The Swamp

A_B wrote:If you're smart you do it right the first time and don't need to persevere.

This reads like one of those parody Successories posters.

Right next to his "Economics: The More People Demand a Limited Good or Service, the Cheaper That Good or Service Becomes to Obtain" poster.

A guy has one brain fart! Still not sure what the fuck I was thinking on that one, but I think I was going to try to make a point how when something is popular more people get into the market so I mentioned the barriers to entry but totally fucked up my point anyway. I was wrong. I can admit it! Have a look at my phone!

"I want bourbon", probably.

Last edited by A_B on Thu Aug 13, 2015 9:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

Way to make your case for competence.

rass wrote:

Last edited by A_B on Thu Aug 13, 2015 9:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

Way to make your case for competence.

I'm just trying to help the ballclub.

A_B wrote:A guy has one brain fart! Still not sure what the fuck I was thinking on that one, but I think I was going to try to make a point how when something is popular more people get into the market so I mentioned the barriers to entry but totally fucked up my point anyway. I was wrong. I can admit it! Have a look at my phone!

Economy of scale, assuming unlimited resources? The more bourbon made, the cheaper it is to produce an individual bottle? I knew what you were getting, just wanted to bust balls.

wlu_lax6 wrote:So Hopkins has this program called Center for Talented Youth (http://cty.jhu.edu/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). JHU puts on a number of programs for kids who qualify. My son was interested in a few of their summer camps (nerd camps). So we signed him up for the qualification test so this could be an option next summer (super interested in history and writing workshop). Told him to just do his best, but could care less how he did, no pressure. Got the results back today. 97 percentile in verbal, 95th in math compared to all 5th graders who have taken the test (He starts 3rd grade in 3 weeks). Apparent his scores qualified him for some award banquet in the spring. For all I know this could be some money making scheme by JHU and every kid gets a high score...but still makes you feel good. Especially since my boy has not found his groove in team sports or martial arts.

That's pretty awesome. I think I did the Hopkins program when I was a kid in Virginia. I know I took the SATs in 7th grade and got to go up to Baltimore later to get some sort of certificate.

A bit further south, we have the Duke TIP program, which I think is pretty similar. My kids have done that. My older son, like me, took the ACTs in 7th grade and did pretty well. I can't remember the exact percentages, but it was something like your kid. I remember noting that he did well enough to get into a lot of major (not elite) universities.

Anyway, these programs are cool and they offer some great classes for smart kids. We ended up not taking advantage for our son, because it was going to be like 4 weeks in the summer and pretty expensive, but we know other kids who have done it. I think when I was a kid, I was given the opportunity to take a free course (an actual college course, not a special course for kids) at UVA, but I never ended up using it.

Shirley wrote:

wlu_lax6 wrote:So Hopkins has this program called Center for Talented Youth (http://cty.jhu.edu/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). JHU puts on a number of programs for kids who qualify. My son was interested in a few of their summer camps (nerd camps). So we signed him up for the qualification test so this could be an option next summer (super interested in history and writing workshop). Told him to just do his best, but could care less how he did, no pressure. Got the results back today. 97 percentile in verbal, 95th in math compared to all 5th graders who have taken the test (He starts 3rd grade in 3 weeks). Apparent his scores qualified him for some award banquet in the spring. For all I know this could be some money making scheme by JHU and every kid gets a high score...but still makes you feel good. Especially since my boy has not found his groove in team sports or martial arts.

That's pretty awesome. I think I did the Hopkins program when I was a kid in Virginia. I know I took the SATs in 7th grade and got to go up to Baltimore later to get some sort of certificate.

A bit further south, we have the Duke TIP program, which I think is pretty similar. My kids have done that. My older son, like me, took the ACTs in 7th grade and did pretty well. I can't remember the exact percentages, but it was something like your kid. I remember noting that he did well enough to get into a lot of major (not elite) universities.

