that there was no chance whatsoever that we'd be getting it. Then, this afternoon, the phone rang while I was napping. It was my mother, calling to tell me that we'd gotten the house. The people who had beaten us to making the offer had apparently fallen through on how they were going to finance the move. I was really excited, although promptly fell back asleep. I awoke an hour later and had to actually call my mom to confirm whether or not it had been a dream, or if we were actually getting the house - and we are! (Well, it's not 100% definite; the house mover has seen the house, but still needs to check out our land and our "road" - but it seems as though we'll be getting it!

Taxes, money, and (sadly) rethinking Nicaragua

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:43:00 +0000

Property tax bills have just come in the mail. As you might know, between me and my mother, we have four properties, so this isn’t exactly a fun time of the year. Additionally, my house is in the city of Waycross, which has absurdly high property taxes, considering. My first year of home ownership, my property taxes were nearly $500. Now, I pay a monthly fee for water/sewer/trash, so what is it my tax dollars are paying for? The non-existent police presence? The fact that the defaced street signs which say I live on the corner of Ass and Ass have been there since before I bought my house? Anyway, after I had to pay my first outrageous property tax bill, I applied for homestead exemption. This greatly reduced my property taxes; last year they were something like $60.

This year, there was a yellow notice attached to the tax bill which reads:

The state homestead tax relief grant that funded an increased homestead exemption for homeowners for the last several years will not be available this year. Declining state revenues during the current recession means there is no money for the state to give tax relief to homeowners. This will mean a property tax increase of $200 to $300 on the 2009 tax bills for many Georgia homeowners. The grant appropriated by the General Assembly and the Governor for the past several years to counties, cities and schools had given tax relief to homeowners in the form of a credit on their tax bills. According to legislation passed this year, the grant will only be made available in the future if state revenues grow at least 3% plus the rate of inflation.

I owe $416 on my property taxes this year. I should at least get some new street signs.

Meanwhile, as much as I do very much want to go to Nicaragua as part of the WorldVets.org spay/neuter program, my mother pointed out to me that for the amount of money I’d be paying to take part in that program, I could pay for all of the kittens we got this spring to get fixed, now that they’re getting old enough. After thinking about that, it is kind of hard for me to justify going, despite the fact that I really would love to make an overseas trip to pretty much anywhere right about now. So, that being said, I’ve decided not to go to Nicaragua :-(

To Rob B and Diana E, it turns out that I entered the wrong email address in ChipIn... it’s still *my* email address, but in ChipIn sends money to PayPal based on the email address provided, and to receive money through PayPal, one’s email address must be confirmed. In order to confirm your email address, you must provide PayPal with your bank account number. I have only one bank account, and it is linked to my pre-existing PayPal account, and therefore can't be linked to any other. As a result, I can’t “confirm” my account or receive your donation anyway – must be a sign that I’m not meant to go. No worries; PayPal will refund your money if I can’t confirm my account (and I can’t).

So much death...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:58:00 +0000

Starting this past weekend, my mom's dogs had been digging out of her backyard. She keeps Brin (the brindle pit bull) inside anyway, but I ended up with Brin and Bitsy (the rat terrier) over at my house, while she did everything she could to keep Blackie (Brin's brother) and Hope (a doberman mix) from getting out. Tuesday, one of her cats, Annette, was supposed to go to the vet to get spayed, but she was nowhere to be found; we have yet to see any sign of her. Wednesday morning, one of the kittes, Silvie, was lying dead in her yard. There were no visible marks on her, so we didn't know if one of the dogs had gotten to her or if something else had happened. Wednesday afternoon, mom returned home to find another cat, Jessie, lying dead in nearly the same place as she had found Silvie that morning. The body did look as though it had been disturbed by dogs (saliva all over his side), but there were no visible bite marks, and we all know that any dog that finds an animal corpse is going to play with it. We didn't want to jump to any conclusions... especially since it seemed so weird for there to be two dead cats in the same place in such a short space of time. And especially since when Blackie and Hope were around cats in the presence of either me or my mother, they showed no signs of aggression. We took the two bodies of the cats to the vet to be necropsied, so we could learn if it had been a dog, or if perhaps one of the neighbors was putting out poison. The necropsy was scheduled for this morning. We ended up cancelling it, as Blackie got ahold of and killed another cat, Stormy, this morning. We cannot have a cat killer on the premises, no matter how sweet of a dog he is to us, so sadly, we had him euthanized this morning.

