Non-Typical Solutions

Awesome trip for sure...congrats and thanks for the reminder

And good luck with all those holidays!!!! I started out at $19,000.00 in Ash Fork my wife was not all that excited but I really liked teaching there with unit 10 a Sunday drive.

Ah.....Tony I agree with you 110% the demise of our educational system is something I could spend hours on......I have to admit I have never used a slide rule to calculate anything. I remember when the first program came out on computers to help contractors bid houses...plug in the numbers and bingo.....bottom line bid. On my kitchen cabinet bids I still sit down and do a pencil sketch of every cabinet and calculate every single piece of wood, hardware etc. before I can come up with a bottom line. You have to remember memorizing your times tables.........you don't need to do that anymore.....and the current trend towards Common Core will just boggle your mind. My wife teaches 5th grade and the pace they have those kids going from week to week makes my head spin. Doesn't matter if Johnny learned how to divide we are going on to fractions.......course now you are really lost cause if you can't divide you can't do fractions.......math is one of the great equalizers, you miss a step and until you get that step down things only get harder. I remember one short stint I had teaching math......this was for the kids who struggled with math....I about got fired that year. The very first section in the book was teaching decimal placement and place value. 25.3478961.......what place value does the 1 represent.......these kids couldn't add double digit numbers and my boss wanted me to "stick to the book".....I refused....... Oh man I could go on and on.......our educational system is a direct reflection of what the morals of this great nation have become. We have been flooded with the social problems of our society and have set learning basic, fundamental RRR's aside to take care of many of the things mentioned above. IEP, 504......which I don't disagree with having programs like that but oh it is as mentioned soooooooooo misused. My kid can't pass math so I get him approved for an IEP so he can play sports when in reality the kid is bright.....just lazy and won't turn in his work. And I love sports and what it can teach kids but skating around an education to play sports I don't agree with. My point with the calculator was, we spend all year letting kids use the tools that modern day society has placed in the classroom because that is "the way our kids need to learn"........and then we put them in a room, no talking, #2 pencils, fill in a bubble which since they play play station their fine motor skills are under developed so they can't fill in the bubble. And we expect them to perform on a test that teachers cannot review, read or otherwise discuss because we signed a paper agreeing to said terms. I better jump down off my rant before I get fired.........I have taught wood shop now for 25 years and have enjoyed 98.7% of it.

All the years that I have administered that AIMS test I have always felt bad for the kids.........there are so many ways to learn and I am Pro vocational anyways which tends to be more of a hands on experience.... How many of us are really going to sit down and do an algebraic equation and not have a calculator???? Thanks everybody for helping me get through AIMS........

OK CWT class you did really good, I was surprised at the logic that was used in many cases. What got me started on all this was the recent news that our steps and columns are going to be froze this year.....bummer deal but hey I have a job that after 25 years I am still sitting at a measley $48,000.00 a year. That includes a 4 year degree plus a masters in vocational education, plus additional schooling every year which was needed to keep my teaching certificate. I have had a great career teaching, my wife teaches so double that amount for household income and we have been fine. Same days off, summer jobs to keep us going and always able to attend my kids functions. So I am sitting there during AIMS testing looking at all these phones that the students handed in before testing and I am thinking...........I was due for an upgrade on my verizon account and my options were to buy a 200 dollar keep up with technology swipe phone or they were giving away for free the outdated we want to get rid of flip phones. Yep.....that gray flip phone up in the top right hand corner.....Prowlerman wins it... and can let me know which one of these elk antler ornaments he wants. Snap, You were correct on the information provided which AIMS is really good at.......misdirection question that has absolutely nothing to do with the answer they are looking for....tricky buggers. Also, we as teachers have to read the instructions word for word every day every test, and it specifically says this is not a timed test.....but.....you gotta be done by the end of the day...go figure. CouesHunterAZ, You made me laugh.....you would have won the award if we were doing Common Core because even though you didn't get the correct answer.....you did the best job of walking us through why you chose what you chose. Big Orange, Statistics show that 60% of the multiple choice questions are correct with a C answer...........one other method is the second hand on the clock which has gone by the wayside with digital timing devices. So if you do not have a clue a C answer is your best bet. No Curve. Patrick hang in there.......AIMS is just one of those things you gotta get through.... The answer that got me off guard the most was by Avid Hunter....the one in your hand......I actually had to wait til day two to take the picture so I could take my sons ipod with me to work to take the picture.