Anyway, these programs are cool and they offer some great classes for smart kids. We ended up not taking advantage for our son, because it was going to be like 4 weeks in the summer and pretty expensive, but we know other kids who have done it. I think when I was a kid, I was given the opportunity to take a free course (an actual college course, not a special course for kids) at UVA, but I never ended up using it.

I think I did the Hopkins thing too around that age...but never showed any interest in the programs as I was one of the kids at UVA, Maryland, Loyola, UMBC, JHU, etc lacrosse or soccer camp looking at the "nerd" campers wondering why in the world would they want to spend their time doing that.

This isn't really the right thread for this but I don't know where else to place it.

My high school sophomore daughter. Quiet, shy, studious (straight A's boom). All that is still true, but now she's also an eye-rolling, sarcastic, bass-playin', beanie-wearing, metal-core rockin' girl, with blue hair.

And, I have become my father. Ay yi yi!

sancarlos wrote:bass-playin',

awesome!

Clever girl. She's creating a personna that might distinguish her from the deluge of mundane brainiacs who apply to Harvard So get with the program and provide the pythons and flame thrower she'll need for her stage show.

My 6 year old daughter is playing on a soccer team for the first time, and she is damned determined and passionate on and off the field. She is one of the smallest players on the field, but has no fear running into tackles (more like a pile of girls kicking the ball and each other). In her first game, she took a nasty spill, smacking the side of her head really hard, causing a nice sized lump. Within a minute, she was begging to come back on the field. She went on to score 2 goals in a 3-0 game.

But the two best things, after both games, she came up to me and asked me what she could have done better. Completely unprompted. Just like with baseball, she is really eager for instruction, and picks things up immediately. Next week my son has a cross country meet at Six Flags, Great Adventure. They are spending the rest of the day in the park. My wife gave my daughter the choice of playing soccer or going to Six Flags, and she chose soccer. This is 5v5, tiny goals, small field, and she still chose soccer over an amusement park.

My watch nerd son created a buckle for a watch band this summer while working at a watch company.

They are using his design in their new bands.

For a kid who just started 2nd year in an Industrial Design course, this is massive.

That's awesome Syb and Pruitt.

Not to sound old (but I am, so what the hell)...but what the hell is with kids these days?

She's not my kid, but my GF's oldest daughter finished school this spring...expensive private school...graduated with honors in exercise science/neuro-biology double major...captain of the soccer team. So she graduates, and goes off to Bali for 5 weeks to take an intensive class to become a certified yoga instructor. Then she goes off to New Zealand with her father for 3 weeks of vacation/adventure-time. Then to Hawaii to stay with her grandparents for a couple of weeks. And then she announces that she's going to stay in Kona, and get a job as a barista and a yoga teacher.

Well, as you can imagine, that didn't go over too well with my GF. Her response was "Wait...we paid a hell of a lot of money for that expensive private school, and now you want to be a barista?". Eventually, after a few weeks, her Grandparents told her to get her shit together, and bought her a plane ticket home.

So now's she back in Seattle, moping around, trying to figure out what to do next. I've tried to get her to apply for a job here where I work (she'd get hired in a second...they are looking for entry-level lab tech's, and she has experience), but she just shakes her head and says "no way...I don't want a desk job".

Doesn't want a desk job??? Who the hell does? But it pays...and at least has a path going forward...rather than making lattes every morning.

My theory is that if a job won't look cool when posting about it on Instagram, they want nothing to do with it. Her ex-boyfriend, who comes from a super-wealthy family who runs a major department store chain based here in Seattle, has decided that rather than go into the family business, he wants to open a "farm-to-table wellness spa in Central America". Seriously....

I'm pretty sure that's the plot to Disney's Teen Beach Movie.

I don't know. I wish I didn't "need" the stability of a salary and an office job.

Millenials. Shakes head sadly and fist angrily.

But, in all seriousness, millenials, what the hell?

I bet there's a Starbucks with openings in the Seattle Area....

