Automatic for the People

First off: I've told everyone in class that I would delete any "anonymous" messages that didn't indicate who they were from. This was abused today, and so now I've been forced to alter the blog settings a bit so that you can't post comments unless you have an open id account. The easiest way to get an account from which you can leave comments is to sign on for a Gmail account. Sorry, guys, but that's what we have to do. I realize that the "stalker" was obviously someone from our class this year and that they were just kidding around (because of the inside joke about our stalkers who would just watch through the window into our class--both child and adult, sadly), but I made it very clear that I would get rid of any messages that were not identified. We've had problems with Creepy Creepers around here before, so I don't take that kind of thing lightly. Anyway, please sign on for Gmail accounts if you want to comment on the blog from now on. Sorry it had to come to that.

Secondly, I went to the bank this morning and took all of that change with me. You know, all of the change from the week we collected and counted all that money up. I stood there for nearly an hour and a half, breaking open those rolls and dumping them into the giant cash machine that would count them up. I want to thank the good people of Ameriana Bank, who don't charge a thing to do this. This is perfect for a fundraiser like Relay for Life. I nearly busted a gut carrying the change in, but an hour and a half later, we netted an official total of $1,009.40. I love that!

Here's the breakdown of change:

• Pennies: 15650, or $156.50
• Nickels: 3484, or $174.20
• Dimes: 2277, or $227.70
• Quarters: 1492, or $373.00

The rest all came from bills.

Well done, Team Woodbrook! It's funny, because as I was standing there feeding coins into the machine over the course of an hour and a half, I got to talking with the bank manager. It turns out he also teaches karate, ironically.

Anyway, I took all that cash to Bank Night at Hot Box Pizza tonight, even if I didn't partake of their precious bread sticks (hey, I was about to go to karate class, you can't be weighed down), to little fanfare, admittedly.

Here are some photos from today while I was waiting for the money-counting-robot to work its magic.


Here are the coins that were rejected. I guess I was wrong when I told the kids just to roll the Canadian money with the rest of the coins.


Here is the robotic money-counter. We got to know each other pretty well today.