Coffee heat rising

Blackboard: Always Leave ’Em Tearing Their Hair…

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Un. Freaking. Believable.

But maybe not. Maybe I should’ve known I wasn’t gonna escape from Blackboard without one final pain in the butt.

One hundred thousand words of student writing was to cross my transom come Tuesday. A few eager beavers turned in their gigantic final papers over the weekend, so on Monday I read the early entrants in the course’s final steeplechase.

Blackboard, the bloatware that passes for the course management software favored by the local community college district, should add up each student’s points and then tell you what percentage of the semester’s total available points these figures represent. In the past, it has done so quietly and efficiently, much speeding the process of posting final grades.

So Monday I enter an A-minus (90 points) for a certain student.

Blackboard awards him a final score of 138.6 percent.

No kidding? This is a B-minus student at best. He’s racked up no extra-credit points, and he has missed 50-point assignments. How could he possibly have accumulated more than the total points available?

Whip out my calculator and discover that he in fact has captured 79 percent of the total available points.

Hm. This would explain why one of our brighter lightbulbs, one who indeed did perform a bunch of extra credit and who turned in his final paper even earlier, managed to rack up a score of 148 percent.

Manually recalculate his grade: 95 percent.

Enter a few theoretical final paper scores in other students’ rows. When we say all our children are above average, we’re not kidding!

Try to figure out what the problem is. I must have made some mistake, but I’ll be damned if I can find it. All the columns’ settings are the same, and as far as I can tell, they’re all correct.

Finally have to concede that the only way to figure their final scores without having to punch every number (that would be hundreds of numbers!) into a calculator is to build an Excel spreadsheet that works and import the data into that. Make it two spreadsheets—one for each of the composition sections.

This was not a difficult job, but it was tedious, made more so by the fact that the array of assignments differed slightly between the two sections, so I had to build two separate spreadsheets. Then I had to send out announcements and e-mails to all students in each section explaining why they couldn’t rely on their Blackboard “My Grades” function, how I would be figuring their grades, how to calculate their own grades. Of course this generated a flurry of e-mails from students in High Obsessive Gear. So I got to kill Monday evening farting around with still MORE unnecessary extra work generated by Blackboard.

This will be the last assignment I ever enter in a Blackboard spreadsheet. Starting with the summer term, my classes are moving over to sites created in WordPress.com. Communication will happen through that site and through G-mail accounts dedicated exclusively to specific courses, so that I don’t have to sift through all the junk mail that comes in from the district and two campuses to find messages from students. Grades will be kept in spreadsheets very like the ones I built Monday night. I may put them up on Google Docs, so I can access them from whatever computer I happen to be using. I’ll give students blank, formatted spreadsheets so they can enter their own grades and view their accumulating points and percentages.

Wouldn’t you know Blackboard would pull this stunt on the way out?

Small Frugalities, Small Chintzinesses?

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Chintzinesses? How d’you like that word? I can’t think of a word parallel to “frugality” (n) that means “an act of cheapskatishness.” Nor can I think of a word meaning “the state of being a cheapskate.” Cheapskatitude?

At any rate, our subject is that perennial favorite: When does one cross the line from frugality to chintziness?

This weekend I happened to mention to M’hijito that when La Maya and I were out and about in pursuit of a distant estate sale, we stopped at a Starbucks, where I ordered a café Americano. He allowed as how the only way to get a decent cup of black coffee at that chain is to ask for the café Americano, as their ordinary drip coffee is battery acid, fit for nothing other than as a cheap medium for sugar, artificially flavored syrup, and milk or cream. Café Americano is dilute espresso. The reason it tastes better than Starbucks’s normal drip coffee is that espresso beans are higher quality than the schlock used to make the battery acid.

Then he remarked that he highly resented paying $4.30 for an iced coffee (the price being the same, whether you take your coffee hot or cold).

This remark caused me to reflect that yes, I had paid $4.30 for a medium-sized café Americano. Uhm…yes. Four dollars and thirty cents for a cup of coffee.

I mean, really. Four and a half bucks for 50 cents worth of ingredients and three minutes’ worth of a minimum-wage slave’s time? Does that make sense?