A_B wrote:I bet there's a Starbucks with openings in the Seattle Area....

No, no, no....she can't work at Starbucks...that's too corporate for her. She needs to work at an independent coffee shop (she actually told us this).

My GF just shakes her head and says "When did she turn into a hippie/bohemian?".

Oh, and of course there's a guy involved...who she met when she was in Bend, OR skiing and has spent a total of about 2 weeks with, and is now convinced he's "The One".

Oh, and I also didn't mention that she brought a book back from her travels this summer, about intimacy. My GF asked her about it, and the daughter said "it really speaks to me". I picked it up, looked at the picture of the author, and said "Wait....I know who that guy is"



Yes....the author of the book that "spoke to her" is none other than the Baghwan Shree Rajnessh...aka "The Rolls-Royce Guru"....

Look at his hat and beard! You know this guy has all the answers!

The choice between a job that I really would rather not work, and living with my parents, was quite easy.

Rajneesh was the inspiration for a long Bill the Cat series of strips in Bloom County in the 80s, I believe.

DaveInSeattle wrote:

A_B wrote:I bet there's a Starbucks with openings in the Seattle Area....

No, no, no....she can't work at Starbucks...that's too corporate for her. She needs to work at an independent coffee shop (she actually told us this).

My GF just shakes her head and says "When did she turn into a hippie/bohemian?".

Sounds like she just hasn't had a real job yet. Nothing opens the eyes quite like working a real job and getting that pay check with all of the tax money taken out. Doesn't matter if you're working for The Man or selling free range organic quinoa-crusted tofu.

I shouldn't judge, but it seems many millennials have lived their whole life on scholarship from Mum and Dad and assume the gravy train will always be there for them. For some reason, this generation seems to have a sense of entitlement.

I dropped out of high school and fled the family home shortly thereafter. Unemployment then was roughly double what it is now. So I did whatever I had to do to survive on my own, 3,000 miles away. That included running a jack-hammer (a form of multi-sensory torture) and living in construction sites and my VW bus, parked in various illegal locations around northern California. I got my college degree attending part time, without ever living in the vicinity of the school.

These aspects of my youthful years certainly contributed a lot to who I became.

Troubled times while wearing a suit and working in a corporate high-rise near the UN in NYC? I let my mind drift back to the time I was working with a shovel at the bottom of an eight-foot deep trench, laying water pipe under a street, as the fluid drip-drip-dripped out of the hydraulic jacks that were holding the plywood walls in place, that were in turn holding back the water-soaked soil. In the rain. For pay that was 50 cents more than the minimum wage.

One day a jack lost enough fluid that it failed. The plywood dropped out of place and the wall caved in. I was five feet away.

What next? Back-hoe the soil out of the trench, then get back down there to set up the jack with the bad seal again. Then get back to laying pipe.

Looking back on this period in my life, a key factor was passionately hating both my high school and my father, plagued with alcoholism and a violent temper. I was driven out of the (theoretical) protection of my family and my school, onto "the streets." Many kids today have a similar trajectory. But many others adore their schools and their parents, and live contentedly in their sheltering arms until their mid-twenties.

Perhaps a big part of the problem with the GFs daughter is that she has too many cool adult relatives who live in awesome places. If more lived in Wichita instead of Hawaii, and more were unsympathetic creeps, she might be better off. Well, better off in some ways, while worse off in others.

I think a lot of the problem also lies with the generation that raised these kids. You hover over a kid, demand that society accommodate them instead of the other way around, they are bound to grow up spoiled.

So what you guys are saying is I should drink more and take out my anger on my kids so they develop character. I'm on it.

The Sybian wrote:So what you guys are saying is I should drink more and take out my anger on my kids so they develop character. I'm on it.

My dad can consult you on this approach if you're interested.

I'm actually kinda surprised at the amount of "kids these days..." views in the Swamp. I guess as a non-parent (and technically a "millennial") I see Dave's situation differently.

