Good news - yesterday I passed the physical for the ambulance driver's license! I wasn't sure I would because I'm a bit overweight now, age 50.. just had a major operation last year.... but as it turned out I passed. The hardest part was running in place for two minutes. I never jog and running isn't my idea of fun. I like long walks though, and have taken quite a few lately for conditioning. That may have helped, because my pulse rate was just fine (within the limit) after the two minute run. I'll admit my breathing was a little bit labored though.
A few nights ago it was cool enough at sunset to walk, so my son, Aaron, and I walked across town to the post office. There's a big, long hill on the way there... no matter which direction we walk in. We chose the highway... so I was nearly to the top of the hill before I felt like slowing down, but I was starting to ache and breathe heavy and sweat. My son had none of these symptoms. Now, I may be 50 but I honestly believe that if I take the walk every day I'll be doing better in about a month. Keith picked us up at the post office because by the time we got there it was dark.
***
Today was the annual children's fair sponsored by the Family Resource Center. It started at 10:30 with a karate demonstration from the class this week. The man who ran the class was from Southern California, and it was was co-sponsored by the Family Resource Center and the Karuk Tribe's Education Department. I'm glad they have these opportunities for kids here. Since we're so far off the main roads, it is the only way for kids here to get the classes.
At the children's fair my daughter got to decorate a shirt and a cloth tote bag, make a beaded scarf and bracelet and necklace.. and she got a bunch of goodies. About fifty kids and their parents showed up... so it was a good crowd for such a small town.
***
A few months ago we bought an old truck for hauling things around town. Now our neighbor is using it for firewood and in exchange does mechanic work for us. Today he tuned it up so I decided to drive it to the children's fair... and... amazing how much smoother it runs after a tune-up! I might even get used to driving it. Its a 1970 Ford... and reminds me of the old 1969 GMC my grandmother gave me years ago... I wish I had kept that one!
Showing posts with label classes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classes. Show all posts
Saturday, August 17, 2002
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Teen Foster Child in SF Turned to Prostitution
I had such a quiet day today. Just what I needed. I stayed home all day except for taking my daughter to her hiphop dance class and picking her up afterward.
I spent a lot of the day researching news about child welfare. San Francisco's Examiner has a really depressing series this week about a girl who was in state custody who became a prostitute. She was living with her mom in SF when that started, and when mom found out she took her daughter to another town where they were staying temporarily in an old hotel. Child welfare workers didn't think that was good enough, so they took the girl from her mom and took her back to SF. There, the girl ran away from the fosterincarcerators and entered the prostitution world full time, at the age of 13.
She was refused re-entry into a foster custody situation after six months. Whenever the police picked her up for prostitution, nobody ever bothered to call her mother. Instead the police just dropped her back off at the dept. of human services, and she would walk in the door, out the back door, and go back to her pimp.
This is all sick enough but at age 15 she was found dead in a lake... that's why she's being written about in the paper. The paper is accusing the city and social service meddlers of being responsible for her death as much as the actual murderer, who got away with it. I agree - they made a good call on that. So anyhow, I went through a terrible depression over that this afternoon. ::sigh::
Okay... so then I had to rest in bed for a while to get over it. Now I'm up again and listening to an old Art Bell show from 1997, about Atlantis. I decided to make another graphic..... this one is called, "Something's Missing."
Keith likes this one...... he said it would make a great CD cover. My daughter prefers a different one.... strange... well, the graphic she likes (Pink World) is really too strange for me. My favorite from this week is Leaves.... I made that one into this week's desktop wallpaper, and when I get ready to put up my design website, I'll be putting my wallpaper online for free use. That's the plan.
I spent a lot of the day researching news about child welfare. San Francisco's Examiner has a really depressing series this week about a girl who was in state custody who became a prostitute. She was living with her mom in SF when that started, and when mom found out she took her daughter to another town where they were staying temporarily in an old hotel. Child welfare workers didn't think that was good enough, so they took the girl from her mom and took her back to SF. There, the girl ran away from the fosterincarcerators and entered the prostitution world full time, at the age of 13.
She was refused re-entry into a foster custody situation after six months. Whenever the police picked her up for prostitution, nobody ever bothered to call her mother. Instead the police just dropped her back off at the dept. of human services, and she would walk in the door, out the back door, and go back to her pimp.