Well, it wasn’t the coffee we were buying so much as the moment to pause and socialize—and to get someone else to provide the social lubricant of a hot, caffeine-laced beverage. Could we have gone to one of our homes and fixed our own coffee, saving about $8 on the $8.60 the two of us spent at Starbucks? Of course. But it wouldn’t have been the same.

As a practical matter, once we got back to our neighborhood, we each would have figured it was time to go on about our daily business, and we probably wouldn’t have taken the time  to fix coffee. Or, if we had, we would have diddled away too much time in one living room or the other, and then we each would have felt put upon by the many tasks that awaited us in our respective days.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m not way too tight about things like this.

Take, for example, the cell phone issue. I’ve resisted getting a cell phone because I think I already spend too much on connectivity—$78 a month to keep my computer online and the landlines running is too darned much for phone service. More to the point, in my mind I can’t afford another $80 to $120 for an electronic tether.

Really?

My gross income, if you include the $1,025/month coming from savings, is $7,000 a year more than my son’s. If, rather than setting aside my entire teaching salary, I self-escrowed only enough to cover my share of the mortgage (and let the future take care of itself, even that means the future surely will include a foreclosure), what remains of my gross would only be about $1,525 less than my son earns.

And he can afford an iPhone. Keeping that thing online costs $120 a month!

So why couldn’t I afford, say, a Droid, at $80/month to Verizon?

Surely I could at least afford an iPad. That costs only $15 or $25 to connect. And despite the fact that the way-cool iPad isn’t designed as a phone, an easily accessible app will give you free phone service through the thing! With that, I could have my cake and eat it, too: get the coveted electronic gadget, use it as a cell, and not even have to cancel the landline.

M’hijito never has paid for a land line. He uses only his cell phone. IMHO, this is something of an inconvenience, because he’s always misplacing the thing and not answering calls when he can’t find the phone.

SDXB recently canceled his land line service. He also is now using a cell only. He claims he doesn’t lose it because he carries it around with him everywhere, and because he has a single place in the house to keep it when he’s not using it.

Right. I had a single place to keep the $725 pair of glasses I just lost.

Still. If I canceled the landline, all that would remain of the Cox bill would be $50 a month for the computer connection (SDXB says he’s only paying $30 a month, presumably because he has a slower service).

My S-corp could pay for the iPad connection to AT&T—it’s only about $25 a month. If I could use that with Google’s Talkatone to make free phone calls, the worry about calling for help when my car craps out on the freeway would go away. And that concern is the only real reason I want a cell phone. If the S-corp were footing the bill for the mobile phone connection, there would really be no reason to cancel the land line, which allows for a telephone in every room in the house—no chasing around every time the phone jangles.

Canceling the landlines and having the S-Corp pay for the iPad would cut my personal nondiscretionary budget by almost $30 a month.

Here’s the question: Am I frugal or am I cheap to keep resisting the mobile phone?

For that matter, is it frugal or is it cheap to consider adapting the reasonably priced iPad (reasonably priced considering what it is!) for use with Google’s free voice app and calling that a “cell phone”?

Is it frugal or is it cheap to consider canceling the land line if I could get the iPad to actually function as a telephone?

Is it frugal or is it cheap to think coffee should be purchased at Starbuck’s only on special occasions—or preferably, not at all?

Roundup: Summer’s Here Edition

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w00t! The pool is finally warm enough to swim in—just! Took the plunge this afternoon. It’s wonderful.

Yesterday a choir friend threw a Cinco de Mayo party at her home. After a warm day, the evening was cool and lovely, perfect for outdoor dining, socializing, and karaoke.

Two percent humidity on a 100-degree day means the half-cup of tea you left in the car evaporates to a dry, brown stain overnight!

And this incredible thing blossomed in M’jihito’s backyard:

Out and about on the Net, various entertainments continue. Revanche, traveling to Thailand, reflects on the permutations of romance.

Mrs. Accountability considers the costs of sending flowers on Mother’s Day. Yipe!

Know what a perpetual income machine is? Sounds good, doesn’t it… Over at My Journey to Millions, Evan explains and describes his.

