U.S. Census Book Club: Pastured Poultry Profit$

In honor of thi$ week$ book club $election, I will be writing a very obnoxiou$ly punctuated fir$t $entence. I can't say I've ever listened to anything by the musician Kee$ha*, but if replacing an s with a dollar sign makes you hip, than call this guy Miles Davis. Or Mile$ Davi$ if you prefer.

That's Joel Salatin. Visionary. Entrepeneur. Chicken Farmer.

Enough flither flather. Let's get to the review. I've previously told about my extracurricular job fun. Well, my genius** brother put this book in my hands. It is a quick, clear read, written with down-to-earth colloquial honesty. One of my favorite lines is when he states "The world revolves around five-gallon buckets" without a hint of irony. Salatin shares his model for raising and selling broiler chickens. Happy chickens. Able to live their brief but very content life grazing on delicious grass. This makes for a very delicious bird and one that is free of antibiotics and hormones. There seems to be so much potential in these pages. We'll see... In fact, TODAY my brother and I went to Lowes to pick up the lumber to make our very first chicken tractor. These are the portable pens that the hens live in. Free-range chicken usually pecks one area down to a dirt patch. The pens help the not-so-bright chickens to move along. Sample some new vegetation. Much better for the earth, as they spread their manure, naturally fertilizing the soil, whereas too much chicken doo is too much nitrogen for the soil to handle, creating barren land. There I go, sharing chicken details you probably don't want to know. This book sucked me in to the world of poultry, and it should be an interesting adventure. We'll get our first 100 chicks in about a week...

* After finishing this post, I googled Kee$ha to see if I had even spelled her name right. I have not. Normally, census takers take special care to spell names correctly, but since this is not the official deal, I'm leaving it be for posterity's sake.

** Tell him I called him a genius and I'll deny it. I don't think he knows blogs exist.

I'm Just Going to Admit This...

... I'm a comment whore. There, I said it.

Not much activity here on the blog this week. Part of that is because it was a crazy busy week, followed by a near-migraine. Every once in a while, my body says, "You have been putting me through too much. I demand you rest for a day." So that was yesterday.

But the sluggish blogging is also due to very few comments. I'll be honest, I thought I would be famous by now. I read a few weeks ago, how "The Pioneer Woman" blog is going to be turned into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon. I have never been to this "Pioneer Woman" blog, but my wife has told me about it. I could see John Krasinski in the lead role of Census Guy, while I sip beverages with little umbrellas while I lounge poolside.

But I'm slowly realize how elusive fame is and how these blogs need entire weeks to build into phenomena. So in the meantime, I can be placated by the hundreds of comments I receive every day. What? Unrealistic? Ok, how about the dozens of comments? No? How about 5? Would FIVE be too much to ask?

I mean, really, most of my posts shamelessly pander for comments, asking for your imput. But even when I put vitally crucial (crucially vital?) decisions in your hand, such as should The Test villain have a mustache or a monocle, I only get one reply!!!??? As my little blogging sister so eloquently put it, "Comments are my candy." They also validate that what I'm doing here is being seen by others and getting the word out about the census. And it lets me know that I'm funny/interesting to more people than just me, my wife, and my little blogging sister. So if you want more Renoir musings or Lost essays, send me some candy.

Perhaps I should check out this "Pioneer Woman" blog to see what makes her so successful...

So, who would play YOU if your blog were turned into a movie?

Misperception #1: Greed is Good

When I first applied for this job, I thought I needed to keep it on the down-low. I figured if everybody knew about the incred wage, then everybody and their dog would apply, which would lower my chances of getting the job. I figured that my little rural county would hire 1, maybe 2, census takers. Really, how many workers could it take to cover a small county?

20. As it turns out, a county with a population of around 3,000 needs about 20 workers to get the job done. And if those workers can't be found in the county, then those paychecks are going home to other counties. So spread the news, tell a friend or two, and keep the cash in your area. Call today to schedule a time and place for....the test.

