<p>SBmom,</p>
<p>Aww. I love it that you still have a little guy. I've got Slugg showing me the future and you reminding me of the adorable past....</p>
<p>Alu</p>
<p>Congrats to slugg and calmom on the various UC/CSU developments.</p>
<p>California weather mini-rant: I always chortle, from my outpost in spring-deprived Maine, as you Californians bemoan the inclement weather. However, I sit in San Diego as we speak and I am <em>shivering.</em> Not nice. So now I get it.</p>
<p>Off to have a spot of tea with a certain cc persona-non-grata. Hope to catch up on her doings.</p>
<p>Following that, off to Baja Norte for a month (month!) as DH and I scout out the scene and see whether we want to plunk down some bucks for a winter home, closer to our Left Coast compatriots.</p>
<p>Hope to have Internet access somehow or other - maybe in the condo (?), maybe at a cafe (?) Who knows. If I have it, you'll recognize me as the one habla-ing in tongues. :p</p>
<p>No, nobody has bought me a drink yet. While y'all hoopin' it up about who got into where I'm sittin' here aworrinin as to how I'm gonna pay for my daughter's last two years at CMU!!!!!!! Tuition rate up to $44000/year with no financial aid and that darn old Alternative Minimum tax looming. How the h-ll can anyone pay for college with that dumb ole alternative minimum tax!!!!!!???????</p>
<p>sgio, Have one on me! But, full disclosure and fair dealing, I do believe SBMom offered you one a page or so back. You must have been out scrounging for returnable cans and bottles to fundraise for the tuition :rolleyes:.</p>
<p>HEh, heh! How did you know I paid for last night's dinner with the returned empty beer cans from our last "superbowl" party. Made my friends BRING THEIR OWN so I could get a free dinner out of them!
SIGH!!!!</p>
<p>Sgiovinc1--Hey, I remember you! Where have you been?</p>
<p>Returning bottles and cans to pay for college tuition...only kidding. I really missed all you guys!!!!! I have been busy writing psych reports for special educ kids in ny. But..i finished 83 reports in 7 months and now can coast til JUNE!!!! so I thought I would take a peak and see how all has been going with everyone. I am so out of touch. This site can truly become addictive. But I am glad I am back. Can I get reacquainted with everyone??? I am some really funny stuff to share about my graduated college sons......</p>
<p>i don't want to burst anyone's bubbles out there..but after graduating two ivy leaguers, I must admit they can be really "DUMB" when it comes to managing their everyday lives!!!!</p>
<p>Sgio - just hang around and I am sure you will learn more about all of us than you really want to know:). </p>
<p>Jmmom - please give my regards to non-grata. I plan to join her site to support me in my search for place for S. We miss her here.</p>
<p>sgiovinc1--I can't wait to hear about your college graduated sons! (I hope to have a college graduated son some day!) Welcome back!</p>
<p>Sometimes I think that the IVy league education did not teach them how to THINK!!!! My #1 son (Harvard grad) took 24 hours to get from Boston to Salt LAke City Utah for a "bonding" ski trip with his new company co-workers. 1st: missed the plane from Logan to Chicago because he didn;t know he had to reserve a long term parking spot and arrived at the gate 34 mins to departure time. TOO LATE! You have to be there 35 minutes before departure time. Seat given away.....
Then: got rerouted to Dallas Tex...about a 2 hour flight to Salt Lake from there. Thought that wasn't so bad....but, he called to tell me
that he asked them as a stand by when the next flight would be leaving in his refined/educated but nary an assertive voice, they told him to GO SIT DOWN!!! we have 30 people ahead of you.... which he did compliantly and obediently as his mother had taught him. He sat there for two hours!!!!! Finally when there was NARY ( I like the word NARY) a sole around, he asked when the next flight would be leaving for Salt Lake....they said, What's your name??? He said Mike G......they said.."Oh. You're not on the stand by list..your ticket was cancelled as you had n't shown!!!!! The next time we can get you out is ......Tuesday." It was Friday. ARGHHHHHH! That's the day he was scheduled to fly BACK to boston from Salt lake. Surprisingly, he actually spoke to two complete strangers and they gave him a voucher to stay overnight in a nearby hotel, drove him there, checked in under their name as the vouchers are non-transferable..and then gave him their hotel key!! Really nice!!! Call to mom at 1:20am...."I called my boss...he said just book another flight and get here right away....You're missing the fun." #1 son says..."go online and find me a flight as I don't want to pay the internet fee....cheap hotel." Mom obliges....every flight I clicked on....one way DALLAS to SAlt Lake City.......$650...sorry, seat no longer available.....$775..sorry seat no longer available.....FINALLY....for $850 one way ALASKAN AIRLINES has a flight Sat 7AM arriving salt Lake via SEATTLE!!!!! Flight time...10 and one half hours...ARRIVAL 4pm Sat, 24 hours after scheduled arrival time the day before. ARGHHH!!! Have to book it..there's NOTHING else! </p>
