fr_stories

 This is partly why homework takes a bit longer than it should. I'm not always a "just the facts ma'am" type.

Post question:

The Teddy Bear Child Care Company operates a day-care facility. The variable cost of operations is $200 per child permonth. The fixed Costs amount to $3,200 per month. Teddy Bear charges $600 per child per month for theirservices. Although the Teddy Bear Company has the capacity to handle 32 children; the current number of childrenserved is only 10.

My response:

Post Title: Can Child Care = Profit?

 To one's sanity: no, but that is irrelevant.

___________________________________________________________

Variable Costs = $200 per child (costs increase $200 for each child)

Fixed Costs = $3200 per month

Selling Price = $600 per child per month

# of Products (Children) = 10

Use the Breakeven Analylsis equation first to see if the comapny is even making a profit.

Sales Revenue - Variable Costs - Fixed Costs = Operating Income

$6000 - $2000 - $3200 = $800

$800 profit on 10 students. Neat, but $800 per month could hardly pay the manager's personal, non-business bills in any state.

___________________________________________________________

 

What happens if the parents of 2 students don't like what's going on at Teddy Bear Child Care Company, remove their children , and enroll them at rival Teddy Ruxpin Kiddie Kare?

 

 

___________________________________________________________

Variable Costs = $200 per child (costs increase $200 for each child)

Fixed Costs = $3200 per month

Selling Price = $600 per child per month

# of Products (Children) = 8

$4800 - $1600 - $3200 = 0

8 students is the Breakeven point. The point at which there is no Net Income or Net Loss. 

___________________________________________________________

 

 

Fortunately for Manager, she thinks she can double the number of current students by spending only $500 per month on advertising.

To calculate an increase the profit, an extra $500 in fixed costs is spent.

 

 

___________________________________________________________

Variable Costs = $200 per child (costs increase $200 for each child)

Fixed Costs = $3700 per month

Selling Price = $600 per child per month

# of Products (Children) = 20

___________________________________________________________

 

$12000 - $4000 - $3700 = $4300

$4300 profit on 20 students. That's a $3500 profit increase with only a $500 expense increase.

Much better profit and a good investment for only an extra $500 per month.

 Finding a Realtor: 

We used a buyer's agent. They get paid a percent of the sale price of the house instead of us paying them a fee. We went with Deeb Realty (don't know if they exist in Eastern IA) because the house we were thinking of buying was listed through them. We ended up going with a different house, ultimately.

Finding a lender: 

This was the dumb assest annoying part. Because we were only in our mid-20s, no one took us seriously. We communicated with US Bank (who never got back to us), Wells Fargo (who never got back to us), and the company that shared an office with Deeb (who were dumb and I'll get to that). We went with Mutual of Omaha Bank because I work for the Insurance side and they couldn't ignore someone who was less than a block's walk away 40 hours a week. 

The lender issue:

The dumb ass lender said "yes, we'll finance you for houses that cost up to $X using the amount of money you currently have saved." Later when we show interest in a house "you can't even look at this house because you can't afford it." "But it's $X or under." "Too bad." So in short, make sure you have at least 3.5% of the purchase price already saved in case a lender is a dickface. MoO Bank just wanted the money when we signed the closing paperwork so they were much better to work with. Within 6 months of closing our loan was sold to Bank of America so it's not like it mattered anyway.

What do I wish I was told & random tips:

• When you're shopping under a specific price point, you might have to go above it. The house we bought was a little more expensive than we were originally looking for, but it turns out it wasn't actually out of our reach as far as down payment and monthly payments. It's only more than our apartment because we're paying extra toward the principal every month.
• Get a house government approved by Housing and Urban Development (HUD). They only require a 3-3.5% down payment and because it's gov't subsidized, the inspection process is more aggressive. They won't allow you to buy an unsafe broken piece of shit.
• It takes a long time to find a house you'll like. It took us 3 months and the house we're in was actually the last one we were going to look at for a while. We were going to quit after this because of house hunter fatigue (I'm sure it's a real fake condition ;) )
• Get a good home inspector. Ask for recommendations from your Realtor.
• There are a couple sites that have crime reports by neighborhood. I got those from Steph and I can't remember what they are. They're VERY useful. You do not want to live at 33rd & Shot In The Face. For sure, one is SpotCrime http://spotcrime.com/#2001%20n%2062nd%20st%20omaha%2C%20ne

 For some reason Jessica, Rip, and I were sneaking around a gangster family's house while they were out or were busy. We're looking for some kind of incriminating evidence of thug-like activity. They come home and we're running from room to room trying to find a room that has a window or door that leads outside that doesn't have an alarm on it or isn't locked. After much crouching behind tall plants and staying one step ahead of their progression through the house, we finally make it to a bedroom where if we take off fast we can make it through the wall.