Not sure if any of you caught this story but we always have people on here who have had guns stolen. This place had their own ring of thieves out working for them so heads up maybe your gun ended up at this place. http://ktar.com/22/1723511/Suburban-Phoenix-police-bust-shop-for-selling-stolen-goods MESA, Ariz. -- Sixteen people have been arrested and about 300 guns recovered along with thousands of stolen items in a police operation that targeted a Mesa pawn shop. Mesa police say the Eazy Pick N Pawn allegedly trafficked nearly exclusively in stolen property. Detectives began investigating the store in October 2013 after its owner was stopped for a traffic violation and a stolen handgun was found in his vehicle. Police say stolen property allegedly was being run through the pawn shop on a daily basis. Items included TVs, Blu-Ray players, cellphones, game systems, jewelry, laptop computers, iPads and tools. Police say three stolen vehicles and one stolen motorcycle have been recovered. They add that hundreds of thousands of dollars in property now is being gone through to determine the proper owner.

Cool offer......people like you are what makes this site great........

elpepe.....that is where I am at....don't really trust anybody either side......

Daryl.....that hurt bad right there...........the throw from pitcher to first yesterday pretty much summed it up.......horrible......0 for 6 on the homestand.....

Snap, We are in the middle of testing, I can't answer any of your questions until the mentioned testing time period is over. No talking or disrupting the class until all testing has been completed.

Great first half......that is money well earned and spent.....

