Latest Poll

Illness and Wellness

Latest news is in the world of housing. My boyfriend's landlord decided to sell the house and so my boyfriend and roommates are now hunting for a new place to rent. I'm unsure how successful the landlord will be at selling, the market is in a real slump right now. Few people are making enough money to buy a house. My boyfriend and co. have the even more difficult job of finding a pace that will allow smokers and pets. My boyfriend doesn't smoke, but some of the roommates do and my boyfriend has a noisy obnoxious bird. Most places for rent have specified "no smoking" and "no pets". I wish them luck in their hunt, I did leave them a nice listing of houses that didn't say anything about smoking or pets and were within an acceptable price range ($18,000 - $21,000, minus utilities and deposits).

Also in the news, fish and loaves are now becoming expensive. Fish has been steadily getting more and more expensive as the commercial fishing restrictions get tightened up. I understand why it's needed, but I really do like seafood. As for bread, it's something to do with the rising cost of flour. The exact reasons for flour being expensive elude me. I've heard that it's a combination of transportation costs (gas) and fewer people growing wheat because corn is all the rage. It is sad that these staple foods are more expensive. My poor boyfriend and his current diet of tuna sandwiches might find it a challenge with his tiny food budget.

2.  A Few Things Learned

Since I've been sick, I didn't learn much of anything new. Here are some things I learned a while ago.

The Rule of Three
Under the worst possible conditions you can survive:
3 minutes without air
3 hours without shelter
3 days without water
3 weeks without food

On Mythbusters (a really good show) they tested different cures for the burning sensation left by eating hot chili peppers. Milk won as everybody's favorite, the others were not so great. Dad was disappointed that they didn't test Horchata. Horchata according to Wikipedia is water, sugar, and milk or nut mixture served chilled during the summer. Dad tried it once after eating something really spicy and said it worked like a charm, possibly better than milk.

3. Me, Myself, and I

That last week or so I've been sick, my boyfriend was sick, and my parents were sick. Generally I slept or wandered around with my tissue box being miserable. I watched a movie or two, re-read some books. For awhile I was sick enough I couldn't even focus on what I was reading and considering I was reading Dragonflight by Anne McCaffery (It's the first book I ever read), that was really pathetic. I'm starting to feel a bit better so, I'll be back to my busy schedule in no time.

I'm still working on learning the violin, but it's slow going. I keep forgetting where to put my fingers. I do have little markers, but I always seem to be slightly off. Also, I need more flexibility in my fingers so I can move them around and not slide others out of position. The harp still continues, but I haven't really added anything new lately. I did figure out the chords for Shule Agra and at some point I figure out how I want to set that up so I can play and sing it. The dulcimer, sits there. I'll pick it up again during the summer maybe. As far as voice is concerned, I feel like I've hit a bit of a plateau. I'm fairly good at learning a song, but the quality of my voice never seems to match up. I like the classical arias, but I hate how my voice sounds on them.

4. Creative Corner

Cauliflower, peas
Broccoli and carrots too
Are quite good to eat

5. Comments

Cereal - Thank you for the comment. I figured my parents have been around long enough and they pay taxes and own a house, so in terms of the job market they must know something. I'll probably interview mom next, when she's feeling better.

Bionicmomster and jehanne - Thanks for subscribing, hope you enjoy all my future posts.

An Interview With A Dad

This entry is going to be a little different from the usual. Today I interviewed my dad about working. We talked about what he went though then and what he goes through now in the process of getting a job and how much cheaper everything was.

According to Dad, "I got my first job in October of 1972. I looked through the newspapers, sent in applications all over the place and landed a job in a department store. There was no real interview, they called me up and told me to show up at a set time and place. I earned roughly $1.80 per hour, just slightly above minimum wage at the time."

With the money from that first job he helped to support his mom and little brother. Vastly different from what I go through. Months on end go by with no calls, despite the several places I've called and sent resumes to, because I've never used a cash register. Heck, most places they ask me if I own a car, and won't hire me if I say that I take the bus.