Please Vote!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:53:00 +0000

I haven't posted about JPG in ages, but here's a submission I have to Issue 23 under the theme of Decay. Please either click here to vote, or click on the picture below. Thank you, thank you! (BTW, this photo was taken on in the village of Khuzhir on Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal, Siberia.)

Chip-in counter isn't working....

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:20:00 +0000

...but thank you to Diana E. and Rob B. for the donations!!! :-)

Combining my favorite thing with what I want to become...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:31:00 +0000

My friend Linda pointed out to me that WorldVets.org is taking a spay/neuter trip to Nicaragua during the exact same time that Waycross College has its spring break. The trip is open to vets, vet students, pre-vet students, vet techs and vet assistants. Now, how could I possibly pass up the opportunity to do my very favorite thing (travel to a foreign country) while assisting with something I care a lot about (spaying and neutering dogs and cats) which could help get me into vet school? Well, there is the problem that I am completely broke, as my ten hours a week at minimum wage doesn't even cover all my bills, much less allow me to put money into savings for a trip to Nicaragua. I have several different ideas for how to come up with the funds. One of these ideas will involve completely refurbishing my online store - but I can't start on that until after this week of exams is over. In the meanwhile, I am simply asking for your help. And as my birthday is September 25, you could also think of it as a birthday present :-)

:-(

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:52:00 +0000

I’d never met a dog like Dewey before. Don’t get me wrong – I love Koala and Duke, but they aren’t anything like my little Dewdrop. I knew he was sick when I brought him home from the shelter... but I thought I would be able to save him, or at least that my vet would be able to do so. My little guy got a month of love and affection and attention, but despite the best efforts of both myself and my vet, he died in my arms Tuesday night.

So many enemies...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Towards the end of my sojourn in Kyrgyzstan last year, a new teacher arrived at the school where I had been working. Initially, we hit it off. When asked why she had decided to come to Kyrgyzstan, she told me that she had read a book entitled So Many Enemies, So Little Time by Elinor Burkett, which was the travel memoir of a journalism professor who moved to Kyrgyzstan to teach in 2001. She told me that this book had inspired her to look for a job in Kyrgyzstan herself. I had been planning to order a handful of books as a welcome back to the US present to myself, and I added Burkett’s tome to my list and went ahead and ordered it. Then this new teacher and I had what you might term a falling out. By the time I left the country and returned to the US, I greatly despised her. Additionally, in the interim this new teacher had read Saffia Farr’s Revolution Baby – a book which I loathed – and enjoyed it! As such, I had two different reasons to think that perhaps So Many Enemies wasn’t actually worth my time. I shoved it aside, read other books, and months flew by during which I didn’t give it so much as a passing thought. Then, one evening a couple of weeks ago, when I was rummaging through my bookshelves looking for something I hadn’t yet read, I stumbled upon it and decided to give it a shot.

It turned out to be pretty good. Unlike Farr, whose narrative was clouded so much by her utter dislike of Kyrgyzstan, and whose descriptive abilities were somewhat limited, Burkett presents an incredibly accurate and easy-to-picture view of what life in Kyrgyzstan is like. Granted, a lot of what life in Central Asia is like would indeed be viewed by most Westerners in a negative light; however, she presents it in an impartial manner which allows the reader to be the judge. Must be that journalistic training, you think? Burkett, like myself, was abroad during the events of September 11, 2001, and I found that her experiences of what life was like for an American overseas at that time were quite similar to my own. I also discovered that Kyrgyzstan has apparently not changed much at all since her time there (2001-2002) and my time there in 2008. In addition to describing her life and work in Kyrgyzstan, Burkett writes about her travels during that time to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. It was specifically interesting to read about her reception in and descriptions of pre-War on Terror Afghanistan and Iraq. I know people who have been to these countries much more recently than 2001-2002, and their more up-to-date descriptions of these places seem so very different from Burkett’s. Sadly, it would appear that things have gone very much downhill. I wish Burkett would return to these countries now and do a piece on the contrasts she would find.

Anyhow, the long and the short of it is, that despite my rather silly delay in tackling this book, it turned out to be pretty good, and should be very much on the to-read list of anyone with an interest in Central Asia.

