I remember you mentioning a fiance – congrats on the wedding! – It’s always nice to get it over with!

Mike

Kind of a new job. I worked for these guys doing general software consulting. We also made this neat Social Networking advertising platform (Cubics) that went critical and garnered serious interest from an on-line advertising firm (Adknowledge) in Kansas City.

So I’m doing some new stuff and some old stuff (there’s always new stuff) and I’m learning a whole bunch and having an exciting if stressful time. I’m making better money, but really, with a year or two of this type of work and I don’t think money will be the issue: I’ve added more relevant bullet points to my resume in the last 12 months than I did in the 2 years prior

If I haven’t posted in a long time, I’ve still been reading, but I’m typing this into my laptop on the floor of my new empty apartment. My wife (we got married over x-mas) is sleeping on our blow-up bed as our stuff careens across the midwest in a moving truck. This is a sampling of the excitement from my last two months

So did you get a new job?

Mike

I’ve got a “big thought” here (and we know how that can go), so I’ll try to be brief. I’ve only been here a month

There are two Americas (not North and South, haha), two very distinctly American lifestyles. There are two Canadas, but to a much smaller extent. Lack of universal healthcare and less government support of social programs (at many levels) has exacerbated the “two Americas” difference.

There is a deep-founded belief that education (i.e.:”going to college”) is the path from the bad america to the good america. In a land where a college degree can be the difference between funded healthcare or no healthcare at all, that’s a big deal. So parents do everything they can to get into the good school systems.

Now, from a Canadian perspective this seems pretty nuts. Canadian schools (based on my Winnipeg/Saskatoon experience) fall under one of 4 categories: private, rural, big city “rich”, big city “not-so-rich”. But all of the public schools get much of the same funding. The “rich” schools might have more active parents or more possibility for “ski/band” trips, and the “poor” schools are more likely to get special programs for pregnant mothers or extra opportunities for technical vocational schools nearby. All things considered, kids have “pretty good” opportunities no matter where they go.

The US is totally different. I’m living in KC, MO right now. Kids in Johnson county (KS) have access to one of the best public library systems in the US. The schools are top-notch, filled with opportunity and 75% of the kids go to college. Cross State Line road and suddenly you’ll get high schools with 10% throughput to college on top of drop out rates of 30%+ You get schools with metal detectors and security guards.

And Kansas City isn’t really bad, some cities have it worse.

So it’s no surprise that people “kill themselves” to live in these areas, picking the wrong spot isn’t a matter of missing out on ski trips, it’s a huge difference. Now maybe it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, with schools being funded at the county level, active parents seek out active counties and the good “attracts” the good.

Of course, there’s also a whole class of people who will spend 3 hours/day commuting to have their kids in good schools, ignorant of the fact that their presence good likely “make up” for many school deficiencies.

Either way, I’m not trying to invalidate other’s comments here. I just think that it’s important to recognize that the American reality can be quite different from the Canadian reality.

Mike

Mike

There are too many other factors at play – if you have a stupid kid it won’t matter much what school they go to. Motivation of the kid is another big factor.

That’s interesting about property tax – I didn’t know they were so much higher in the US. And they make fun of us for our high income taxes?

Mike