That's right! I almost forgot about this blog's narrative. And every story needs a villain. And this blog's antagonist is...the test. I need to more effectively build tension. So which evil person below would make a better physical embodiment of....the test!

I tried to find a villain with a mustache AND a monocle, but I am at the mercy of google image search.

I Wonder What Joe Biden Thinks of the Census???

I mean, it's a big deal too, right?

Weigh in in the comments.

The Lost Census

Waaaaayyyy back towards the beginning of Lost, Hurley decided to take an island census, using the flight manifesto for reference. He made a discovery. One of the island inhabitants was not on the plane. Cue the creepy music and Ethan Rom's obsessed glassy gaze at Claire's round pregnant belly. Ethan was the second fascinating supporting character to be introduced on the show in as many episodes. Just one episode earlier, Sayid discovers a crazed French woman (who speaks with an Eastern European accent) who has been living on the island for years. Danielle Rousseau, one of my all-time favorite Lost characters. That was episode 9 of the first season, and tonight we have episode 9 of the final season. It is fitting, in this season of mirroring storylines, that the episode focuses on Richard Alpert, another richly written mysterious character in the Lost mythology.

There are so many reasons to love Lost. High at the top of the list are the characters. I would contend that no other show has created such an extensive roster of characters. But with quantity, the quality does not suffer. In fact, the additional characters always serve the storyline. To sum it up, Lost has made us care about and has intrigued us with more characters than any show has ever attempted. Look at the photo below. 26 people and a dog. And that's just the surface.

So if Hurley were to do his census today, what would it look like? Because we certainly can't forget about all the supporting characters like Rousseau and Ethan that have added to the mystery of this series. The Survivors. The Tailies. The Others. The Dharma Institute. The Freighter Folk. So many layers of enigma. Not to mention all the family members and friends and foes back home that have given layers to all our main characters. This website creates a gallery of 108 Lost characters you should know. Some are certainly less important than others, but most have left an indeliable mark on the plot. Who are your favorites?

My Top 10 from the main characters would be...

Okay, I just wasted 5 minutes trying to enumerate an impossible task. Each character serves a purpose that is integral to the story. Even Anna Lucia. So somewhere in my top 10 (in no particular order) would be Eko, Juliet, Sun, Faraday, Desmond, Sawyer, Sayid, Rose, Miles, of course Ben, thank goodness for Hurley lending much needed heart and comic relief to the show, Charlie's final episode was so heroic and good, and Locke is always amazing, and Crazy Claire has been very entertaining lately, and I can't include Sun without Jin, and Jack is the bedrock of the show, and...do you see where where I run into trouble?

Even more intriguing are the peripheral characters. Sometimes a character only needs an episode or two to leave A. their mark and B. you wanting more. Such as Richard Malkin, the creepy psychic that convinced Claire the board the train. Or Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian eye-patched Other that would not die. Nadia, Goodwin, Keamy, Anthony Cooper, Matthew Abaddon and Eloise Hawking have all made an impression in less than 10 episodes out of the 116 so far.

What I find particularly fun about this season's sideways flashes is how those supporting characters, and especially previously-dead characters, are popping up in unexpected, very interesting ways. So far we've seen Ethan, Ben, Alex, Dogen, Miles, Charlotte, and Keamy show up off the island in very different roles. These people are going to be drawn together despite the circumstances. With eight more episodes until the series finale, what other characters do you hope will make a cameo appearance in this parallel world?

I'll leave you with some music from Michael Giacchino, the (now Oscar-winning) composer of Lost (and quite possibly one of the top 3 modern composers of our time) and some art from the recent Lost Underground Art Show.  "Showdowns I and II" by Scott Campbell.