I’m voting no on crate training!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:09:00 +0000

For those of you who don’t know, crate training is a method of housebreaking a dog that many, many people swear by. You put a dog or puppy into a crate, and only take it out to use the bathroom. When it is left in the crate for a lengthy period (i.e. while you’re at work or asleep), if it defecates in its crate, it then has to sit/sleep in it. The idea is that a dog doesn’t want to defecate in its bed, and once it learns that if it goes in its crate it will have to sit/sleep in it, the dog will learn to “hold it” until it’s let outside. This knowledge is reinforced by leaving the dog in the crate during lengthy periods when the owner is unavailable to take it out regularly. Once the dog is in a pattern of not defecating during these lengthy periods, it should be relatively easy to then transfer this knowledge from not defecating in the crate to not defecating in the house... and any time there is a relapse, one can simply pop the errant beast back in his crate.

There are different views on crate training within the animal rights community. PETA is opposed to it, whereas the ASPCA supports it. Here’s what they have to say on the topic, respectively:

PETA says: Crate training does not speed up the housebreaking process. Regardless of the training method, puppies do not develop full bladder control until they are about 6 months old. It is counterproductive to crate young puppies in the hope that they will "hold it" because they are physically incapable of doing so and will be forced to urinate in their crate after experiencing great discomfort while trying not to soil their bed. Puppies who repeatedly soil their crates often lose the urge to keep their crate clean, which in turn prolongs and complicates the housebreaking process. Pet-store and puppy-mill puppies who are born and raised in crate-like structures may experience severe anxiety and develop fearful and/or destructive behaviors if they are confined to a crate. They may even injure themselves while trying to bite or scratch their way out of it. [source]

The ASPCA (who has their ‘seal of approval’ on the very crate I purchased) says: You can use a crate to safely contain your dog during the night and whenever you can’t monitor her behavior closely. Dogs don’t like to soil their sleeping areas, so your dog will naturally avoid eliminating in her crate. If used for house training purposes, the crate should be sized so that your dog can lie down comfortably, stand up without having to crouch and easily turn around in a circle. If the crate is any larger, she might learn to soil one end of it and sleep at the other. If the crate is any smaller, she might be uncomfortable and unable to rest. (When you no longer need to use the crate for house training, you can purchase a larger one for your dog if you like.) Using a crate will help you predict when your dog needs to eliminate and control where she eliminates. If she’s been crated overnight or for a few hours during the day, the chances are extremely high that she’ll eliminate as soon as you release her from the crate and take her outside. So, with the crate’s help, you can prevent your dog from eliminating indoors and have a chance to reward her for going in the right place—outside. [source]

Now, as I remarked yesterday, Koala is a bad little girl in many different ways. In addition to being an absolute heathen on a leash, she refuses to housebreak. We’ve pretty much solved this problem by turning our carport into a giant kennel for Duke and Koala to live in when no one’s home/awake (and they’ve pretty much been in there 24/7 ever since sick Dewey has been living in the house). Duke is actually pretty well housebroken (done before I ever met him), but Koala is just hopeless. Numerous people have told me that I should crate train her, but I really didn’t like the notion of sticking the poor little girl in a crate all day – after all, she’s been through so much torment in her short life, it hardly seems right. Then Dewey arrived, and despite my best efforts, if he’s left alone for a lengthy period, he pees and poops in the house. Again, numerous people told me that crate training was the way to go. I held out, thinking that it just seemed wrong to rescue a puppy from the pound only to put it back in a cage. Additionally, Dewey spent several days in a crate at the humane society, and it was always a filthy disaster area in the mornings. But, after buying a crate for Sunny and Easy (and therefore having one on hand) and after getting absolutely fed up with mopping my floor time and time again, I decided to try crate training.

After two nights of being unable to sleep due to Dewey’s incessant barking, I am feeling thoroughly crabby. He seems to be feeling the same – and so would you, if you had to spend twelve hours sitting in a conglomeration of feces, urine, spilled water and spilled food. Blech. Each morning, the first thing I’ve had to do – before I could even think about getting dressed or eating breakfast – was to clean the absolute mess that was Dewey’s crate. This involves dragging the whole contraption outside and bleaching and hosing it down. While this was going on, Dewey (who was likewise covered in filth) was so ecstatic to be out of his crate and reunited with his Jane, that he wanted nothing more than to jump all over me... thus showering me with both affection and shit. After cleaning the crate, I then had to bathe Dewey (who hates baths) and then myself. I’m a shower-in-the-evening type of girl, so that’s yet another aspect of this whole catastrophe that’s got me off my game. In addition to all this hassle, it seems that being confined in his filth has worsened his cough, which had started to get better. So I’m off the whole crate training thing. I’d rather scoop up a couple easy to clean lumps of poop when I wake up than put myself and Dewey through that whole nasty process again! Besides, now I can use that crate as a home for the bind kitten – at least until he gets bigger.