<p>Call him back 30 minutes later..." Where's your luggage?" dead silence........#1 son says...."Oh." " it may be in Boston, Chicago, or Salt Lake." Mom says, " Does that in any way seem to bother you?" #1 sons say...."Yup. I'm going to bed."</p>
<p>After 7 1/2 hours of interrupted sleep punctuated with screams of disbelief and hot flashes on my part, I call American airlines Baggage Delay service....."Oh, did your son make a baggage delay claim?" "No...he did not. His baggage is not delayed......he just doesn't know where it is." " He doesn' where it is?" " No, he doesn't." I just wanted to say.......in my mind of course...." you see, he's a Harvard graduate.....he wasn' taught those kinds of things...like where your luggage is at any particular moment, because you see, he didn't even know you had to be at the airport 35 minutes before the flight departed, not 34."</p>
<p>No, you don't. You don't want to think of the $100,000 you spent on one ivy league education so that they don't know how to fly from one city to another..intact with luggage...so they can impress their boss and co-workers with their dazzling brilliance...in a timely manner, of course.</p>
<p>How funny! Tell us more!!! (I think that graduates from community college, prestigious LACs, mega-Univs, etc may, similarly, lack basic commonsense. It's probably not related to the Harvard ed. :) )</p>
<p>I'm smelling a new major field of study here. Hmmmm.... could be in the College of Engineering. Life Engineering? No, too touchy-feely, new-agey sounding. Logistical Engineering? Possible. Courses for credit in: Transportation Science (how to get to the airport in time, find parking space, ...); Assertiveness Training for the Overeducated (could crib liberally from the course syllabi from the old Assertiveness for Women courses); Time Management for the co-dependent (how not to call your mother at 3 am her time for advice on ... whatever.....); False Economies (on being willing to spring for the hotel Internet fee under certain circumstances ); etc. etc.</p>
<p>You are sooooooo funny!!! JMMOm!!!!!! HHAAAAA!</p>
<p>30 second delay.... HHHAAAAA!!!!!</p>
<p>I like that...."assertiveness training for the overeducated." There's more...telephone call that sat.evening...#1 son: " Let me talk to dad." "Okay..glad to here you made it to Salt LAke. How is it in PArk City?" #1 son: " I don't know. I arrived here in the dark. By the time I went back to the American Airlines terminal, got my luggage, waited for the shuttle bus to Park City, it got dark. I haven't seen anything. Do you believe that even though I had a reservation for the shuttle bus I had to wait an hour??? Let me talk to dad." Mom thinks: "Duh....reservation was for Friday evening not Saturday evening.." Dad now on phone...."You need money. Why.....they're paying for everything BUT the lift tickets. The lift tickets are $70...you don't have $70...you left your ATM card home...your credit cards are maxed. okay....use your check...i'll make sure you're covered. bye." ARGHHHH!!!</p>
<p>i'M SMELLING.... Orientation for OUTGOING college senior Parents.....offered in the Sociology department:
Entitled:
"New Trends in the Shifting Demographics of Your Graduating College Child" or affectionately known as "So, how long is Mikey going to live with you now that he has his AB in Women's Studies?"</p>
<p>We're onto something here, sgio. Let's make it an online university. Like that spammail I got the other day, offering prestigious degrees for $250 bucks. Although maybe we could make a lot more by travelling around and offering 2-week Master's Degree programs. Charge a few $thousand. Stay in fancy hotels (you and me will be the faculty; sorry to tread on the "Him and Me" grammar thread). Anyone else here in SA who comes up with a suitable course title can be adjunct faculty - we'll pay them a big enough pittance to lure them in and send the rest to our bottom line.</p>
<p>Hey, some of those Ivy kids may not have street smarts, but that don't mean you and I ain't got a nose for business.</p>
<p>uh oh, sq. </p>
<p>I've had some of those harrowing calls, but when my sixteen year old S2 got off a delayed international flight and missed his cheapo connecting cross country flight, he marched over to the Troubled Passenger Counter and got himself a seat on a direct (!) flight. </p>
<p>He never called anyone to say what had happened. As far as we knew, he had been swallowed by LAX. When he arrived EARLIER than scheduled, he telephoned my 70 year old mother at 11 pm.<br>
"Where are you?"<br>
"Where are YOU?" she asked, rosary in hand.<br>
"At the airport!" he excalimed.<br>
"WHICH airport?" she asked.<br>
"The one that is 15 minutes away from your house!" Naturally he was frustrated by our collected lack of telepathy.</p>
<p>He had his luggage too.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, he's in no way, shape or form a candidate for Harvard.;)</p>