So Rip gets out what seem to be 20 hexagonal shaped fireworks, the kind that emit showers of gold sparks, configures them in tiered rows, and buries them angled then covers it up with white cloth. Because the "carpet" in the bedroom is dirt and grass. What's supposed to happen is when you light one firework, they're rigged so they all go off and will propel you through the wall (or something). It doesn't work, though. Rip's not happy because he'd either done this before or seen it done. 

By this time the thugs know there're intruders and they suspect someone is trying to sabotage the wedding of the thug daughter (in whose room we hide). So Rip, who apparently works for them, leaves to look for us. I light the fireworks manually to make sure they're not duds. They're not so I turn them face down again in hopes of being propelled through the wall. No dice. 

At this point Jessica & I notice there's an apartment style window (side sliding, not top/bottom sliding) with no screen. Escape! Rip is "searching" outside the window. I open it and ask if it's ok to go out & run away. He says there's too much activity out there and he'll signal when it's okay. By this time the thugs have done a room by room search and it's this room's turn. We hide between the bed & the wall and squeeze under the bed as much as possible. The bed mostly touches the ground so the thugs just come in the room, look around, and bend over the bed to notice how close to the wall it is. They put an "all clean" sticker on the bed to designate that it's been searched. 

Rip says it's time to go so we climb through the window and run away through holes in people's fences and bushes and all sorts of sneaking. Yay! Escape!

So then the dream shifts to a few months later. I'm on the police force or a detective apprentice something. For some reason Morning Musume is around, too. Riho comes into our outdoor office with a 5+ year old cell phone. She tells us a story about how she & a friend of hers went into a thug's house (the same thug we had issues with) and sabotaged something. Unfortunately, the thug saw her and her friend. It was years ago so she thought the thug wouldn't be able to recognize her. A person changes a lot between 10 and 14, you know? So this cell phone was found on the table on Christmas morning. There's nothing on the phone - it's completely wiped. Both Riho and I see the phone as the thug's message: "we know who you are and can get to you anytime." She's really scared, but we say we'll protect her.

So Suzuki comes up and asks what's going on with Riho and why she's so off lately. For some reason I know that Zukki was the "friend" who was with her and I don't really say anything because maybe the thugs don't recognize her yet.

That's pretty much it.

Brandy Slush

1 12 oz can OJ concentrate
1 12 oz can lemonade concentrate
1 c sugar
4 tea bags steeped in 2 c water
5 c water
3 c brandy
lemon-lime pop

Heat the 5 c water enough so the 2 cans of concentrate & the cup of sugar dissolve. Let that cool a little then stir in the brandy and tea water. Pour into a big container and freeze (preferably 2 nights). Make sure to stir the slush well (or throughout the freezing process) so the liquor isn't all at the bottom. To serve, fill your preferred glass 1/2 to 3/4 full of slush and top the rest of the way with lemon-lime pop (Sprite, 7up, etc)

Tom Collins Slush

2 12 oz cans lemonade concentrate
3 c gin
6 c water
bitters
lemon-lime pop or cherry 7up

Heat the water until it's warm enough to dissolve the lemonade. Let it cool then add the gin. Freeze. When serving, fill the cup 1/2 to 3/4 full of slush, add a few drops of bitters and top with lemon-lime pop.

Holiday Spice Slush (untested)

1 12 oz can apple juice concentrate
1 12 oz can OJ concentrate
1 c sugar (optional)
2 c water prepared with chai spiced tea or cider spice
3 c spiced rum
5 c water
lemon-lime pop or ginger ale

Heat the 5 c water until the 2 cans of concentrate and sugar dissolve. Let it cool then add the tea or spice water and rum. Freeze. Fill the cup 1/2 to 3/4 full of slush and top with the pop.

 It was district large group at LC (but it wasn't LC, you know). We had a sleep-over with all the speech kids. LC has lots of escalators that don't actually go all the way to the floor. 

So for some reason we had to use Cobalt 60 to irradiate things for speech - I really don't know why. So Hans and I are flashing things with a bunch of rads and when we get done, Megan's all "wash your hands!" lol Like washing our hands is effective if we'd been working with radiation to sterilize things. So we wash our hands - for some reason Megan didn't have to. Though it seemed like she was a hologram that showed up wherever she needed to. (For those who have seen Trinity Blood, she was kind of like Sister Kate). Washing our hands made us completely drenched and we slid around everywhere. So we had to go from the top floor science washing area to the first floor and taking the escalators we slid around and kept nearly falling off each floor. So I'm trying to take a down escalator, but since they drop you off a good piece off the next floor, I'm super wet and trying to hold on to the moving handrail so I don't get thrown off the edge.

Then I woke up. WEIRD!