Time spent in my neighborhood...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:29:00 +0000

It probably doesn't say much for my "parenting" skills, that Koala, my puppy that I raised from a baby, is such a bad, bad little girl. Not that I don't love her to death, but she has no manners whatsoever. And for a small/medium sized dog, she is incredibly strong. While Duke can definitely knock me over if he so desires - which is not surprising, as he comes up to my waist - he doesn't ever so much as consider doing such a thing. Koala, meanwhile, for all her diminutive stature, can - and does - knock me over in a heartbeat. Not to mention her love of tying me in knots with the leash and dragging me hither and yon. I took Duke, Koala and Dewey for a walk around my neighborhood this morning, and barely made it home... solely due to Koala's antics. Of course, watching me battle my way out of the various leash-knots Koala managed to tie around me and the other two dogs as we hobbled around the block provided obvious fodder for my neighbors' laughter. Sigh.

Now as you probably know, like to call my neighborhood 'the ghetto' as it is one of the worst (if not the worst) neighborhood in Waycross. That being said, Rob - who hails from Trenton, NJ - scoffs at the notion that anywhere in Waycross could possibly be considered a 'ghetto.' Nonetheless, as I've mentioned quite a few times in the past, it's not the best of neighborhoods. [Examples of this from my own personal experience can be found here, here, here and here.] My street is known to pretty much everyone in the community as the place one goes to buy drugs. I find this fascinating, as most of the houses on my street are rentals. Do these people get into dealing because they move to my neighborhood, do they move there in order to deal, or is it just that my neighborhood is the place in Waycross where the dealing is the most obvious? My street has five blocks, and I know there's one group (gang?) of dealers on each block. The group one block to the north of me is absurdly obvious in their marketing techniques - waving their arms and shouting while making crack/pot smoking gestures. They, unlike the other two groups, still haven't caught on that I *live* in the neighborhood and am not there to make a buy. (Of course other than Rob, myself, and our respective visiting family members, white people only ever come to my street for the purpose of purchasing, shall we say, goods or services. Unless of course, it's a landlord collecting the rent or remodeling after an eviction.) Definitely an interesting world in which I live!

Another new post...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:35:00 +0000

...on the Brierpatch Cats Blog. Enjoy!

Unemployment and Food Stamps, aka: Why I am annoyed at the State of Georgia

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:06:00 +0000

According to the Georgia Department of Labor’s website, if you leave your full time job in order to go back to school full time, you are eligible to receive unemployment. You are also eligible to receive unemployment (albeit less) if, while being a full time student you work part time. Now, according to these factors, I should be able to receive some form of unemployment benefit. Sadly, that is not the case. Why? Well, you have to have made a certain amount of money within the past year to qualify. If they counted “the past year” as being from August 2008 to August 2009, I’d be fine. Unfortunately, they count it from – of all absurdities – April 2008 to March 2009. They don’t count overseas employment, and as I only worked in the US from January to March 2009 (if going by there scheme), I haven’t made enough money to qualify for unemployment benefits. Grrrr.

Then there’s the whole food stamps thing. I figured, I’m super-poor, why not apply for food stamps? Every little bit really does help, and if I could get some money to cover some of my foodstuffs, that would be great. Anyway, first you apply, and then a week or so later you get an interview. In the application, they ask you to list your mailing address and your physical address. Now, let’s just say that after the baseball-bat-to-mailbox incident in my neighborhood, I’ve been receiving all my mail at my mom’s address. I don’t even have a mailbox at my house, so yes, my physical address and my mailing address are different.