Money Beagle has a nice rumination on the Bin Laden assassination. Good riddance to that bad rubbish!

The Frugal Scholar household, having retrieved her daughter safe and sound from Tuscaloosa and having seen Frugal Son graduate from college, is converting Son’s bedroom into a staging area for donations to the tornado-ravaged city.

Donna Freedman reflects humorously on the urban farming phenomenon.

Bucksome Boomer speaks to the reasons young people are moving away from California in droves.

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff publishes a guest post by Jacob of My Personal Finance Journey, comparing costs between Petsmart and Petco.

At the Digerati Life, SVB guest blogger Paid Twice delivers a pep talk on getting out of debt.

Mrs. Money, over at The Ultimate Money Blog, reflects on paperless billing.

Money Crush proprietor Jackie has had a nice run of short, thoughtful pieces in the past week or so. The latest offers insight on the difference between thrifty and cheap.

Bargain Babe’s latest post lists a slew of awesome bargains, among them free movie rentals, a half-price Starbuck’s drink, and a deal at Marie Callendar’s. Many of these expire soon, so hurry on over there to see what you can score!

Here’s a rather charming blog I stumbled across the other day, which you might enjoy visiting: Walkin’ in High Cotton.

The New York Times takes on the question of whether a college education is all it’s cracked up to be.

And AARP Magazine publishes an excellent article on marketing psychology.

Love Drop Update

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Love Drop, the terrific blogger’s combine whose goal is to bring relief and caring to families in dire need, reports that the April Love Drop aided the Kahlens, who have suffered from the economic collapse and whose daughter suffers a hereditary malady. Take a look at the fantastic array of money and gifts showered on this deserving family.

May’s Love Drop family is the Stalnakers, generous community-minded Louisianans going through hard times.

Want to help?  Here are three ways you can participate:

Help them get a car!  The #1 goal is to give them a reliable used car in decent working order. If you have any leads, discounts, or connections in this area, please email Love Drop and let them know.

Give $1.00. This money will help get them back on their feet, and relieve some financial burden. Every dollar counts!

Give a gift or service. Gift cards are always helpful. Places like Target, Wal-mart, restaurants, etc would definitely help them out. Services too—especially those you can offer yourselves, or from your company.

And if you have a site of your own, don’t fail to blog about this month’s family in need!

Financial Terrors: What’s your worst fear?

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Down and out in Tokyo

It happened three times yesterday: signs of senility. Not one, not two, but three really serious things that stir up my absolute worst, most terrifying fears—financial and otherwise.

First, I learned I failed to pay the Cox bill last month. So convinced was I that I must have paid it that I shot off an inquiry to the credit union asking if there was some way a Billpay transaction could have gone astray. I’d entered the transaction in my Excel spreadsheet and neatly stored the statement in the “Utilities” folder. But apparently that was as far as it went: evidently I never went into Billpay and paid the bill.

Then I lost my progressive glasses. In the classroom. Right in front of me. Right in front of 20 students. I knew they had to be there. But I couldn’t find them.

My vision is getting worse, so that I can’t read a computer screen through the progressives. When I have those on, to read a computer monitor I have to take the glasses off and stick my face up close to the screen. I’d taken them off a couple of times to read students’ work, and I’d taken them off at the instructor’s terminal. When I went to put them back on, they were gone.

Searched all over the desk, the floor, the chair…nothing. Searched the desks where I’d been helping students. Nothing. Pretty quick twenty students were searching the classroom. Finally I found them: inside the large, bulky binder that serves as my mobile office, sandwiched between pages. I’d already looked through the thing twice and missed seeing them.

The problem is, without a pair of glasses on, I can’t see a desk or counter clearly enough to spot a pair of lost glasses. So if I don’t put them down in the same place every single time they go off my face, I have a dickens of a time finding them.

Last night I lost the goddamned glasses again!

They’re somewhere in the house, the car, or the yard. But I can not find them. And this time I do have another pair of glasses on so that I most certainly can see the surfaces around me.

I searched for hours last night. I searched until 12:30 a.m. This morning by light of day, I searched again. They’re fucking GONE.