Lox

While I was typing that prior entry, my lovely pregnant bride brought me out a treat. It was lox on a bagel. I first read about lox about 3 years ago in Book 10 of the Series of Unfortunate Events series (since we were just talking about kids lit). When I read about yummy food, I have a little notecard where I write down the foods I want to try. This is how I first became exposed to samosas, tandoori chicken and pul kogi, later tracking them down on allrecipes.com, creating and tasing them. (And yes, I did make all those things myself, only needing my wife's help locating where the flour is kept, where the measuring cups are, etc. [basically my kitchen GPS] {I am really on a parenthetical kick tonight-FOCUS!})

So yes, lox. Oh. My. Goodness. So good. I should have taken a picture because the one she made for me looked 10 times better than this one because it had herbs rubbed into the salmon soooo goooood. And this was like the best picture I could find, and I went through like 6 pages of on the google image search.

So yes, lox. It is finely sliced cured salmon. On a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese. Apparently, this culinary treat came to the United States via Eastern European Jews. So thank you, Eastern European Jews.

My bride hands it to me, I bite it and say, "I might just have to write an entry about this." Then she provides the connection and says, "Because of the census, we can get a splurge food item again!" This made me happy, and I did my high-pitch voice I do when I'm making the baby talk, "This is good stuff! I'm getting smarter!" Do you know how good salmon is for babies?

U.S. Census Book Club: The 39 Clues

One of the aspects about my job that I most love is how I get paid to read books. I love reading. In the past several years, I've read around 20-30 adult books every year, several more kid novels, and countless picture books. But 2010 was off to a very disheartening start. With the combined efforts of my sons, my class and my second job all pulling for my time, I had finished not one entire book as of March 14. That is pitiful. I had been dilligently chipping away at a few books, but had not finished any. And then I got my job for the Census!

While I sit at my little table outside of Alco or IGA, I sometimes wait quite a while before someone takes up my offer to talk more about a great job. So, while I wait, I read. This too has been an answer to prayers. Last week, I finished THREE books. I could insert another YouTube clip here of angelic choirs singing, but I'll spare you.

The first book I finished was The 39 Clues: Book 1-A Maze of Bones. The 39 Clues is a new mystery series, specially designed to capture children's interest in the wake of the conclusion of Harry Potter. It is a planned series of 10 books, and what I find most interesting is that the series is being written by seven different authors. Rick Riordan wrote the first book and the outline for the series. This definitely caught my attention because he is the author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, a very cool look at Greek mythology. I just read Book 1 of that series to my students and they loved it. But I digress. Of the other six authors, three I'd never heard of, but the other three are very successful in their own right. This collaboration of an impressive roster of authors had me intrigued.

This is already too long. Quick conclusion: It wasn't so great. It is a noble effort and has a real "National Treasure" kind of vibe as the two teen protagonists hunt for clues about Benjamin Franklin, Mozart and other historical figures. But I wonder  if the kiddos will even make it through this plodding, overly-dense intro. We'll see...

Required Viewing for Census Workers

Unfortunately, embedding has been disabled on this video. But you should definitely head here and watch. This could be your job. You could meet Christopher Walken.

Thanks Matt for first sending me this link.

Answered Prayers

After all the consumeristic, greedy galavanting in the last post, I feel a need to infuse this blog with some goodness. There will be a lot of snark on this page. So for once, let me offer something that is genuinely honest and heartfelt. Allow me to share a tad wee bit about my faith. I know it’s not considered polite to discuss religion in open company, so although it is something extremely important to me, I won’t be delving into my faith much on this blog. But I also believe that Freedom of Religion is one of the things that makes this nation great. So a little religious referencing would seem to be very appropriate for a census blog. To accompany this post, here’s my favorite painting of prayer, The Angelus by Millet.

I’m a teacher. And contrary to everything you’ve heard, teachers actually don’t earn a lot of money. I know, I know, shocker, right? I’ll give you a moment to process that. Well, when you add in that my wife is currently taking classes for her masters degree, you get a picture painted of a family whose monthly budget is starting to catch up with them. So, I took a second job. I started working second and third shift at our town’s gas station. And it wasn’t a bad job, it was just draining. And the price tag on this energy sieve was just minimum wage. I would go directly from school to the job and then come home at 11:30 only to get up again at 7:00 and start over again. I wasn’t getting any quality time with my wife or sons. I’m usually a pretty upbeat person, but I was getting down. One morning at church, I told the Man Upstairs, “God, this is not working out.” It was an exhausted plea.