DFACS (the Department for Family and Child Services, aka the food stamp folks) sent me a letter to my mom’s address stating that my telephonic interview would be today, 8/25. It was at a time when I was available, so I wasn’t concerned. Then, a few days later, I came home to find another letter from DFACS, this one wedged into my front screen door. It stated that my telephonic interview would be on 8/24, right in the middle of my physics class. Same case worker and everything. It also said that if I couldn’t make the interview, I should call and reschedule. Which I did. Except that all I was ever able to reach was the case worker’s voice mail. I did leave her a detailed message, but... I came out of physics and turned my phone on to discover a message stating that my application for food stamps had been turned down because I did not participate in the interview!

I immediately called the case worker back, and again, only reached voice mail. I left a message again explaining the two letters and the two different dates/times for the telephonic interview, and I expressed my desire to have an interview at the scheduled time on 8/25. Of course, she didn’t call at 9am. At 9:10, I called her and left a third message. I was planning to go down there and talk to them in person after class, but she called me at 9:45. The interview did not last long... apparently, if one is a full time student, one must also be employed a minimum of 25 hours/week in order to qualify. This is pretty absurd, considering that if I had the income generated from 25 hrs/wk of employment, I wouldn’t need food stamps! Grrrrr. Thus ends my first ever attempt at seeking government assistance; back to going it alone, as usual.

Who needs gainful employment when one can work less than 10 hours a week at minimum wage?

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:05:00 +0000

I have a job! I managed to snag one of the few student assistantship programs available through Waycross College. I’m certainly not going to make my fortune doing this, as I will be working ten hours a week or less for a whopping $7.25/hr, but that’s a good chunk of change more than no income at all… and besides, I couldn’t cram a full time job in around this course load anyway! I’m working for the PREP program, which is a program Waycross College runs with the local area middle and high schools. It helps keep at-risk students on track for college (at-risk being defined as those from low income families, families where neither parent went to college, and single/no parent households). I’m helping with the middle and high school students over in Pierce County (Blackshear), which is a bit of a drawback, as it takes a good 20+ minutes to get to the schools – luckily my car gets excellent gas mileage! So far, all I’ve done is paperwork (apparently that’s a big beginning of the school-year task for the program), although eventually I’ll be planning events and fund raisers and helping with tutoring.

One bizarre thing to share: the architectural design of Pierce County High School is based off that of a tri-level women’s prison! My first day there, I kept thinking that the building had a very strange design and that it reminded me of... something. It wasn’t until the PREP director told me that it was based on a plan for a prison that it all clicked into place. No, none of the cell – er, classroom – doors slam shut with a clang when the bell rings, but once you know what you’re looking at, it’s simple to take any scene from any prison movie/show and superimpose it on your surroundings. Not as creepy as the morgue-turned-dorm at Sewanee, but still a tad disconcerting. And at least the PCHS kids aren’t saddled with that horrific “mouse ears” design of my former high school. *shiver*

The Brierpatch Cats Blog

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Most of my news from the past few days is very cat-centric, so as such, it's been posted over on the Brierpatch Cats Blog - check it out!

Back to School!!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:36:00 +0000

Today was my first day of school in eight years! I feel a little rusty being back in the classroom after so long, especially since the only “classes” I’ve taken since graduating from college were my rather pathetic attempts to learn Korean and Kyrgyz. The students at Waycross College range from those fresh out of high school (most of them probably fall into this category), to those in their twenties and thirties, to those in their fifties! While I’m not the only “old fogie” enrolled at WC (and yes, it totally amuses me to abbreviate it as such) thus far, I’ve only encountered one other person already in possession of a Bachelor’s degree, and she is there simply to take art classes for fun. I don’t think there’s anyone else there in the same situation as myself.

I only had one class today: Physics. I have to admit that physics scares me somewhat. It was the only class I ever dropped when I was at Sewanee, and I did so because I was doing rather poorly. In my defense, I was 19, away from home for the first time, and spending every evening partying like a rockstar. Certainly none of these things apply this time around! It doesn’t seem hard at all as yet, although we covered very little ground in our first class. I suspect it will get tougher as it goes along. Tomorrow – biology and chemistry. I’m looking forward to biology; those of you who went to the same high school as I did and who remember Mrs. Mac probably understand why I can’t say the same for chemistry!

As a side note, WC has super-awesome wireless internet, which means I’ll probably be spending a lot of my free time on campus taking advantage. My mom’s response to this was, “Oh no! I’ll never see you again!” (I have no internet at my house, and have been going over to hers at least once a day to make use of the interwebz.) Of course, she teaches history at WC, so I’m not really sure what she’s talking about :-)

One last tidbit of news – I’ve actually started posting things over on the Brierpatch Cats Blog, although sadly, they're not the happiest. Go check it out. Hopefully there will be some good news over there soon.