Later he worked at a factory doing materials preparation for "I started there making $1.80 an hour. By means of constant small merit increases I was raking in a generous $3.00 an hour. After that I got a job at Herron Optical Company. I was required to fill out a rather extensive application. I filled out four pages of what equipment I knew how to use, what kinds of hand-tools I had experience with, and what jobs I had held."

They hired him in 1975 for $3.00 an hour, but by the end of five years he was making $7.50 an hour doing lens grinding, coating, and quality assurance. Also within that time, he got married and decided to move to Northern California.

In 1980 Dad got a job with OSG optical company for $7.50 an hour doing quality assurance. "I was laid off in 1981 and within two-weeks had gotten a job at OCLI for $7.00 an hour doing inspection. By the time I left there I was earning $9.00 an hour and had bought a house."

By 1985 he started working for GEO Operator Corporation teaching engineers how to operate their computers for $11.00 an hour. "When the company started to look shaky, I walked over to the company where my wife worked (Freeport McMoran) and offered to do tech support and data entry. They hired me in 1990, matching my current pay of $15.00 an hour."

Freeport was bought by Calpine and Dad went through a series of jobs including tech support in the Geysers, Systems Administrator, and data entry. At the time Calpine laid him off in 2006, he was making $32.00 an hour and supporting a disabled wife and a college student. It took several months before he got a job at Restoration Hardware for $24.00 an hour. A year later Restoration hardware laid him off and he is currently unemployed.

According to dad, to survive he needs a job that pays at least $25.00 an hour; unemployment pays the equivalent of $11.25 an hour. "In reality, though, it is considerably less. I effectively pay $8.64 an hour to COBRA for the medical benefits package I was given at Restoration Hardware. That amounts to a net pay of about $2.64 an hour. Ideally I'd like to make $35.00 an hour; which would allow for the occasional splurge like a dinner out or a vacation."

2.  A Few Things Learned

The other day I came across a puzzle in history. I know that in the early 17 and 1800's cities and buildings were being lighted with gas light fixtures. I also knew that drilling for Gas did not occur until the 1800's. Where was the gas coming from? So I looked it up and it turns out that a fellow by the name of William Murdock found a way to manufacture gas and built a gas-works to light a cotton mill in 1792. After that, gas-works boomed and whole cities were lighted with manufactured gas. In 1820 the first gas well was drilled. Mystery solved.

Now and then I do random bits of research. I look up countries and the facts about their founding and their current government. One thing I look at very carefully how governments in different countries are run. In my research on glaring bit of information keeps popping up. The majority of countries with high standards of living do not isolate their government officials. Here in the US, it takes a lot to meet a government official unless they're fairly low-level and even then, it's for maybe ten minutes at some public function. Whereas in much of Europe, you could easily meet one of the high level government officials in day-to-day life. No security telling them to just keep walking and to ignore you, no assistants telling you that you can't speak on certain topics because of national security. They're like ordinary human beings. Next time I'm going to do a comparison chart or something about this.

3. Me, Myself, and I

In a few weeks I'm going to be in a recital. I'll be singing The Trees They Do Grow High and Soalin. The Trees is my solo piece, with my music teacher Laurie doing the accompaniment. Soalin is going to be a duet with my dad. I'm working on refreshing a couple of nice Celtic tunes on my harp; Dublin Streets needs some work on the left-hand part and I've got Road to Lisdoonvarna down fairly smoothly. I haven't played much on the dulcimer, but one of these days I'll get back to it. As for the violin, it goes slowly. I did find my old violin music book, so now I can re-learn some of my old favorites.

Also, I bought my cat Loki a new cat toy. He's a sweet orange and white tabby with the softest, fluffiest fur in the world. Pain to brush, but he's cute enough to make up for it. He keeps killing all his cat toys, so I got one of those fishing-pole types with a sturdy cord and a leather tassel. Sometimes I can get him to do flips, it's pretty awesome. In this section you may have to cope with me gushing about how wonderful my darling Loki is, but I'm sure you can tough it out. If I get a chance, I'll post a picture of him.

4.  Creative Corner

Rainbow, Rainbow on the wall

I wonder where it is you'll fall

Be it in the clouds ahead

Or from my window to my bed?

5. Comments

Sigh, no comments. No one has subscribed yet. Well, my good friend holly did make one comment, but in an e-mail.