manual labor and other such things

So, this weekend I did about 3 hours of manual labor... outside... moving dirt... a lot of dirt. I have to say, that the 3 hours went by in a flash. Caught up in the spirit of community, pushed forward by good tunes (if I do say so myself) and necessary dance breaks, as well as a wee game of catch with a pooch, I was happy to be of some use. That 3 hours further cemented something (as if I needed it) that I have long since known about myself: I'm not cut out for manual labor. I'm a wimp. After the work was over I came home, took a long shower, and popped some necessary ibuprofen. Wimp, wimp, wimp. Of course, it's only because I don't have to make my living doing manual labor that I can be so cavalier about the whole thing.

To sort through past decisions and those moment that change the trajectory of ones life, numerically speaking, I checked the latest census numbers for my current city X and my hometown of Y and culled the most pertinent to any discussion of labor, manual or not.

City X ................. City Y

Population (est. 2003) .............................. 142,185 ............................... 80,223
Language, other than English
spoken at home (2000) ............................. 10.0% ................................. 30.5%
High school graduates, percentage
of persons 25+, 2000 ................................ 91.5% ............................... 69.4%
Bachelor's degree +,percentage
of persons 25+, 2000 ............................... 37.3% ............................... 16.0%
Persons below poverty, 1999 ................... 17.1% ............................... 22.4%
Per capita money income, 1999 ............... $21,315 ............................... $15,920

And the sad part is, my hometown isn't the worst, by far. Just to give you a look at just how close people are to the poverty line, a single person that earned less than $9,800 in 2006 lived below the poverty line as determined by the government for the 48 contiguous states and D.C. Yeah. Big thanks go to Mom and Dad for pushing me towards college and your continual support. I'm not dumb enough to think I did it on my own.