This article represents what I believe to be the case in general for the American Rancher. I played ball against this Laney back in high school days, I have hunted and hiked on his ranch. I remember a few years back when he was fighting over a protected bird they found on his ranch. This is right here in our neck of the woods........ http://www.americasfreedomfighters.com/2014/04/12/feds-seize-familys-ranch-property-owners-fight-government-land-grab/ When Kit Laney answered a knock on his door Saturday, law enforcement officers from the U.S. Forest Service handed him a piece of paper announcing his Diamond Bar Ranch in southwest New Mexico would be shut down Wednesday and his 300 head of cattle grazing there would be removed one way or the other. Other Forest Service officials were busy nailing similar notices on fence posts along the highway and informing neighbors that after Feb. 11, they should not attempt to enter the Diamond Bar property. Laney was not surprised. He knew someday there would be an on-the-ground confrontation to enforce a 1997 court ruling which says his cattle are trespassing on federal land. That day has arrived. Laney insists the land in question belongs to him; the Forest Service says it belongs to the federal government. So far, the federal court is on the side of the Forest Service. But Laney is not willing to throw in the towel and give up the land that has been in his family since long before there was a U.S. Forest Service. Moreover, in New Mexico, there is a brand law that says, essentially, no cattle may be sold or transported out of state without approval from the State Livestock Board. Local sheriff Cliff Snyder has notified the Forest Service and other state and federal officials that even though the Forest Service has a court order authorizing the confiscation of the Diamond Bar cattle, they cannot be shipped and sold without being in direct violation of NM Statute. His memo also says I intend to enforce the state livestock laws in my county. I will not allow anyone, in violation of state law, to ship Diamond Bar Cattle out of my county. Last hope for ranchers? Kit and Sherry Laney are one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ranching families who are being squeezed off their land throughout the West. This case has the potential to erect a barrier to further expansion of federal land takeovers in the West or to erase the last hope of retaining ranching as a part of Western culture in the United States. Both ranchers and federal officials are watching with great anxiety as the conflict moves toward resolution. The Diamond Bar Ranch is at least 180,000 acres and includes some of the most beautiful land in southwest New Mexico, situated between and including portions of the http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS&sec=stateView&state=nm>Gila and Aldo Leopold Wilderness areas. Laneys ancestors began the Laney Cattle Company there in 1883 when the area was still a territory. In those days, prior appropriation of water determined grazing rights to the land. That meant the first person to make beneficial use of water obtained the rights to the water and to the forage within an area necessary to utilize the available water. Laneys ancestors acquired the water rights and the attendant grazing rights on the land now claimed by the federal government. In 1899, the federal government withdrew from the public domain the land that later became the Gila National Forest, which included much of the land on which Laneys ancestors had valid claim to water and grazing rights. Several court cases have determined that land to which others have claims or rights attached cannot be considered public land. Specifically, It is well settled that all land to which any claims or rights of others have attached does not fall within the designation of public land, according to Bardon vs. Northern Pacific Railroad Co. Consequently, Laney reasons, since his ancestors had acquired legal rights to the water and adjacent grazing land before the federal withdrawal, his land could not be considered a part of the public domain. Forest Service stepped in When the U.S. Forest Service was created in 1905, one of its first concerns was to find a way to settle disputes among ranchers whose water rights resulted in conflicts over grazing areas. The Forest Service stepped into these territorial conflicts and proposed a way to resolve the disputes. The rancher parties to the dispute voluntarily agreed to allow the Forest Service to measure the available water to which each participant had legal rights and designate the appropriate forage land required to make beneficial use of the available water. The designated area was called an allotment. The ranchers paid the Forest Service a fee for their adjudication service, a portion of which went into a fund from which the ranchers could make improvements to the range and water access. The Forest Service issued a permit, which designated the forage area and the number of cow/calf units, or AUMs, that could graze the allotment. Laneys ancestors participated in this type of Forest Service adjudication process in 1907, three years before New Mexico became a state. The system worked well until 1934, when Congress enacted the Taylor Grazing Act. This law changed the status of the grazing permit from a voluntary process agreed to by the ranchers, into a license required by the federal government. Few ranchers realized this law eventually would strip them of their rights and the land they had worked for generations. Problems from outset Laneys problems began shortly after he acquired the Diamond Bar Ranch, adjacent to the original Laney ranch, in 1985. The bank from which he bought the ranch had entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the Forest Service which passed to Laney, the new owner. The agreement required the owner to make certain improvements to watering systems within the Wilderness Areas on the ranch. The original agreement allowed access to the work areas by mechanical equipment, but environmental organizations pressured the Forest Service to forbid mechanized access, and the agreement was modified. Laney agreed to use mules and non-mechanical means to live up to his end of the agreement. When he acquired the Diamond Bar, the allotment provided for 1,188 head of cattle. By 1995, the Forest Service reduced the allotment to 300 head. When the permits came due for renewal on the original Laney ranch and the Diamond Bar, in 1995 and 1996, Laney decided he would not sign the permits, since he believed the land was his, not subject to permits issued for grazing on federal land. Kit and Sherry have spent hours in courthouses in Catron, Grand and Sierra counties, searching titles and documents all the way back to the original claims of water and grazing rights in the 1800s. They have developed a clear chain of title showing continuous private ownership of the water rights and the attendant grazing rights on the land that is now claimed by the government. They believe the governments original withdrawal of the land in 1899 could not include their land, since private property rights had attached to the land. Neither the Forest Service nor the federal court are impressed with Laneys reasoning, and the Forest Service is moving to rid the ranch of cattle. And without a means of utilizing the water and land for any productive purpose, the Laneys too will have to leave unless they can get someone to pay attention to their rights. Ridding the West of ranchers For nearly 100 years, federal agencies and ranchers worked together to improve the range and to develop a growing economic foundation for Western states. Things began to change with the rise of the environmental movement in the late 1970s. By the mid 1980s, there was a concerted, coordinated effort to rid the West of ranchers. In 1992, with the publication of the Wildlands Project, the reasons for squeezing out the ranchers, and other resource providers, began to come into focus. The Wildlands Project envisions at least half of the land area of North America, restored to core wilderness areas, off-limits to humans. Wilderness areas are to be connected by corridors of wilderness, so wildlife will have migration routes unhampered by people. The Diamond Bar ranch lies directly in the path of a key wilderness corridor. Bill Clintons election in 1992 resulted in the placement of environmental organization executives in key positions throughout the government. Bruce Babbitt, formerly head of the League of Conservation Voters, became secretary of the Department of Interior, and George Frampton, formerly head of the Wilderness Society, became chief of the U.S. Forest Service. These, and other environmentalists in government, came from the very organizations that promoted the Wildlands Project. Environmental organizations pressured federal agencies with lawsuits and good-ol-boy influence to impose the goals of the Wildlands Project through various government initiatives. Kit and Sherry Laney are among hundreds whose lives and livelihoods have been forever uprooted by the governments willingness to advance the goals of the Wildlands Project. The Laneys say they have a ray of hope, however. On Jan. 29, 2002, Judge Loren Smith ruled in a similar case that Wayne Hage submitted an exhaustive chain of title which showed that the plaintiffs and their predecessors-in-interest had title to the fee lands which the federal government had claimed to be federal land. Wayne Hage lost his cattle, but now the court has ruled that a takings has occurred, for which the government must pay just compensation. The Hage decision has sent ranchers across the West rushing to courthouses, searching for and documenting the chain of title, to the land, grazing and water rights. Kit Laney has completed his search, and recorded the exhaustive chain of title in each of the county courthouses where his land lies. He may not be able to stop the removal of his cattle, even with the help of the local sheriff. But Laney has served notice that he does not intend to roll over and let the government simply take what his family has worked for generations to build. He says he will fight as long as he has breath. The Forest Service, and the other federal agencies now know they can no longer pick off a single rancher, and move on to the next. The Hage decision, and the determination of Kit Laney has inspired thousands of ranchers to resist the governments squeezing and to push back. These ranchers are from the same stock of ranchers who pushed the United States all the way to the Pacific ocean; once riled, they may push the Forest Service all the way back to Washington.

