Woodstock CT Café

from the Hartford Courant

From the NYTimes

I find these numbers remarkable. I’ve used some pretty good lawyers for personal matters, real estate, estate planning, and patenting. And I’ve been very impressed with the lawyers on both sides of the biotech litigation I’ve been following. Judge Saris at the U.S. Federal Court in Boston is especially impressive. However, if you want to be a lawyer, you are going to have to rise to the top to get a job.

The data below was taken from a newly published Georgetown University Study published here. A powerpoint is available at this website,

Perhaps the most dominant area of public discussion and disagreement in Woodstock and the other towns in NE CT is the subject of cost of education. The tables below summarize the costs incurred by students who drop out of High School and those who graduate compared to those who go to college and those who get graduate degrees in terms of  job availability and salary payoff  by industry. Some tables compare 2008 to 2018 in job availability by job category and education. These tables show that education quality/quantity and degree level have a huge impact on career path, success in competition in the global society, and, most importantly in my opinion, overall satisfaction in life. I can’t imagine what my career path would have been like if I hadn’t graduated from college (small college of extinction no less), received my Ph.D in Biochemistry, and struggled through six years of postdoctoral work at Johns Hopkins. I would not have been eligible or capable of performing any of the seven jobs I have held since my graduate degree. I probably would have gone into the military and received some higher education there (Indeed, Kevin took this route to a career very successfully). This was a direction I pondered early in my first year of grad school. Some high school graduates automatically chose the military path and this is alright, but it wouldn’t have been alright for me. As individuals we are solely responsible for our choices in life. Hopefully this is being taught in the schools.

Success and happiness can be defined in many ways and there are many possible options to choose from. There’s no magic in getting a degree – it’s what you do with it that is important. I have heard Ph.D.s opine “I wish I hadn’t wasted all those years getting a Ph.D.”  It’s really what you chose to do with your life that’s important in achieving happiness.

The following statistics come from a Georgetown University study published yesterday.

The first table below shows the Rankings of Job Openings and Educational Demand by state (CT, MA, RI, NY) through 2018.

Then the two tables further below show job type by education demand where 2008 and 2018 are compared. These tables show that educational demand will increase dramatically by 2018 compared to 2008.

The bottom table shows income by job type correlated with education level (average salary expectation).

Each table panel can be isolated by clicking the table.

Education Payoff
abbrevations for education levels

from A Student

We had plenty of “adventures” when I was in elementary school, particularly in 4th grade on bus 5.

Remember when they did some patching of the pavement on route 197 going towards union from 198 on the hill by Herindeen Landing? There was a point when there was a large difference in the heights of the pavement on the peak of that hill. On the first day of 4th grade, I remember going over this hill while I was talking to someone across the aisle from me, and when we hit this bump, the person I was talking to shot up about 2 feet above the seat (and so did I), and we went smashing back down on the seats. And it HURT! Knocked the breath out of us…. The driver had to slow down for that bump, and we had to brace ourselves for it. After a while, though, we felt adventurous and yelled, “Faster, faster!” for a few days until finally, one day, the driver floored it. …We never asked for her to speed up again.

Bungay Road was almost as brutal.

One day, this same driver was taking the turn from Center Road onto 197 (across from Child Road). I don’t know what happened, but there was this feeling as though the bus had gotten T-boned — it just seemed like the rear wheels slid to the left, hard, or even as though someone had punched the side of the bus with superpower and it started to tip. The driver yelled, “Who did that?!”, which I found highly amusing because the sheer force of it couldn’t possibly come from a bunch of little elementary schoolers. I think she took the turn too tightly and drove up on the curb. It was pretty scary!

The only bad thing I really remember happening was 2 years ago (I was a Freshman) and the other high schoolers all started clapping in rhythm, loudly and obnoxiously. I know they were trying to antagonize the driver, who they didn’t get along well with — she was all business and absolutely NO-nonsense. She pulled the bus over, shut it off (resulting in dead silence amongst the students, as pulled-over buses always do), shot a menacing look in the mirror, and said, “When you’re ready, we’ll go.” After a moment someone said, “Yeah… yeah, I… I think we’re ready.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah, we’re ready.” So we left, and it was mostly silence for the rest of the ride.