That afternoon, I got a call from the census.

1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.” The offer of a better salary (I now make working 20 hours a week what I was making from spending 30 hours at the gas station) was definitely “a way out” for me that day. I take comfort in the fact that God knows how weak I am, how lacking in strength I am, that he knows I can only take a week of trial before he provides the parachute I whine for. And to his omniscient credit, that struggle certainly drew me closer to Him and caused me to place my trust in Him to a new level.

When I staple up posters, I always scribble some extra comment in permanent marker, like “Super Flexible!” or “Need Local Workers!” When I’m leaving a poster on telephone pole outside a church, I add “This job was an answer to my prayers.” It sounds cheesy, but I really mean it. I hope that some family like mine will see it, somebody that could use just a little bit of extra help, and that my scrawled note will strike a chord in their mind. I know that for me, when I hear the noon bells striking, I turn and offer my thanksgiving.

Reason #1: Money

Optional soundtrack for this post.


Alternate optional soundtrack for this post. Selection!

I'll be frank. This job can be LUCRATIVE. First, you earn $10-$13 an hour. That kind of hourly wage is unheard of in small towns. Working hours are extremely flexible, so you make your own hours and work as much or as little as you'd like. This makes it ideal as a second job, a job for senior citizens and stay-at-home moms. But it would be especially perfect for graduating seniors or college students home for the summer.

So, you start off with that great wage, but that's not all. Last year, I drove an hour to a bigger city each day to make a better wage. But I didn't want to do that again this summer, because I felt like it was cutting out too much from my time at home. Another great thing about the census is that they pay you for your travel time. Currently, I am driving daily to a county that does not have enough workers. I like getting paid to listen to the radio for an hour both ways. Ideally, we'll recruit enough workers so that people can work locally and won't have to drive so far. But in the meantime, I'm happy for the commute. Plus, the government offers a very generous mileage reimbursement: 50 cents for every mile. That may not sound like much, but it adds up.

So, I make $11.50 an hour. But when I am driving for an hour (60 miles) I actually make $41.50 for that time.

Did you ever have a job that you had to put some of your own money into? When I worked at Dillons I had to buy some black tennis shoes. At Subway, my uniform shirts got taken out of my first paycheck. It seems unfair, doesn't it? In order to make money, you have to spend some of your own. Well, the census is very conscientious of refunding you for your expenses. They provide all the materials to do your job and pay you back for any supplies, faxes or stamps you have to buy. Just save your receipts and turn them in.

Oh man, I forgot to tell you about training. This will probably be the topic of a future misperception post. It seems to be a deterring factor for people to take this job. But training is GREAT. Well, maybe not the actual training part, but the paycheck that results is certainly grand. Usually, you have to drive a good distance to the training. Training can range anywhere from 1-4 days. During that time, the census pays for you to stay in a hotel (mine was very nice). Your mileage there, around town during, and back home is all reimbursed, you get paid for your travel time there and back, and you get paid for your training time. PLUS (this is my favorite part) you get a $39.50 per diem (a fancy name for a stipend) for EACH DAY you're there for FOOD. You get the money no matter what you eat (they openly tell you they don't want to know what you ate) so you can either have lobster every day or pocket the difference when instead you make it the whole day on one McGriddle.

So my training lasted about 6 hours. But I earned around $200 dollars for that day when you add in my travel time, mileage reimbursement and food per diem. Like I said, LUCRATIVE.

So let's review Reason #1 to Work for the U.S. Census.
$10-$13 an hour (even higher in other states I hear)
Paid training with food per diem
Paid travel time with mileage reimbursement
Refund on any business costs

What are you waiting for? Call the number at the top!

