Sure, it took me long enough. I have a request from a parent of an essay writing help client of mine to add credit card payments. I’ve always wanted to accept them. I thought about doing it through my local bank or PayPal but ended up trying out a service that I really like called Square.

Square sent me a free card reader that works with my iPad and set me up in a few minutes to accept credit cards for tutoring services. If you provide a mobile service and don’t yet take cards, I would certainly recommend looking at Square.

Thus far, the Square credit card reader has worked wonderfully.

This photo of the Square Reader by Capsun Poe and licensed under CC ND 2.0. Learn more about Capsun by visiting his blog at http://capsun.org/

I have not posted here in a while. Shame on me.

At any rate, I spent part of this morning working a vocabulary-building exercise that uses “The Big Doubt Over Facebook,” which appeared in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.

Book face photo by Massimo Barbieri. Photo licensed under CC Attribution Only 2.0. See more of Max's photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/massimobarbieri/

For those who want to give the kid a little extra vocab practice and get the WSJ, here is the SAT Critical Reading practice exercise I created:

“The Big Doubt over Facebook” Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2012. The link to the article is good right now, but no guarantees.

Pre-Reading Vocabulary

Before you read, define these terms with part of speech:

1. Initial Public Offering (IPO):
2. nascent
3. dilemma
4. lofty valuation
5. revenue
6. social media
7. willy-nilly
8. alienate
9. highhanded
10. animosity
11. stymied
12. quantifiable
13. brand
14. metrics
15. ergo

In one or two sentences, answer the each of the following questions:

1. What is the general idea of the article?
2. How do the writers structure the story?
3. What points do the writers make about the doubts about Facebook?
4. What words would you use to describe the authors’ tone toward Facebook?

Eric Anderson is a freelance writer and SAT reading and writing tutor in Wesley Chapel, Florida. Contact him at eanderson216 at verizon dot net or by phone at 813.787.8959.

Yuck. I had to spend part of today in the Pasco County tag office off of US 41.

To be fair, the clerks were nice and took good care of me, and I was in and out in record time.

I was a little disconcerted by the security guard asking me to stand against the wall but that’s only because of bad memories of other encounters with cops. Just teasing.

I asked for free WiFi and free soft serve and cake on the service comment card, but I’m not holding my breath.

However, the Pasco County tag offices are really missing the boat by not running bingo to balance the  budget. They wouldn’t even need to hire a caller.

No charge for the genius idea, Mike Olson.

This post really does not have much to do with tutoring but still might be useful to you because of a few things the clerks shared with me.

My step daughter turns 19 in a few days and is moving out. Although I was at the tag office to renew my license, I happened to ask a question or two about a car that we are planning to gift to her. What I learned might help you if you are planning to let the kid take wheels when he or she blows town for college or for good.

This image created by Brian Cantoni who writes about software development, mobile websites, and occasionally sports with wit and grace. Visit his blog at http://www.cantoni.org/. The image is his and is licensed under CC by 2.0.

First, I learned that if convenience is your aim, it is better for married persons to title a car with OR (rather than AND) between the names, so that either half of the couple can do business with the title office. Fortunately, we followed this tip with the car in question.

Second, I learned that if you have a kid leaving home and are going to gift a car to him or her, do it before he or she leaves and changes driver’s license addresses.

When the kid’s and your driver’s licenses match home address, the plate can be transferred at a lower cost because of a “family exemption.”

Using the exemption lowers the cost by $200.

OK, now back to your regularly scheduled educational programming….

Eric Anderson is an English, history, SAT, and writing tutor who resides in lovely Wesley Chapel, FL. Reach him at 813 787 8959 or at Tampa tutor at Tampa bay dot rr dot com. He shares his thoughts about whatever tickles his pickle here.

One of my all-time favorite SAT students got her results yesterday, and I got the happy call from her mother! My student, an academic superstar, added 130 points to her SAT Critical Reading score!

This image by Sakura licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Only 2.0 Generic. Visit Sakura's blog at The Little Things at http://sakura.blogsome.com/

I am thrilled for her and hope that the higher score will help her get into the university of her choice.

Great work, KM!

Eric