 True Brujah Henry Colchester, legitimate believer in and member of a prominent Gehenna cult. Eighth generation vampire with a Visionary nature and demeanor of a pedagogue. 

Henry was a trader in the East India Company. He was embraced while attempting to set up additional trade-posts between Britain and India. He attracted the attention of his sire, Balthazar, while he was in Tyre, Lebanon. Balthazar was impressed with how far Henry would go to ensure a profitable or beneficial deal. When Henry met opposition, he would go to great lengths to find something damaging about the trader for blackmail or would find enemies of the trader to make threats. Balthazar followed Henry to India where he was embraced in 1858. It was assumed Henry perished as a human in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. A chance meeting with John Danvers' Serpant of the Light brother, William Danvers, led to an interest and "profession" of sorts as a Noddist researcher. Henry was devoted to learning more about Gehenna and the Book of Nod until Ra'if Saaed convinced him that it would be more beneficial to use the knowledge contained in the Book of Nod to cause Gehenna to weed out the humans, vampires, and other denizens of the world of darkness who were unfit.

Merits & Flaws

Time Sense
Eidetic Memory
Natural Linguist
Bad Sight (legitimately needs the glasses he wears)
Nightmares: Henry dreams that he's buried underground and can't escape
Prey Exclusion: Henry's human research assistants

I woke up too early, tooled around, messed on my phone then went back to sleep. I was cold so I wasn't sleeping very deeply yet. I think that's why I was able to notice that I was dreaming and change it.
* I would fall asleep and dream something
- one of them was being in a vast area of water with jungle trees behind us and a Zanarkand type city in the distance to the front and left side with the the main Mythbusters while they did some myth or other -
* and then notice that it was a dream
- in the Mythbusters dream, I looked into the distance and saw that the buildings of the far-off city were hopping up and down and otherwise dancing -
* and I would change it to what I wanted to dream about by digging my fingers into the scenery in front of me (as if I were tearing through a painted backdrop) and pulling a hole in the dream. It was super neat.

This happened 3 or 4 times this morning. After I stepped through the hole and into the new dream that I was creating, it took a few minutes in dream time (I don't know how long in real time obviously) for the scenery to solidify. I had to concentrate on everything like I was creating a new world. If I didn't imagine a real person strongly enough they turned up as a cartoon and later, once the dream got moving, they changed into a real person.

The holes in the dreams were very much like I'd pulled open an empty room or storage closet. Open empty cardboard boxes were on the other side of one hole that I remember. Plain old blackness behind the other that I remember.

If I fell asleep too soundly I forgot that I was dreaming and wasn't in control anymore. I think that's why I had to tear so many holes and start over.

It was really fun to create my own dream world. Try it. When you notice something that you know shouldn't happen (in the Mythbusters dream, I first noticed that I was with the Mythbusters) then I looked around for confirmation that it was a dream (and noticed the dancing buildings). I don't know if it's easier to do if you go to sleep telling yourself that you want to notice something. I do know that when I made the hole and stepped through it I had to kind of will myself to stay asleep, probably because I knew it was a dream. In another one of the dreams, I noticed I was doing stuff on my old phone and as much as I was on & messing with my new phone during our trip I knew I had no reason to be on the old phone.

For some reason Jake and I had to sit in on a bunch of Japanese legal proceedings involving the use of already exiting songs being used or changed into other songs. Think Weird Al without the parody. We're supposed to help decide the verdict as 'outsiders' or something. So we're sitting in on these proceedings and they're pretty lame. The new use for the song is different enough that they don't merit law suits.

In the third case involving the use of the Tetris theme song, one of the court officials leaves me this long letter in Japanese and the only thing I get out of it is that they need my mailing address to send me something. So I'm sitting, trying to remember the kanji for watashi. I remember the first half (the part on the left) but not the katakana "mu" looking bit on the right. I get up to get my phone to translate it ('cause my phone really does have a Japanese/English;English/Japanese translation app) and Reina of Morning Musume - who apparently has been watching me try to remember the whole time - comes up and says "I'll tell you what it is for 300 yen." I think "3 bucks? No way" and I get up and say "Denwa ga ii yo." Then I actually kind of remember what it is so I go back, phoneless, to the paper and write something that's like katakana "ra" and Reina says that's close but not it. Then I write the "mu" looking bit and she nods and walks away.

I can't remember if it was before or after the watashi kanji conundrum, but the plaintiff in the Tetris case asked me to talk to him and told me that he was really counting on my vote since it meant a lot to his family. He asked me if I heard him sing during the trial. I answered that I'd heard *someone* sing but I thought it was a recording since we were seated behind the L bend in the room I couldn't see any of the proceedings, just hear them. He answered with something along the lines that I should hear it before I leave.