Yahoo, I’m finally back online, and just in time for the US Presidential Debate!! Why am I soo extra excited about that? Because I can’t wait to talk about Joe the Plumber!! Hello, Joe, if you’re out there! Say, are you married?? Nothing I love more than a plumber, and not just because I have a bizarre pipe on the outside of the shower in my new bathroom (more on the new place I just bought and have been renvating like crazy in a few minutes plumber manly right now, me really wants to talk about Joe the Plumber!).
Okay, so everyone knows I used to be married to a plumber, so, of course, I know very, very well how much they make, and we knew all sort of other plumbers, because they all lived in our gorgeous Acreage Community, because they were all loaded! hahaha! That’s right, McCain’s shining example of a ‘Middle Class, Average Joe’, was a plumber, perhaps because he has a negative idea of how much a plumber makes, and an assumption that someone in the Trades might make waaay less than, say, a lawyer or a doctor. Now, by no means am I saying that doctors and lawyers don’t do well, because often they do, but so do the plumbers and all the other Trades People. I do not like that old stereotype that poor old Joe the Plumber is some poor sod, barely eeking out a living. No, indeed.
Now, I’m not tryin’ to make you all jealous, but I happen to own my very own calculator, so I quickly did a little simple math to see how much Joe the Plumber makes if he works 10 to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week… okay, let’s say he makes $69./hour, which is much lower than most plumbers make, especially if they own their own business. So lets just go with 12 hours a day, so that’s 84 hours a week, times 52 weeks a year, so 4368 hours, at $69./hour. What?? Is my calculator right at $301,392. a year? haha! You go, Joe!! I loves me a man in the Trades!! And I love all the Women in the Trades, too, but in a different kind of way! lol!
You know what’s even funnier about the Joe the Plumber situation? Guess who built his own house, and bought all the land around his house, then built all the houses on his newly purchased land? That’s right, Baby, Joe the Plumber! People in the Trades build their own houses, because they already have all the contacts with all the other Trades People to get the job done quickly and often under budget, primarily because they can do a lot of their own work. And then we sell to the other Professionals, and that’s what makes our little economy go ’round… so I hope that’s enough incentive for more people to swing by their local colleges to see what kind of training programs they might have in a Trade that appeals to anyone who is interested. You know what I would really love to see, as a Builder and as a Teacher? I would love to see every single kid coming out of high school, encouraged to develop at least one skill where they can always find a job, and be able to find a job that will pay them well enough to provide for themselves and their family. Now wouldn’t that be nice?? Go ahead and get as many Advanced Degrees as you like, but one decent skill that makes you employable at any given minute of your life is essential for flexibility in your life.
And since we’re on Education, now, I loved the whole bit in the debate about ‘No Child Left Behind’, Bush’s Big Idea to fix education in America. You know what teachers secretly call ‘No Child Left Behind’? “Every Teacher Left Behind”. It’s true. It’s a plan with a lovely name, that makes anyone who sees all the flaws with it look like someone who doesn’t support ‘every child’, but that’s crazy, because that’s really the only thing teachers do, day in and day out, is support every child. We love kids, and we want them to learn and be the very best person they can possibly be. But wouldn’t it be fantastic to have a system that supports the professionals who keep the whole thing moving? I’ve gotta say, the Voucher System scares me, because it takes money directly out of Public Schools, and that’s not good. Dang, I soo wish I were an American Citizen so I could vote for Obama!!
The thing they never say out loud in all these chats about anything that removes students from the Public School System, takes money out of that system and gives it to a Private System, is that Public Schools accept ALL children. Yep. Every last one. Private Schools only take the ‘Cream of the Crop’, IF their parents allow it. I’m not a fan of Elitism, and that’s what Private Schools smack of… and for that to ever be Publicy Funded is a big problem for me. I wish they would give the money to Public Schools, and make them incredible, and open to all children, not just a chosen few. It’s easy to have fantastic High Scores on all your tests if every kid in the school is Gifted. All that talk about Special Needs Students (you all know I teach Special Needs Students, and have for 25 years – they are the love of my life, along with my own little family!), but the reality of many Charter and Private Schools is that our Special Needs kids are not included in their schools, or play a much smaller role than in our Public Schools. (Okay, I’m getting off my Soap Box — it’s not that comfortable to stand on, anyway!)
Hey, you know what I would really like to know? (Joe the Plumber’s phone number, and if he’s married! hahahaha!) No, fer real… I would love to know if you can retrofit an existing building to start using Geothermal Energy. I’ll need to ask Dwight, my ex-husband (remember Dwight? He’s doing really well, and we just went up to Canada for a wee visit, and did a ‘dog-boy’ exchange for the weekend… we all stayed in the same beautiful hotel in Vancouver, and our son, Aidan, stayed with Dwight, and Dwightie brought out our sweet little dog, Tia, and she stayed with my daughter, Cara, and I in our hotel room. What a great weekend! It’s a very, very Good Thing when you can have a really good relationship with your Ex, right?). Anyway, Dwight knows a lot about Geothermal Energy, and if we had built another house, together, we would definitely have gone with Geothermal Energy. One day I would loove to build a house that is entirely Off the Grid (and if you’re not completely sure what ‘Off the Grid’ is, it’s when you can fully supply all the energy you need for your own home).
Wouldn’t that be amazing, though, if that were feasible? Here’s a quickie example… I just bought a beautiful new Condo (new to me, it was built in 1970), and my Complex already has Solar Panels on our roofs, which I think is very progressive. In fact, I would really like to see one set of the Solar Panels connected to one of the pools at my complex (ironically, I would like the Solar Panels connected to MY favorite pool in the complex [there are 3 — yippee!], the one surrounded with a zillion plants and trees… like a little oasis in the city!). But aside from my own vested interest in having a lovely warm pool all year long, I think it’s fantastic that we could use our Solar Energy to heat it. What if all the pools in North America were heated with Solar Energy? And if there were some way to drill into the earth to access the Goethermal energy to convert into energy to power different aspects of my Condo Complex without disturbing the area too much, wouldn’t that be a great use of sustainable energy? The problem would be the sheer initial costs involved, but wouldn’t the cost be off-set by the overall savings into the future? Hmm… I’m jam-packed full of questions like that… and quite a few much seedier questions, too, but if you’ve read any of my other stuff, you already knows that!! LOL!