I applied for a job at Wal-Mart today.
I'm looking for a job over the holidays to help pay for a new pair of hearing aids. For those who don't know, good ones will cost a couple of thousand dollars apiece. The last pair I bought several years ago cost about $4,000, and insurance didn't cover it.
I'm a retired computer programmer but I'm not looking to get back into programming. I would just be getting up to speed by Christmas, (although it would pay better.) I've been retired for 3 years and am not looking to get back into that grind. I'm just looking for help paying for the next set of hearing aids.
I chose Wal-Mart because I shop there. Two new Wal-Marts opened near me in the past year, and the one I applied to is the one that I go to. Another reason is that they have so many people that I figured I'd have a better chance. The third reason is that I've seen a higher percentage of people there that are my age or greater. No sense applying to a place that doesn't hire us old folk.
Besides, I like Wal-Mart. They have virtually everything that I use. They have a gardening section where my wife and I go in the spring and summer. They have a very large grocery section, where I shop. And they have sections that sell virtually everything else you would need for your house. The grocery section includes fresh meat, produce, a bakery and cold cuts. The only time I ever had to go to another store was for veal. They don't have veal or pork. And when I've needed assistance, I've never spoken to anyone there that wasnt't friendly and helpful.
I know that I'm not going to get rich working for Wal-Mart. If I get a job there, it's only going to be for a few months and probably won't pay for the full cost of the hearing aids, after taxes. Even if I get a full time job, I probably won't be there long enough to get any medical insurance. That's fine too. I am on my wife's policy where she works. But I'm in good shape for my age, exercise regularly and have time to spare. So we'll see.
I'll probably also apply at the Target that's near my house and maybe a few places at the local mall. Anybody that hires us retired folk.
Anybody have any other ideas?
- - - - -
In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. - Warren Buffet
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Twitter Tools
I started tweeting at about the same time I started this blog.
I had signed on to Twitter a lot earlier with a name that I use occasionally as a throw away when I don't want to give someone a permanent e-mail address. It changes every year and when I used it on Twitter, it was also designed to be temporary.
I just wanted to read the tweets of other people to get a feeling for what it was all about. By the time I wanted to go mainstream, I had a handful of followers, despite the fact that I never tweeted. So I notified these people that I was switching my name and then I did so and started tweeting. I'm now on Twitter using my real name, LouDornbach. (If you're wondering where this blog got its name, look at the first four letters of my actual name.)
As people followed me, I followed them back, but that didn't grow my followers very fast. However, I started seeing tweets about tools that would help bring in followers and make tweets easier to read, and I also read about them in Twitter Power.
So far, I've gotten two tools and am still on the lookout for more, if they would help me do something that the others don't. However, that is one of my problems now. I haven't been able to get one of the tools working yet.
The two tools I've gotten so far are TweetAdder and TweetDeck. I can't say enough good things about TweetAdder. You'll have to take this with a grain of salt, since I'm hardly an expert on Twitter tools. That said, TweetAdder works well and has a good manual to get you started. And, when I couldn't understand something or figure out how to do something, I e-mailed them through their help screen. They sent back replies promptly and the replies explained what I needed to know. They've also told me some things about a future release. It has several features that I haven't used yet, but for me, it automates following and unfollowing users and automates some tweets. For more information, go to www.TweetAdder.com. (I have no commercial interest in this tool.)
TweetDeck is another story. It was mentioned in Joel Comm's Twitter Power and appears to work fine. It is a tool that is in a Beta version, and so far, it's free. What it does is let you see tweets in columns. You can reportedly break up your incoming tweets into columns so that they will be easier to read, (or ignore). It appears to be stable and works fine. It has a lot of options that I haven't used yet, but I can't figure out how to do one simple thing. That one thing is how to move Twitter users from one column to another.
