Legalized Robbery

September 22, 2008 at 6:58 am (Life, Rants)

School has started, and as a college student I am preparing to be robbed by my college bookstore again.  I never fail to be astounded by the cost of textbooks, and the devices used by professors to get students to fork over huge amounts of money.

This semester I am taking two courses requiring textbooks that are large enough to elevate a small child at the dinner table.  Because they are technical manuals, they are phenomenally expensive.  My strategy is to enroll in the class early enough so that I can get the ISBN of the book and purchase it elsewhere, preferably used, in time for the class.  Half.com is my current favorite textbook supplier; one of my textbooks this semester was $126.00 at the bookstore and $43.00 on half.com….a substantial savings.

Occasionally my textbook strategy has backfired on me; if I get the title too early there is always a chance that the professor will change the text at the last minute, which has actually happened.  It’s not too bad if they just change editions, but I have had classes that end up being taught by a different professor at the eleventh hour, and they invariably have their own textbook requirements.  This necessitates finding a way to unload the unused book and I have a couple of favorite textbook buyback places that pay pretty well; facultybooks.com and valorebooks.com.  Both websites give real time buyback quotes and free shipping for the textbook you are selling which is super convenient.

Even more irritating than paying big money for a textbook, is buying a textbook that is never used.  It’s one thing to require a big money text, but requiring one that is never used should be illegal.  You can imagine that I make a pretty big fuss about this on the end-of-semester survey!

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Barnraising Part 1

September 7, 2008 at 10:53 am (Life)

After living here for eight years and hating my two rusty tin Sears sheds for all eight of those years, I am finally building a barn; it’s a small barn, but a barn all the same. The plan has been formulating for years in my head with regard to size and shape, and I decided on a 10×16 saltbox with a sliding barn door, tin roof and rough cut board & batten siding. Hopefully that should be enough room to house the detritus of our outdoor lifestyle; the riding mower, three kayaks, a snowblower, a rototiller, numerous garden tools and two bicycles. Since we are do-it-yourselfers, the professor and I have been collaborating on the project, and he came up with a lovely drawing of what it would look like. He even added a little extension on one end for a potting bench which is very exciting for the gardener in me.

With the building permit secured, last weekend was the pouring of the concrete footings; nine sonotubes buried 42″ in the ground. Surprisingly, that’s a fair amount of ready-mix… sixteen 80 lb. bags in all. Ken borrowed a cement mixer from a friend and I was quickly reminded of what a messy job pouring concrete is. Having done some of that kind of work in a previous life I knew what I was in for, but it’s been a while. I forgot that no matter how far you try to stand behind the wheelbarrow, you’re going to get splattered in a big way. And a wheelbarrow loaded with cement is a very heavy item; my dinky little homeowner wheelbarrow was visibly unhappy about this task and looked ready to collapse at any moment.

After about three hours the job was complete, and we were both sweaty, filthy and exhausted. There may be a little masochist hiding in me, but one of the best feelings in the world is being totally drained after a day of hard, physical work. The bonus in labor like that is almost always tangible; a completed garden, a freshly painted house or a forest of cement piers ready for a deck. It’s productivity at its very best, and always makes me feel as if I have earned my space on earth.

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