This is all sick enough but at age 15 she was found dead in a lake... that's why she's being written about in the paper. The paper is accusing the city and social service meddlers of being responsible for her death as much as the actual murderer, who got away with it. I agree - they made a good call on that. So anyhow, I went through a terrible depression over that this afternoon. ::sigh::
Okay... so then I had to rest in bed for a while to get over it. Now I'm up again and listening to an old Art Bell show from 1997, about Atlantis. I decided to make another graphic..... this one is called, "Something's Missing."
Keith likes this one...... he said it would make a great CD cover. My daughter prefers a different one.... strange... well, the graphic she likes (Pink World) is really too strange for me. My favorite from this week is Leaves.... I made that one into this week's desktop wallpaper, and when I get ready to put up my design website, I'll be putting my wallpaper online for free use. That's the plan.
Friday, April 19, 2002
Classes: Weather Spotting and It's Your Business
Wednesday night I went to a Weather Spotting Class and now I'm a trained weather spotter for the National Weather Service office in Medford, Oregon! About eight of us were trained and signed up for the job. It was fun and I learned a lot about summer thunder storms.
On Thurday night we had the last "It's Your Business" class ... it was a lot of fun listening to and giving presentations about what we learned and what our next steps are in forming our businesses. I've decided to start a webdesign business believe it or not. It will be Klamath Design and the website won't be up for another month but I'm already busy making websites for the Chamber of Commerce here. In exchange they gave me the software I've been needing to start this business. I'm also doing other things besides webdesign but that is what I like doing best.
Of course I'm still writing my novels and I'm also putting up an author website that will hopefully help me sell my stuff.
In other news - my daughter's birthday is tomorrow! We got her a karaoke machine and are paying for her to have a pizza party downtown with a few friends.
On Thurday night we had the last "It's Your Business" class ... it was a lot of fun listening to and giving presentations about what we learned and what our next steps are in forming our businesses. I've decided to start a webdesign business believe it or not. It will be Klamath Design and the website won't be up for another month but I'm already busy making websites for the Chamber of Commerce here. In exchange they gave me the software I've been needing to start this business. I'm also doing other things besides webdesign but that is what I like doing best.
Of course I'm still writing my novels and I'm also putting up an author website that will hopefully help me sell my stuff.
In other news - my daughter's birthday is tomorrow! We got her a karaoke machine and are paying for her to have a pizza party downtown with a few friends.
Saturday, March 16, 2002
St. Patrick's Day in Happy Camp, 2002
Tonight we're having a St.Patrick's Day dinner and dance here in town. The Chamber of Commerce does this every year. I'm so excited.. I'm taking my daughter and a couple of her friends. Meanwhile I'm making a new website for the Chamber of Commerce. I'm excited about that too because I just finished phase one of that project and now am ready to get feedback on the designs from the Chamber members.
Thursday night I got to meet Chris, who teaches the business class I've been taking through College of the Siskiyous. The class has been via video-conferencing... so this is the first time I've actually met her. It was fun. I'll be meeting with her later (probably online) for an individual consultation on the business plan I'm writing. After meeting her, I got more enthusiastic about searching the web for business support, and I found a lot out there! Now this has revolutionized my life. I'm planning to start a virtual assistant business and to keep writing children's novels. After the class ends, I'll be writing a business plan for a pet store business - for the rest of the family to work in. We'll see how that goes!
Okay, on to other things. I'm going to run down to the Family Resource Center to see how the St. Patrick's Day festivities are progressing.
LATER...
The dance tonight was wonderful. My daughter and her friends had a great time. There were about 30 people there. I had to get tough with some of the kids who walked through the doors without paying. It is so hard for me to be tough on anyone... but I bounced them anyway. There were a lot of little kids there, and towards the end there were lots of teenagers. My daughter got a nice pair of sunglasses for a door prize. I got a nice wooden recipe box to hang on my kitchen wall - from the silent auction.
*we should do this more often*
Thursday night I got to meet Chris, who teaches the business class I've been taking through College of the Siskiyous. The class has been via video-conferencing... so this is the first time I've actually met her. It was fun. I'll be meeting with her later (probably online) for an individual consultation on the business plan I'm writing. After meeting her, I got more enthusiastic about searching the web for business support, and I found a lot out there! Now this has revolutionized my life. I'm planning to start a virtual assistant business and to keep writing children's novels. After the class ends, I'll be writing a business plan for a pet store business - for the rest of the family to work in. We'll see how that goes!
Okay, on to other things. I'm going to run down to the Family Resource Center to see how the St. Patrick's Day festivities are progressing.
LATER...