I put in a help question about 2 weeks ago but so far, I haven't gotten a response. Their website has my question up, the number of days it's been open, and even the name of the person it's assigned to, so I can't exactly say that they're ignoring me. It's likely that the person who has my problem hasn't even looked at it yet. I say that because the problem doesn't appear to be a hard one. Once he sees it, I should get an answer quickly. Either that, or I misunderstood what the tool does. It actually does have a decent help screen, but I can't find my answer. I've tried just fooling around but I haven't found the answer that way either. I suspect that it's something so obvious that they didn't think it was worth documenting. Unfortunately, it's not obvious to me. I still want to use the tool because it looks like it would be a big help once I learn how to use it.
Is there anyone out there that uses this tool that can help me get started with it?
- - - - -
Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do and you’ve done it. - Margaret Thatcher
I had signed on to Twitter a lot earlier with a name that I use occasionally as a throw away when I don't want to give someone a permanent e-mail address. It changes every year and when I used it on Twitter, it was also designed to be temporary.
I just wanted to read the tweets of other people to get a feeling for what it was all about. By the time I wanted to go mainstream, I had a handful of followers, despite the fact that I never tweeted. So I notified these people that I was switching my name and then I did so and started tweeting. I'm now on Twitter using my real name, LouDornbach. (If you're wondering where this blog got its name, look at the first four letters of my actual name.)
As people followed me, I followed them back, but that didn't grow my followers very fast. However, I started seeing tweets about tools that would help bring in followers and make tweets easier to read, and I also read about them in Twitter Power.
So far, I've gotten two tools and am still on the lookout for more, if they would help me do something that the others don't. However, that is one of my problems now. I haven't been able to get one of the tools working yet.
The two tools I've gotten so far are TweetAdder and TweetDeck. I can't say enough good things about TweetAdder. You'll have to take this with a grain of salt, since I'm hardly an expert on Twitter tools. That said, TweetAdder works well and has a good manual to get you started. And, when I couldn't understand something or figure out how to do something, I e-mailed them through their help screen. They sent back replies promptly and the replies explained what I needed to know. They've also told me some things about a future release. It has several features that I haven't used yet, but for me, it automates following and unfollowing users and automates some tweets. For more information, go to www.TweetAdder.com. (I have no commercial interest in this tool.)
TweetDeck is another story. It was mentioned in Joel Comm's Twitter Power and appears to work fine. It is a tool that is in a Beta version, and so far, it's free. What it does is let you see tweets in columns. You can reportedly break up your incoming tweets into columns so that they will be easier to read, (or ignore). It appears to be stable and works fine. It has a lot of options that I haven't used yet, but I can't figure out how to do one simple thing. That one thing is how to move Twitter users from one column to another.
I put in a help question about 2 weeks ago but so far, I haven't gotten a response. Their website has my question up, the number of days it's been open, and even the name of the person it's assigned to, so I can't exactly say that they're ignoring me. It's likely that the person who has my problem hasn't even looked at it yet. I say that because the problem doesn't appear to be a hard one. Once he sees it, I should get an answer quickly. Either that, or I misunderstood what the tool does. It actually does have a decent help screen, but I can't find my answer. I've tried just fooling around but I haven't found the answer that way either. I suspect that it's something so obvious that they didn't think it was worth documenting. Unfortunately, it's not obvious to me. I still want to use the tool because it looks like it would be a big help once I learn how to use it.
Is there anyone out there that uses this tool that can help me get started with it?
- - - - -
Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do and you’ve done it. - Margaret Thatcher
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tattoos
Strangely enough, I've been thinking about getting my first tattoo.
I probably would have never thought of it if not for my daughters. Both of my girls have multiple tattoos, including large ones on their backs.
When my youngest daughter got her first tattoo, I assumed that it was because my older daughter had some and she was just following in her sister's footsteps. Eventually, it didn't really matter. In fact, I'm not sure that either of them are finished.
The good thing is that they both went to good artists, so the tattoos are good quality. My older daughter had a few small ones on her back that were marginal, but later had them overlaid by a larger one.