I think you’re right, kids in Woodstock are more sane if that’s the worse of it.

from John

My wife, Becki, drives a school bus for the Woodstock CT School system. The Superintendent of Schools, Frank Baran, has a name for Becki … “Lead Foot”. Becki and I were talking the other day about how riled up the kids get at the very end of the school year. This conversation reminded me of our own antics on the school bus when I was a kid in Rowayton CT. I don’t recall that there was any school bus service to Rowayton School which was well centered in the town. Most of us could walk or bike to school.

After sixth grade in September of 1955 the Rowayton kids who didn’t go to private school in my class (me, Lenny Calendriello, Paul Tebo, Dick Wilmont, Pat Dawson, and a handfull of others) were bused to junior high in South Norwalk where we had double sessions. I have forgotten the name of the school and whether we were in the morning or afternoon session. The following year we would enter the new West Rocks Junior High School at the northern end of Norwalk. I wrote about some 7th grade experiences here , one of which was a final day experience on the school bus outside the school.

For several years from 7th grade through 9th grade we were transported on a yellow bus to junior high. Once we got to Norwalk High we used the public bus to and from Stamford. On the school bus I’m not sure what the route home was, but somehow we ended up heading south on Rowayton Avenue toward the canon at the center of town (here’s a picture of downtown Rowayton with the canon in the background. The picture was taken in the late 1950s.) The canon was where a bunch of us would be let off after rounding the canon to the east side on the corner of Wilson Avenue. Leading up to that joyous last day of school a number of us would conspire to leave the bus out the back emergency door forcing the bedraggled bus driver to get up and exit the bus to close the door after we had fled the scene. I can remember forcing open the door and leaping out. Then we ran like hell to get away from the scene of the crime. I’m embarrassed to say that this was as bad as we could be. Of course at the end of the summer vacation we had to face the music, and I remember thinking about that. But the bus driver guy never brought it up.

The other dastardly deed we did was on that same turn rounding the canon as we exited off of Rowayton Avenue. We took note of the recklessness of the bus driver as he rounded the canon. The bus would tilt radically to the right. In our mass hysteria, we collectively realized that we might be able to tip the bus on its side if we all moved to the right side of the bus as it veered off of Rowayton Avenue. I vaguely recall that Jerry Hayes was one of the cheer leaders to this potential tragedy (I can see the headlines in the Norwalk Hour about the dead and injured Rowayton kids on a late spring afternoon). We were all shocked when one afternoon … we almost succeeded in tipping the bus over. In retrospect, I think the bus driver was in with us in this noble endeavor because he made no attempt to reduce the speed of his turn.

Thank God we have more sane kids in Woodstock .

From the Norwich Bull

“The $2.4 million expansion of Woodstock Academy’s Charles “Bill” Bentley Sports Complex got its ceremonial start Wednesday.

During a rain-soaked groundbreaking at the existing facility, state and school officials said the project, more than five years in the making, will be a benefit for academy students and the community as well…”

Read the rest of this entry »

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From the CT Department of Labor Unemployment state-wide is 9.1%.

If any fathers or kids want their fatherhood or fathers featured, just let us know. This was inspired by our daughter Mariah, and Romeo’s comment.

Left to Right
1. Becki with her father Vern, late spring 1955, in Lubbock TX.
2. John with his father Peter, late spring 1944, in Darien CT.
3. Mariah with her father John, around 1991, in Palo Alto CA.
4. Elizabeth, Drew, and Christina with their father John, around 1990, at Candlestick Park, South San Fransico.

Senate votes to end $6 Billion in ethanol subsidies.

‘dbaker’ provided this fine story on the rise of ethanol from corn.

http://www.grist.org/article/ADM1/

ADM is “Archer Daniels Midland”

Here is an excerpt:

“After 50 pages of detailing seemingly every one of those supports, Koplow reaches his estimated bottom line: total government support for ethanol clocks in at somewhere between $6.3 billion and $8.7 billion per year.