But they have grazing rights........

OK.....I gotta try it with my grandkids......they will mess their pants if they latch on to something like that....looks like great fun......

Nice job on the turkey hunt......that is a rush for sure....

We were out over a month ago and felt like there already should have been restrictions.....very, very dry.......

Plus one on both Forlorn..........

Ross.....good article up til he pronounced Butte as Butt.....then I had to wonder about his reporting sources...kinda funny

No wonder on CNN.....that is an easy one. Ringer, did you check out the story I posted on the New Mexico ranch???? Katy bar the door cause here they come.......

I agree ringer which is why the Bundy militia should make sure they are organized enough to make sure kids and women aren't out there in the line of fire. If the BLM raids their homes and kids and women get killed then that is on the BLM.....if we march them out to the front line with us then it is on us. Don't get me wrong.....my wife wouldn't stay behind......... This whole thing has made me want to read up on that Waco deal again.....I didn't pay much attention to that when it happened but now I am wondering.........

Facts would be nice.....at this point after reading and listening who really knows what the truth is about it all. It is easy to jump on the Bundy train because most of us are fed up with big government......but there are a lot of great peopleout there that serve us every day by strapping on a bullet vest. We need great people in those agencies to help make decisions so we don't end up in the mess we are in. I would prefer that if we are going to arm ourselves in protest we would leave the little kids behind.......that is scary stuff

On the radio today Extreme fire danger warning. High winds dry conditions. Then, Antler Hunters remember fires only in designated areas!!! I guess it just kinda struck me wrong, I hunt, fish, camp and occasionally go look for a shed. No matter what I am out there doing camping in designated areas and taking care of my fire is top of the list.

Congrats Shane......looks like a successful season.......

I buy a few elk antlers here and there, build a few things with them........nothing really serious. My neighbor who knows I go look for antlers now and then brought me this article that was published in USA Today. There is a lot of information, I couldn't get all of the videos to play. Obviously written kind of one sided but WOW, I had no clue this was such a money game.....well at least according to the article. The initial article is what was published in USA Today, at the bottom of the link are 4 more chapters to the "study". I thought it was particularly interesting considering the recent bans on baiting and the supposed concern for CWD. Also interesting that both sides have their claims as to how CWD is transmitted or if it really even exists. Again, long read...... http://www.indystar.com/longform/news/investigations/2014/03/27/buck-fever-intro/6865031/

Funny story, my father in law who was at one time an avid wood cutter for family and friends.....pulls me aside just this last Sunday and shows me this HUGE TREE with one of his boys on a horse next to it. So when I see this picture it is like......dang I have seen that tree somewhere.....cool pic