If I got a tattoo, it would be one of my family. My wife and two girls. And therein lies the problem, I guess. When my daughters got theirs, they were copied from something. My older daughter probably got something that was in the artist's studio. (Do they have them hanging on the walls or in a book? I'm not sure.) My youngest daughter had a design picked out and took it to the artist. They came out very well, but if they didn't match the design exactly, no one would notice.
However, if you're getting pictures of people tattooed on you, you want it to look like the people in the picture. Pretty much exactly.
My experience with tattooing is such that I only know one person that I would trust to do that tattoo on me: Kat from LA Ink. I think all of the people on that show are great artists, but Kat, the shop's owner, is probably the best when it comes to tattooing images of people. Unfortunately, I'll probably be in a nursing home before I could get an appointment with her. And, also unfortunately, I live on the wrong coast.
Would I do it if I could. Probably. I've been doing a lot of new things since I retired. Skiing when I go to visit my cousin in New Hampshire, joining the NRA and travelling to the last two conventions, transferring my old videocassetts to DVD and my old albums to CD's, going with my wife on our first cruise, and target shooting.
Why would I do it? I'm not really sure. Mostly, it's probably because I love my family. I wouldn't consider getting anything else tattooed on me. At least not the first tattoo. A little is because it's something new. I figure I have at least 10 more years before I get too old to do some of the things I didn't do when I was younger. Maybe more if I'm lucky, but I can't count on it. Do you think I could get an appointment anytime in the next ten years?
Maybe I'm lucky I live on the wrong coast.
- - - - -
All of us have schnozzles ... if not in our faces, then in our character, minds or habits. When we admit our schnozzles instead of defending them, we begin to laugh and the world laughs with us. - Jimmy Durante
I probably would have never thought of it if not for my daughters. Both of my girls have multiple tattoos, including large ones on their backs.
When my youngest daughter got her first tattoo, I assumed that it was because my older daughter had some and she was just following in her sister's footsteps. Eventually, it didn't really matter. In fact, I'm not sure that either of them are finished.
The good thing is that they both went to good artists, so the tattoos are good quality. My older daughter had a few small ones on her back that were marginal, but later had them overlaid by a larger one.
If I got a tattoo, it would be one of my family. My wife and two girls. And therein lies the problem, I guess. When my daughters got theirs, they were copied from something. My older daughter probably got something that was in the artist's studio. (Do they have them hanging on the walls or in a book? I'm not sure.) My youngest daughter had a design picked out and took it to the artist. They came out very well, but if they didn't match the design exactly, no one would notice.
However, if you're getting pictures of people tattooed on you, you want it to look like the people in the picture. Pretty much exactly.
My experience with tattooing is such that I only know one person that I would trust to do that tattoo on me: Kat from LA Ink. I think all of the people on that show are great artists, but Kat, the shop's owner, is probably the best when it comes to tattooing images of people. Unfortunately, I'll probably be in a nursing home before I could get an appointment with her. And, also unfortunately, I live on the wrong coast.
Would I do it if I could. Probably. I've been doing a lot of new things since I retired. Skiing when I go to visit my cousin in New Hampshire, joining the NRA and travelling to the last two conventions, transferring my old videocassetts to DVD and my old albums to CD's, going with my wife on our first cruise, and target shooting.
Why would I do it? I'm not really sure. Mostly, it's probably because I love my family. I wouldn't consider getting anything else tattooed on me. At least not the first tattoo. A little is because it's something new. I figure I have at least 10 more years before I get too old to do some of the things I didn't do when I was younger. Maybe more if I'm lucky, but I can't count on it. Do you think I could get an appointment anytime in the next ten years?
Maybe I'm lucky I live on the wrong coast.
- - - - -
All of us have schnozzles ... if not in our faces, then in our character, minds or habits. When we admit our schnozzles instead of defending them, we begin to laugh and the world laughs with us. - Jimmy Durante
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