Not exactly news, but...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:11:00 +0000

...the road to The Land is flooded again, after being passable nearly all summer.

Signs of the times: Waycross Signage

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:05:00 +0000

While I do find this amusing,
it doesn't exactly make me want to go in there and buy food!

When teaching English overseas, I found that my students always wanted to translate the idiom "fed up" as "full" - After struggling to explain the correct meaning, I know this sign would totally throw them off!

This is total bullshit.

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 15:15:00 +0000

As I am no longer employed by the local humane society, I can feel free to blog about it as a concerned citizen. Take a look:

The “old Blackwell Street facility” is an abomination. The sturdiest structure at the complex was built in the 1950s as the office for the county dump (the humane society is overshadowed to this day by the giant landfill mound). Roughly 30 years ago the facility was turned into an animal shelter. Neither the office nor any of the buildings housing animals have either air conditioning or heat. The roof leaks, and the electrical wiring dates back to the stone age. The facility is tiny, completely unequipped to deal with the incredibly high influx of stray and unwanted animals in our area. There are only four tiny cat pens, each stuffed to the gills with kitties. While there are more dog enclosures (ten), they, too, are filled to the brim. Through no fault of the staff of the Okefenokee Humane Society – who labor strenuously each day to do their best for these animals – dogs and cats are suffering. Overcrowding leads to the spread of diseases. The lack of a modern quarantine area means that animals which come to the shelter healthy inevitably get sick. Heatstroke is common in the summer. Animals have frozen to death in the winter.

For months now, the Ware County Commission and the Waycross City Council have been promising to build a new facility for the Okefenokee Humane Society… but obviously they have decided that it is not a priority. The community should be appalled by this decision.

A temporary new office located in a used trailer (I have seen this trailer; it is definitely NOT new) will be an improvement for the office staff; however, it will do NOTHING to alleviate the overcrowding or the other problems I have mentioned above. Additionally, the cost of moving the trailer to the current site on Blackwell Street, renovating it, and hooking it up to the electric, water, sewer and phone lines simply so that the tiny office staff (there are only two of them!) can have nicer offices is an absurd waste of money, which could go towards starting work on the new facility. You can read the entire article here.

I am hopelessly infuriated by this decision, although considering the lack of concern towards animals evidenced by the elected officials and average citizens of this area that I have seen over the past eight months, it shouldn’t surprise me. In fact, yesterday my mom found a kitten in the road, which must have been run over just minutes before she got there. Seeing that it was still moving, she got out and held it as it died, then took it home to bury it. The road this happened on is not one which has a lot of traffic, nor is it one where people drive particularly fast, which leads us to the sickening conclusion that perhaps it was intentional. But like I said, given some of the things I’ve seen over the past eight months, that wouldn’t surprise me.

On a related note, I am currently reading Cast For Death by Margaret York. York is a British author, and the story was written in 1976. While the mystery itself is fiction, the setting is realistic and depicts life in England in the late 1970s as accurately as possible. That being said, let me quote you a passage:

A black flash, a dog or a cat, suddenly sprang from the side of the road between Patrick’s car and the van in front. There was nothing he could do to avoid it, for if he braked, the car behind – already much to close – would crash into him, and he could not swerve away because of the oncoming traffic. There was a considerable thud, and Patrick slowed down, pulling in to the side of the road as he did so. The cars behind reformed and sorted themselves out as he got out and walked back along the road to see what he had hit.

The dog, for what it was, had been flung on the verge by the force of the collision, and now lay motionless on the grass. It was a black poodle and it was dead. The law obliged you to report the death of the dog to the police, and your own morality to tell the owner, but this one wore no collar. Well, the owner could not be far away, having doubtless been exercising his pet on the nearby common. Or her pet. Men, thought Patrick, did not own poodles.

Patrick goes on to look for the owner, and having no luck, goes to the local police station to report the animal’s untimely demise, even though this incident makes him a good half an hour or so late for picking up a friend at the airport. That’s England, 1976 for you. Meanwhile, here in Waycross, 2009, we run animals over intentionally and leave them in the road to languish, while allowing our elected officials to under-fund the local humane society. You should be ashamed. I know I am.