You can spend all day looking up flight info on the Internet … good luck!
Now that we’ve covered some of the basics for the COMM 373 winterim course, here’s some other information you might find useful.
While I mentioned in Thursday’s post that I thought it unlikely you’d be able to find a cheaper deal than the $2,600 or so my flight is costing, I did find at least one cheaper deal today (Aug. 7) for essentially the same flight. Read on …
As we approach a new school year, the COMM 373 Australia Winterim trip has almost firmed up its itinerary (with only a couple of minor items not scheduled) and it’s time for students to get their airline tickets. Here are a few critical tips for doing so.
From everything I’ve been able to gather so far, it’s not particularly likely that you’ll be able to get flights much cheaper than the $2,600 or so that it’s costing for my flight. I’ll post again on this topic by Saturday with some more tips and links, but for now, go to the next page to see a bullet-point list of basic reminders. Continue reading
The end of last week brought us some of those spectacular Wisconsin summer days that make this place like no other. Wispy clouds, a deeper and clearer blue in the sky, a crispness to the sunlight that highlighted the contrasting greens, yellows, purples and other colors of our Northwoods palette without making anything too sharp. Pines, birches and tamaracks, rivers and lakes, red barns and rolling hills, all with just enough focus to spotlight their beauty, but enough softness to remind us of the fragility of those passing, perfect days.
We were fortunate to be able to share our Wisconsin with a niece from Texas. She got to try Paul Bunyan’s donuts in Minocqua and camp at Copper Falls State Park, eat a garlic-asiago roll from Ashland Baking Company and a sub from Penokee Mountain Deli and Sausage, and run the trails and throw rocks into the water at Amnicon Falls State Park.
It was a fantastic time. There aren’t suitable words or space to relate how wonderful it was and how blessed I felt to be able to share it with two rambunctious little girls — my 7-year-old daughter and her 11-year-old cousin. There’s nothing like being around kids who are likely to burst into loud Christmas carols at the mention of the town of Rudolph or shriek with unbounded joy at finding a better stick to play with than the last one.
Participating in the July 20 Stevens Point Common Council meeting as a citizen was like trying to swim from the downstream side of Hoover Dam to the upstream side. Even if you’re strong enough to go against the current down at the base, you’re not going to get past the dam shaft.
I’ve watched many Point council meetings on video, but I’d never attended one until Monday. What I saw convinced me that, at least for now, many of our so-called local leaders are great at pinching pennies but don’t recognize good sense.
They still couldn’t figure out how to help the residents of Edgewater Manor. They also rubber-stamped an opportunistic shafting of more than 200 homeowners in the former FEMA flood plain, who are being required to pay for seawall improvement near downtown Stevens Point.
The council’s peformance could be described in many ways. I may have a lot more to say about this, and perhaps other council issues, in the future. For now, I’ll just say that the council and the city of Stevens Point only seem to hear what they want to hear.
This was particularly true on the flood-control assessment issue. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a decision-making body get such a clear and unanimous mandate from its constituents, yet seem to care less about what any citizen said. The homeowners stuck with the bill made their hardship clear; other citizens strongly affirmed their willingness to share the cost as a city and thought the rest of the city would be willing, too. The consensus was as solid as a concrete seawall. Continue reading
Wait a minute. So those are my trucks behind that seawall? (Photo courtesy of Mike Richards)
Want to anger your neighbors? Invite them all to a party, then send the entire bill to just a few of them after the party is over, telling them they took two appetizers over the limit.
Now let’s take a step back and talk about flood insurance.
Unless it’s the IRS, there’s probably no federal agency more vilified than the Federal Emergency Management Agency — none I’d less like to work for, none that gets a worse rap, none that’s as underappreciated. That’s unfair to FEMA, but it’s also fair to say that none deserves our money less, as federal flood insurance is a boondoggle of the highest order.
About 200 Stevens Point property owners are finally going to be out from under the yoke of a program that encourages those with money to build stuff where they shouldn’t, where floods destroy it and then let all of us pay for rebuilding it. Except that I get to pay a whole lot more than most people do.
It’s a despicable political outcome to a well-intentioned but poorly executed effort, and as one of those unfortunate Point property owners, I say good riddance to the 100-year flood zone and its attendant insurance costs.
The city’s attempt to portray a few property owners as the sole beneficiaries of the seawall is a disingenous breach of trust and a violation of the most basic precepts of community.
For my family, the cost was scheduled to be more than $1,900 in 2015-16. The City of Stevens Point apparently feels that, because I and my fellow residents east of downtown had to flush that money down the toilet for all these years, we should happily accept an assessment to pay for buildup of a seawall that has removed us from this burden.
Essentially, because we had to live with a problem of someone else’s creation for many years, we shouldn’t be angry about having to pay for work in someone else’s backyard that finally gets rid of the problem and brings a number of other community benefits along with it. Continue reading
Words Are Roads 