Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related FFQs for NaNoWriMo

Do we know the name of any of Lois' female relatives or male for that matter? Aunts, uncles, etc.

Are there an Folcs out there who might be able to help me with info about their home areas... say for a series of articles around the world written by a roving reporter? I'd like to have the info BEFORE Nov so it won't hinder me when I get to that part . Say London [or other parts of the UK], France, China [because we know CK went there], Borneo of course, Greece, etc. - private emails at carolm1108 @ gmail. com [without spaces of course] welcome - stick FFQ in the subject line so it'll filter right .

Anyone with knowledge of the foster care system [or rather how to get out of it - judges etc.] or can I just make it up because it's in New Troy?

Big city Folcs: what would a cheap apartment cost - preferably two bedrooms, but not necessarily, at least one - studio wouldn't work. We're talking not quite rat infested and daily drive by shootings, but certainly not a brownstone complete with secret closet.

Any one know how much a Jimmy Olsen type would make? Or one small step above a Jimmy?

Thanks to all the wonderful Folcs out there who will help with this .

Carol [who would normally ask these over the course of several weeks or more but is trying to get this outline nailed down so that Nov can be spent writing like crazy ]

Well my co-worker here in LA lives in a studio apartment and pays about $750 a month. I assume a 2 bedroom would cost more along the lines of $1200 a month. That cost may be with out utilities. The expensive 2 bedrooms are more along the $1900-$2000+ range.

Examples:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/apa/449807824.html
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/apa/449801546.html


And if you want to see more go to : http://losangeles.craigslist.org/apa/ ^_~

Wow - that's cheaper than I would have thought...

Would NYC be different? Would Metropolis be more like NYC or LA like JoJo just posted?

Carol [who really has lots of work she should be doing but is watching THE KISS instead [stupid Mayson] and poking around the msg boards...]

The only relatives I can think of off the top of my head are her parents and sister. I did a quick scan of Wikipedia and found this:

I couldn't find any mention of aunts or uncles.

I don't really have any experience with the foster care system, but based on my limited legal background, I'd venture to guess there are some similarities between states. If somebody could enlighten you about those, you could make up the rest.

Big city apartment prices are going to vary depending on the city. I've lived in Seattle, Louisville, and the LA-ish area, so I can give you numbers for those.

In Seattle my apt was about what you're talking about. It was a 2 br, 1 bath, with about 800 square feet for $850/month. It definitely wasn't infested with anything, but it was an older building with no bells and whistles, ie no pool, security, etc. It was a block off a main road, about half way between a rough neighborhood and a kinda swanky one. It came with all appliances, (dishwasher, fridge, etc.) except laundry which was a separate facility in the building where the machines ate quarters.

The Louisville apt was much nicer, in a community with a pool, clubhouse, etc, but the midwest is cheaper so it was $700/month for a 1 br, 1 bath, 700 square feet. This came with all appliances, including an in-unit washer/dryer.

My apartment in Orange is closer to the Seattle one. It's a 3 br, 2 1/4 bath, with about 950 square feet for $1500/month. Again, no infestation or drive-bys to speak of, but the neighboorhood is only a couple blocks from a commercial area, it's an older building, and there's no pool, security, etc. It didn't come with ANY appliances, though. No dishwasher (I've discovered I hate doing them by hand!) or fridge (my roommates bought one), and the laundry is a community quarter-eater.

If the apartment is in Metropolis it's probably closer to New York City pricing, which is significantly higher. I'd guess a decent 2 br would run at least $2000, but I've never lived there so I'm not really sure.

According to Salary.com, a photographer in NY makes about $50k-$75k.

Hopefully some of that helped.

~Anna

AH - big help Anna .

Did go to the NY Craigslist after JoJo's links to the LA one.

Am also Googling reporter salaries - am thinking fresh out of college, S1 Jimmy rather than S4 photographer Jimmy. Gofer, cub reporter tops.

Carol [who is watching Angel and Spike right now...]

Depending on what part of New York it looks about the same only a tad higher:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brx/abo/449914607.html
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/abo/449902661.html

However some are much much higher. I do have a friend who lives in Manhatten (which is a nice section of town) and she pays $1800 a month for a studio that is about 600sq ft.

Daniel! *swoons*

~Anna

My friend just adopted 2 kids from the foster system. She lives in MO and adopted 2 teens. It took just over a year to complete the process.

She began by filling out her application and going through numerous screening processes. In my state, you are able to decide which children you are willing to foster, so she was able to state ahead of time that she was only looking to foster children who would be adoptable. Next they notified her as children or sibling groups became available.

She has had to go to court MANY times over that year. Every time a contact with the parent needs to be made, they go to court. Once parental rights were terminated, the court visits became much less frequent--however, they did need to go to court to state they planned to adopt and then went to court again in order to actually adopt.

The final info you'll need is that she never needed a personal lawyer in the process. Since she adopted through the Division of Family Services (DFS), she had a caseworker and the kids had a caseworker. Anything that needed to be done was handled by the caseworkers.

The attitude of the caseworkers wasn't really forthcoming--they just wanted to get kids through the system as quickly as possible. I don't want to make it sound like they didn't care about the kids--my friend had already checked out--but they just wanted to process everything quickly (even if it meant leaving info out that a parent might want to know.)

Okay, now to make it apply to you. I'm not sure how you would get around the system, but it would be easy to make the system work for you. They want kids to go to a good home quickly. They want the home situations to work for the kids so they won't have to be moved again. As far as "foundlings" go (making assumptions here), the only snag would be the parental rights issue. That might take months or years to clear up, depending on state laws which you can conveniently write.

Elisabeth

Elisabeth - thanks - that's some of what I needed to know - I'm in MO too and DH works with kids in state custody so... I do know SOME about it but not a whole lot - most of the kids he works with are either fairly permanent foster care or bouncing back and forth, very few adoptions.

I'm thinking more along the lines of Amy from Smart Kids. Let's say for instance, L/C are married, no kids, and Amy is now 16-17 years old and Mom died and she and Inez need a place to live. Instead of going through the foster care system, L/C decide they want to take them into foster care but have no real plans to adopt, just keep them as foster kids until they turn 18. I'm sure they'd have to go through some sort of background check [we're assuming the lady from S4 and her whole point thing isn't an issue] and appear before a judge as to why they'd be a suitable foster family instead of sending them to a family member who doesn't really want them, but is a blood relative. They're the only other option besides the official foster care system and all that goes with that [think Alt CK bouncing from family to family].

Google searching found that "But according to the 2006 survey of journalism/mass communication graduates released in August 2007 by Dr. Lee B. Becker (University of Georgia), the average starting salary for a daily newspaper reporter in 2006 was $26,000" [from a wiki], which is much more in line with what I was thinking.

The apartments you linked to were nicer than I was thinking. *tries to think of example* The apartment Cory and Topanga moved into on Boy Meets World [before they fixed it up] or even CK's apartment before he fixed it up, but in not as nice a building and not able to be fixed up that nice... A half step up from something you'd find dead guys in on CSI [you know, the grimy ones, not the has been rock stars]. Think Samuel Platt [but a real apartment].

Sheesh - none of those are really what I'm looking for but I can't think of one... Am thinking 900-1200 plus 200-300 for utilities or so. Does that sound rightish?

What does a bus/subway monthly pass run somewhere like NYC?

And, yes, Anna - I've been thinking of you!!! "Call me Daniel"

"Duh, Clark Kent is Superman"
Carol [who is watching TF right now but has realized that SoulMates is S4 which she doesn't have - "Glasses, secret identity, seemed like a good idea at the time..."]