The top one is tessellating - look it up. The official definition will not say quilt design but this is a quilt design if I've ever seen one.
The solar system piece is just out of this world, don't you think?
Mrs. Roy is so blessed. Life is good.
I have a way of doing things that most people find different; I don't know why. So I'm creating a place to explain myself and maybe share something someone will find useful
Mrs. Roy believes in fair play so I'm posting the response I got to my email about the pre-census letter.
Thank you for your e-mail. Secretary Locke and Census Bureau Director Robert Groves have asked me to respond on their behalf. We here at the Census Bureau certainly understand your concern, and I want to assure you we care a great deal about being good stewards of the taxpayer's money. The short answer to your question is that even on the eve of census forms arriving this week, as many as 45% of Americans are unaware that this month is when the Census starts. That's probably due to the fact we only do a Census once every ten years. Based on historical response rates, we expect roughly two thirds of households will mail back their form. The rest we will have to send an enumerator to collect the data required by the Constitution. You can imagine that follow-up is an expensive proposition. In fact, every one percent increase in the number of households who mail back the form saves the taxpayers about $85 million in expensive door-to-door follow up. That's why we advertise and promote, to increase the mail back response rate and help save on expensive labor to follow up. We have extensive research that shows additional mailings alerting households to the arrival of the census form increase response rates by about 6 to 12 percentage points. The savings from that increase more than pay for these mailings. It costs about $85 million to print and mail the advance letter and reminder postcard. The potential increase in response rates demonstrated by our research could result in a savings of more than $500 million. After the 2000 Census we returned to the Treasury some $305 million in savings. Then Secretary of Commerce Don Evans testified in 2001 to the U.S. Senate that those savings came about from our advertising, promotion and PR efforts encouraging households to mail back their forms, increasing response rates over the prior census for the first time in three decades. The total we spend on all promotion and advertising is about one dollar per person in the U.S. It costs just 42 cents to mail back the form. But it costs $57 for follow up with non-responding households, many of which we must visit several times to reach someone at home. We wish we did not have to advertise, and that 100% of households mailed their form back, but that is just not the case. Not everyone is as active and engaged as yourself. We appreciate your civic minded spirit, and your concern for our current fiscal situation. I hope this information helps explain the steps we are taking to reduce the burden on taxpayers of meeting our Constitutional mandate to count every person in the country. Sincerely, Karen Shipley U.S. Census Bureau Phone: 301-763-6537 E-Mail: Karen.Shipley@census.gov Web: www.2010.census.gov
Dear Mr. Secretary of Commerce:
I just received my letter telling me I will receive the census next week. Have you people totally lost your minds? I shutter to think how much money Mr. Groves and his staff blew through to send out these worthless letters. I wonder how many people that money would have fed, how many months of unemployment insurance it would have funded, how many life saving medical procedures it would have covered. Instead, it's going straight to the recycle bin. This is an example of everything that is wrong with our government. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Roy