To me it sounds like your GF's daughter has a pretty healthy curiosity about the world and her place in it. The manifestations of that curiosity are coming off as naive and shallow right now, but as she gets older and experiences more I think she'll grow into a person you can probably be very proud of.

I think if she came out of her expensive private school and went straight into a nine-to-five I would want my money back. Everyone (if they're lucky) gets old and dies, what's the rush to get there. Sometimes I think the attitude of "I had to bust my ass on my own at 19 so my kid should too" has bit more resentment/jealousy to it than people are willing to admit. (Again, I have no kids so i'm pretty much talking out of my ass here).

I don't see a big issue with wanting to explore the world just after college and try to "fing yourself" so to speak, but I do think at some point you have to realize that part of being an adult is being able to care for yourself. So a few months isn't a huge deal to me, but if it dragged on and on I can see it becoming a problem. And I guess if she graduated in May, you're getting close to the point where you start to wonder.

A_B wrote:I don't see a big issue with wanting to explore the world just after college and try to "fing yourself" so to speak

Jesus, dude, that's like his step daughter.

A_B wrote:I don't see a big issue with wanting to explore the world just after college and try to "fing yourself" so to speak, but I do think at some point you have to realize that part of being an adult is being able to care for yourself. So a few months isn't a huge deal to me, but if it dragged on and on I can see it becoming a problem. And I guess if she graduated in May, you're getting close to the point where you start to wonder.

That's what the issue is here...she's had the summer to go off and see the world and gather up these life experiences. And good for her...she earned that. But now its back to the cold cruel world of cell phone bills/rent/student loan payments.

The GF has told her "you can do whatever you want, wherever you want, but you have to be able to support yourself" and has given her the option of living at home while she saves up some money. But I don't think she's particularly thrilled about living at home with her mom and her mom's new BF (being me), and the mom's new BF's kids every other weekend.

She has been getting some modelling auditions and gigs (coming to an Adidas ad soon! She was featured on the Adidas Instagram feed a couple of days ago) down in Portland, so we've said "move to portland! Do modelling! Teach yoga! Be closer to that guy in Bend!", but she dithers around about that too...

Not for nuthin', but as a barista in Kona, she'll be working with a preeminent coffee beans at the source. It doesn't get much more prestigious than that in the coffee-making game.

The Sybian wrote:Not for nuthin', but as a barista in Kona, she'll be working with a preeminent coffee beans at the source. It doesn't get much more prestigious than that in the coffee-making game.

Also, Kona (and the Big Island in general) is absolutely beautiful.

Sabo wrote:

The Sybian wrote:Not for nuthin', but as a barista in Kona, she'll be working with a preeminent coffee beans at the source. It doesn't get much more prestigious than that in the coffee-making game.

Also, Kona (and the Big Island in general) is absolutely beautiful.

Funny, when we got to Kona, I thought the plane made a wrong turn and sent us to Afghanistan. The hills where they grow coffee are great, and the beaches are awesome, but lots of dried lava makes it look otherworldly.

It's amazing how different is the landscape on the Hilo side of the island. Not sure if this is true, but somebody told there me that the Big Island has every temperature zone found on earth except the Saharan-type desert and the polar zones.

Sabo wrote:

The Sybian wrote:Not for nuthin', but as a barista in Kona, she'll be working with a preeminent coffee beans at the source. It doesn't get much more prestigious than that in the coffee-making game.

Also, Kona (and the Big Island in general) is absolutely beautiful.

And seriously expensive to live there...

When she opens an incredibly successful coffee roasting business and credits her education plus post-grad experience in the industry, you're gonna feel so stupid.

DaveInSeattle wrote:

Sabo wrote:

The Sybian wrote:Not for nuthin', but as a barista in Kona, she'll be working with a preeminent coffee beans at the source. It doesn't get much more prestigious than that in the coffee-making game.

Also, Kona (and the Big Island in general) is absolutely beautiful.

And seriously expensive to live there...

Can she support herself there as a barista?