Let’s crunch numbers here. ADM controls a third of the ethanol market, so (taking Koplow’s lower estimate) let’s say it benefits from about $2 billion in government largesse. If we use its third-quarter profit report as a base, ADM can be expected to make about $700 million in profit from ethanol over the next year. That means that every dollar in profit ADM makes from ethanol costs the public about $2.85. Note that Koplow’s analysis doesn’t even attempt to reckon with the sugar quota, which has played such a powerful role in corn ethanol’s ascent.

Nor is that vast public investment doing much to reduce carbon emissions, the most powerful case for government support for alternative energy sources. According to Koplow, for every metric ton of CO2 displaced by corn ethanol use, the government pays $500 in subsidies. For the same amount, the government could buy “more than 140 metric tons of [carbon] removal on the Chicago Climate Exchange, or more than 30 metric tons on the European Climate Exchange.”

My colleague’s house is circled in red. Brimfield is just west of Sturbridge.

Read the story in the Norwich Bull

Griswold, Conn. — In his first week on the job, Finance Director Erik Christensen discovered a $1 million accounting error in the proposed budget.

The revenue side of the 2011-12 budget was off by about $900,000, which would have added more than 1 mill to the property tax rate.

“I was just reviewing the budget,” he said. “It was not good news.” …

from Teacher’s Point of View

Info from the whitehousedrugpolicy.gov fact sheet:

“Simply put, the smoked form of marijuana is not considered modern medicine. On April 20th, 2006, the FDA issued an advisory concluding that no sound scientific studies have supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data support the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.”

“A number of states have passed voter referenda or legislative actions making smoked marijuana available for a variety of medical conditions upon a doctor’s recommendation. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these measures are inconsistent with efforts to ensure medications undergo the rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process and are proven safe and effective under the standards
of the FD&C Act.”

“While smoking marijuana may allow patients to temporarily temporarily feel better, the medical community makes an important distinction between inebriation and the controlled delivery of pure pharmaceutical medication. The raw (leaf) form of marijuana contains a complex mixture of compounds in uncertain concentrations, the majority of which have unknown pharmacological effects.”

“The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has concluded that smoking marijuana is not recommended for any long-term medical use, and a subsequent IOM report declared that, “marijuana is not modern medicine.” Additionally, the
American Medical Association, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society do not support the smoked form of marijuana as medicine”

“We created Prop. 215 so that patients would not have to deal with black market profiteers. But today it is all about the money. Most of the dispensaries operating in California are little more than dope dealers with store fronts.”

- Rev. Scott Imler Co-Founder of Prop. 215, California’s Medical Marijuana Law (Source: Alternatives Magazine Fall, 2006 Issue 3).

“Medical marijuana was supposed to be for the truly ill cancer victims and AIDS patients who could use the drug to relieve pain or restore their appetites. Yet the number of dispensaries has skyrocketed from five in 2005 to 143 by the end of 2006. In North Hollywood alone, there are more pot clinics than Starbucks.” – Pasadena Star-News, January 21st, 200

Making marijuana use legal for more medicinal purposes is nothing more than a transparent first step to making it legal for every use. I completely oppose that.

For Immediate Release, Contact: Joe Gresko
June 8, 2011 (860) 240-0071

The Bill clears way for lower rates, promotes clean energy and grows energy industry.

Read a fact sheet on Senate Bill 1243.

State Representative Danny Rovero (D-Putnam,, Killingly, Thompson) joined with a bipartisan group of legislators who voiced their support and passed Senate Bill 1243, An Act Concerning the Establishment of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and Planning for Connecticut’s Energy Future, formerly Senate Bill 1. The bill received overwhelming support in the House of Representatives and passed 139 to 8. This legislation will chart a new course in energy policy, making Connecticut a national leader in embracing clean energy, lowering energy costs, and developing energy jobs, industries and businesses.

“We are taking responsibility for Connecticut’s energy future with this legislation,” said Rep. Rovero. “We are clearly moving to cleaner energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy, and have successfully balanced our energy needs in a way that recognizes the impact on rate payers. We have included goals for lowering rates in all aspects of our planning process.” Read the rest of this entry »