M’hijito likes to say, patronizingly, that things like this are not “lost”; they’re “misplaced.” Well, as far as I’m concerned, an item so “misplaced” that I can’t find it and so can’t use it when I need it is lost!

He’s going to come over sometime this week and help to toss the house, searching for the damn things. Meanwhile I’ll have to tip over the recycling bin and the kitchen garbage, dump all that stuff on the pavement, and paw through it. Fortunately, I have an old pair of distance vision glasses. But those progressives, besides being wildly expensive, are the best pair of glasses I’ve ever had—the only pair that make it possible for me to sort of see up close and also see in the distance, without tripping over curbs and thresholds when I try to walk around. I certainly can’t afford to replace them…the cost was staggering. So, unless they surface, I’m flat outta luck.

This is what scares me: getting too sick to work and not dying. And alzheimering out comes under the heading of “too sick to work”

What in the name of God am I going to do when I’m so addled I can no longer earn even the pittance I make at adjunct teaching? What am I going to do when I need someone to take care of me? There is no one to watch over me when this sort of thing becomes a daily occurrence.

And what will happen if I have a stroke? A heart attack? Some accident that keeps me from doing the piddly amount of work I’m doing now to keep myself going?

More than bag lady syndrome, it scares me. More than that ungodly upside-down mortgage that’s going to start sucking up my retirement savings when I can’t earn enough to cover my part of the payments, it scares me. Even more than the unholy right-wing extremists who’re trying to take over the country, it scares me!

LOL! And that‘s scared!

We all have our financial terrors, I expect. What specifically they are probably depends on our time of life.

When you’re a young thing, you fear you’ll never earn more than the median wage (if that) in some low-income right-to-work state. When you get established in a career, you worry that something will happen to put you out of a job. Or you run up a ton of debt and imagine a line of bill collectors forming outside the front door. Then you have kids and you wonder how you’re ever going to support them, or what will happen if you die before they reach adulthood. They grow up, they’re out the door, and you realize you’ve only got a few years to go until retirement, the house isn’t paid for, and you don’t have enough in savings to support you through your dotage. Then you reach your dotage, and heaven help you, you start losing your glasses…to say nothing of your marbles.

Is there a PF bogeyman hiding in your closet, waiting to pop out and haunt you at 4 in the morning? What does it look like?

Images:

Homeless man, Tokyo. MichaelMaggs. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Here Comes the Bogey-Man (Que viene el Coco). Francisco de Goya. This image was uploaded to Wikipedia as a donation by the Brooklyn Museum, and is considered to have no known copyright restrictions by the institutions of the Brooklyn Museum.

 

 

 

Dentist: Pays to get that second opinion

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So I dropped by the good Dr. Davis’s office yesterday afternoon, parking illegally in the menacingly signed parking lot of the mall across the street.

He opined that there is no reason to replace the ancient crown in the lower jaw. The chip on it, as he has opined several times in the past, is cosmetic and in no way affects the crown’s functionality.

The newly busted tooth in the upper jaw, however, does need a crown. He says it’s broken down to the dentin and should be fixed before anything else happens to it.

He proposes to charge $1,246 for the crown and a new night guard. That is less than half the $2,695 the other dentist wants to charge for two crowns and no night guard.

At first he couldn’t figure out why the guy wanted to install two crowns. When I said Other Dentist’s preference is for gold crowns, Doc Davis said a gold crown in the upper jaw would do in the porcelain crown in the lower jaw; that would explain the plan to replace the old crown when the new one goes in.

I will say I’ve had better luck, in the comfort department, with gold, and they’re likely to last the rest of my lifetime. However, I’ve already got two gold crowns; two more will make me look like some bizarre character out of a Batman movie.

Given the cost of this adventure, it seems to make sense to go with a porcelain crown on top and use a night guard to protect them both against my gnashing habit. Then take the rest of the tax refund that Other Dentist proposed to consume—$1,750 saved! more than that, actually, because O.D. would have charged another $350 to make a night guard—and turn it into a sinking fund for future restoration work. If I start adding the equivalent of a monthly Delta Dental premium to that stash, by the time one or both of these white crowns need to be replaced (which they certainly will), the money should be there to cover it.