The dance tonight was wonderful. My daughter and her friends had a great time. There were about 30 people there. I had to get tough with some of the kids who walked through the doors without paying. It is so hard for me to be tough on anyone... but I bounced them anyway. There were a lot of little kids there, and towards the end there were lots of teenagers. My daughter got a nice pair of sunglasses for a door prize. I got a nice wooden recipe box to hang on my kitchen wall - from the silent auction.
*we should do this more often*
Saturday, February 02, 2002
Classes, Webdesign, Writing, and a Truck
I have suddenly become so busy! It all started about ten days ago. My friend, Judy, mentioned she was going to a business class and was worried that there might not be enough students for the class to continue. I thought about that... and realized that I too would benefit from taking a class on small business setup and management... so I volunteered to go with her. It turned out to be a class through the college extension program. Walking into the room I met Tracey for the first time and found out we would be televised for video confrencing. I found that very shocking, but adjusted soon enough.
Tracey mentioned that she was taking an EMT class that I could still get into, though I'd missed at least one class... so I decided to sign up for that too. I don't know if I'd ever get a job with an ambulance service (okay, maybe...) but it will help a lot to have some medical knowledge in case my family or neighbors need emergency help. This class is on Tuesday nights and the other class in on Thursday nights. The EMT class has a lot of required reading. The business class has less reading but homework that is aimed at setting up a small business plan.
Besides all that, I took on two web design projects this week. I'm very excited about both - they are professional level jobs that I'll be able to use as references for other customers I may have in the future. One is for the Chamber of Commerce here in Happy Camp and the other is for the 411 "Information Day" Rally - a nationwide initiative planned by a friend in Sacramento. I have the framework for that one set up already - we're now just working on adding content. The Chamber of Commerce website will feature a page for each event and a page or link for each member business.
Next... I'm trying to keep up with the writing prompts in A Writers Book of Days and have a group of writers I'm doing this with - via a mailing list.
I'm coming up with some fantastic writing... in my opinion... I'm improving my skills as a writer quite a bit by doing these daily writing practice sessions. That brings me to where I am today - I just wrote a seven-page entry for writing practice and like it well enough that I'll be using it as the start for a novel about CPS. A few weeks ago I set up a mailing list for writers who want to do work on CPS related works. I'm planning to do fact-based fiction and philosophy for my first CPS related writing project.
We bought a used truck a few days ago. A very very used truck - I think it is a '71... but... it is a nice big 3/4 ton pickup... good for hauling and camping trips, pulling utility trailers.. things like that. Since we live so far from the stores, it really helps to have a big truck of our own. For example - recently our washing machine went out. We had to pay someone else to haul it to the nearest repairman. Another example - if we ever want to buy new furniture, we'll have to truck it in here from the nearest furniture store, which is either 70 or 100 miles away. Anyhow, the truck won't win a beauty contest but it is strong and should last a while. The man who sold it to us said it will probably still be running long after we're all gone. I agree with that... they don't make them like they used to!
Tracey mentioned that she was taking an EMT class that I could still get into, though I'd missed at least one class... so I decided to sign up for that too. I don't know if I'd ever get a job with an ambulance service (okay, maybe...) but it will help a lot to have some medical knowledge in case my family or neighbors need emergency help. This class is on Tuesday nights and the other class in on Thursday nights. The EMT class has a lot of required reading. The business class has less reading but homework that is aimed at setting up a small business plan.
Besides all that, I took on two web design projects this week. I'm very excited about both - they are professional level jobs that I'll be able to use as references for other customers I may have in the future. One is for the Chamber of Commerce here in Happy Camp and the other is for the 411 "Information Day" Rally - a nationwide initiative planned by a friend in Sacramento. I have the framework for that one set up already - we're now just working on adding content. The Chamber of Commerce website will feature a page for each event and a page or link for each member business.
Next... I'm trying to keep up with the writing prompts in A Writers Book of Days and have a group of writers I'm doing this with - via a mailing list.
We bought a used truck a few days ago. A very very used truck - I think it is a '71... but... it is a nice big 3/4 ton pickup... good for hauling and camping trips, pulling utility trailers.. things like that. Since we live so far from the stores, it really helps to have a big truck of our own. For example - recently our washing machine went out. We had to pay someone else to haul it to the nearest repairman. Another example - if we ever want to buy new furniture, we'll have to truck it in here from the nearest furniture store, which is either 70 or 100 miles away. Anyhow, the truck won't win a beauty contest but it is strong and should last a while. The man who sold it to us said it will probably still be running long after we're all gone. I agree with that... they don't make them like they used to!
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