Or you could go to this money origami website and whittle away another 30 minutes of your life. Your call. They have step-by-step instructions!!!

Would Renoir Have Made a Good Census Worker?

Absolutely. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, (1841-1919 according to wikipedia and I'm too lazy to double check that) was a French Impressionist painter with an uncanny eye for detail in human facial expressions. I think that characteristic would make him very adept at reading the emotions of the people he was tabulating.

I love the way Renoir's paintings not only invite, but practically compel you to ask the question "What are they thinking?" "The Luncheon of the Boating Party" made famous by the movie Amelie, is a perfect example of this trait in his greatest masterpieces. Let's take a look:

Not only is this an interesting piece because no one's glances of interest are returned, but you can also fill out a census form just by looking at the people. The three men in yellow hats are clearly members of some fraternity that dresses alike. The two women at the table are obviously sisters who live alone but if you asked the one on the left how many people reside at their apartment, you'd have to be careful. She would tell you "three" but that is because she is counting her dog as a human being. The woman leaning on the railing is the oldest of nine children, her mother died in childbirth and her father is a government servant. The man in the cardigan by the table is an only child who lives with his grandmother, who indulges his every fancy. But that woman drinking from the cup...I can't quite figure her out.

While "Boating Party" is my personal favorite, I also find his three "Dance" paintings quite intriguing. Even without the titles, I am confident you could properly fill out the census form for these three couples. Do they live in the country, the city, or some in between place called "Bougival"?

Welcome, Spring!

Blog Sarcasm.

Snow does not make my job easier.

Bitter disdain.

Be Creative

"Know anybody that needs a good job?"

I say that phrase quite a few times a day. I work for the U.S. Census. The year is 2010, which means its time for everyone to head to Bethlehem, or wherever their ancestors were born, to be counted. Ha ha. Blog humor. Not quite. It is apparently a massive undertaking to get everybody in these United States counted. So we need workers, LOTS of workers. And we don't have enough yet. That is where I come in. I am a recruiter. A DRA to be specific. Unfortunately, I can't remember what exactly DRA stands for, but the R is defenitely Recruiting. Everything witht the census is an acronym. Someday I will grace this blog with the complete list of ACL (Acronym Census Language) that we have to be fluent in if we want to decipher basic conversations and avoid being laughed at by other census workers when we gather for martinis after work. Ha ha. Blog sarcasm.

Obligatory Patriotic Photo Caption: "I Want YOU for the U.S. Census Exclamation Point!

So. What do I do as a recruiter? Well, that, my interwebs friend (not really) is an interesting question (debatable). Basically, I get the word out that we still need more workers and encourage people to take the test. (What test? you might wonder. But if I explained that, I would ruin the suspense and waste good future post material on an entry that is already too long. No in this blog's narrative, I intend to build suspense about the test.) At my training they said that what they had tried wasn't working and they needed us new recruiters to, yes, awkwardly working in the entry title, Be Creative.

How creative? One worker raised her hand and asked this question: "Could we bake brownies and have them at our table so people would want to stop by and talk to us?" This idea was approved. And so was this picture:

So, since I'm being reimbursed here, why not a blog? I'm not the first census worker to take this route, I've heard. I like writing. I like movies and art and books and music and current events, and certainly those things can be loosely connected to the census. When I spend most of my day sitting outside Alco at my little census table and repeatedly having people answer that despite the current economy, they know no one who might need a good job, I need a creative outlet. So behold: my blog. If you're reading this, you really should think about a job with the census. Why? Well, because it's totally rhombus! Working for the census can be a real adventure. Don't believe me? Just check out what happened to me yesterday-I videotaped it and then animated the shenanigans:

Well, it wouldn't be a blog without comments. So let's "talk about our feelings."
OFFICIAL COMMENT DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What U.S. city would you return to if we still did the census Ceasar-style?
2. What sugary baked good would lure you to talk to your local census worker?
3. Do you know anyone who needs a good job?