Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
This seriously has to be one of the top three most amazing things I have ever seen in my life.
Electrician’s Apprentice
Well, my job hunt continues, but I have a few new leads. Last night, when I was over at my grandmother’s house for a family game night, her neighbor talked to me about an apprenticeship program with his company as an electrician. I am not sure if I would be good at that type of work, but the pay is just to good to pass up, so I am going to go out on a few job sites with him and check it out.
He said that most jobs as an apprentice would pay at least $20 per hour, and I would usually be working four ten hour days each week. I am not exactly handy with tools and such, but I am certainly willing to give it a shot, and I would come out of the apprenticeship with at least an associates degree.
I have also continues submitting job applications on-line just about anywhere and everywhere. I haven’t heard anything back from anybody. I guess I just have to keep trying, and give the temp service a call tomorrow, like I do every Monday.
Dream Vacations
In these times of troubles, it is nice to dream about better times to help keep my mind off things. One of the things I offten like to think about is dream vacations. I don’t know when my next chance will be to take a real vacation, but I am already compiling a wish list for when that time should come.
Somewhere near the top of my list would definitely be a Caribbean cruise. I took one with my family when I was a child, and it is still one of my favorite experiences of my life. I would just love to escape to the warm air, the sun, the salty smell of the breeze coming in off the ocean. I love the look of the Caribbean Sea and all the islands with there beautiful tropical plants and animals. I love the way the stars over the Caribbean look at night, and I love the nightlife on board the ship. I love the 24 hour pizza bar, the Cassino’s, the shows, and sitting by the pool side listening to a Caribbean band and looking at the girls.
Also on my list of dream vacations would be a road trip across the US. I would love to go all up and down the east coast, visiting my friends and family along the way, starting with my Renaissance fair Friends and Navy friends in New England, while of course seeing all the sites in Salem and Boston. I would visit my aunt and uncle in Williamsbug Virgina, and my family on Lake Norman in North Carolina. I would like to go back to Savanna, and Hilton Head, as well as Atlanta, all on the way back to my old stomping grounds in Pensacola FL. I would work my way down the panhandle along the gulf coast, stopping at Panama city, and then heading down to Miami, where I got my first tatoo. I always wanted to see the everglades, and visit the florida keys too. And that’s just my east coast road trip, I will perhaps save my west coast wish list for another post.
Job Search
I have been continuing my job search with little results thus far. This weekend I applied at Lowes, Blockbuster and Home Depot, and today I applied at Best Buy. I have been confining my job search to the retail sector mostly, but if I find a promising opportunity in another area, I will apply for that as well.
None of the temp agencies I am registered with are giving me work right now, and it seems pretty futile to go out and register with more, although I will at least try the two closest to my house. Temping was always good to me in the past, but when the economy went south, that seemed like one of the first job sources to dry up. The newspaper is full of temp agency ads, because most of them pay for ads for a full year, but few of them are actually hiring.
At least my unemployment finaly kicked in, so I have a little money in my pocket now, and I have a meeting with public assistance tomorrow. I hate to have to resort to this, but I have to do whatever it takes to survive at this point. Hopefully, with persistant effort on my part, my fortunes will change soon.
Bowling
Last night I went out with my room mate and some of his friends. We went bowling and hit up Denny’s afterwords. It was definitely nice to get out of the house for a change, but I am a little disappointed with my bowling scores. I am the type of person that likes to win at whatever I do, even if it’s just a bunch of friends and I having fun at the bowling ally. I am not a sore loser mind you, I just enjoy challenging myself.
Beating my friends at bowling proved to be quite the challenge, because my room mate Steve can put up some pretty high scores from time to time, his high game last night being a 208, while mine was only a 116. I was a little disappointed with my performance, because I used to bowl consistently better than that when I bowled regularly. I think this could prove an interesting new challenge for myself, so I am going to take some time to work on my game, at least throughout the winter.
Ounce spring arives, I may switch to an outdoor activity, like golf or fishing, but for now, this should occupy some of my time. I need to visit the pro shop though, as my equiptment is woefully in need of an upgrade. My ball needs to have the finger holes re-drilled, as I have put on a decent amount of wait since I purchased it, and it is now to small for my fat fingers. I also need a new ball bag, a better fitting wrist guard, and a pair of my own bowling shoes, so I don’t have to keep renting shoes from the lane.
Getting Out of the House
I am trying to think of new hobbies or activities I can participating that will meet certain criteria. I am looking for fun, inexpensive activities that will get me out of the house and enable me to meet new and interesting people. I want an engaging social experience. I want something to exercise me mentally or physically. In short, I need a new hobby, or at least to rekindle an old one.
Some possible candidates are joining a bowling league, taking up golf, joining some kind of book club or writers workshop, joining a religious organization, joining a civic organization, or getting back into marshal arts. I am sure I can come up with some other ideas as well. Right now, expense, driving distance, and schedule are key considerations.
If anyone, especially anyone locally, has any interesting ideas, please do share. It’s just that I have now been single and unemployed for a while, and cooped up around the house allot. Most of the things I do to pass the time don’t get me out of the house or interacting with other people, nor do they enrich my life in any way. I have been spending allot of time playing video games, which is what I really want to cut back on. I have also spent time exercising, doing house work, and practicing guitar, which isn’t a total waste of time. I have even started writing songs again. I am trying to continue my trend of positive activities, it’s just that these are all solo activities, and don’t really get me out of the house. I do have an offer from a friend to come and play guitar with me some time, and my room mate occasionally wants bass lessons from me, but even these things pretty much just involve a couple of guys just sitting around the house, and aren’t a great way to meet girls and such.
Like I said, let me know if you have any cool ideas I should look into, and I will keep you all posted on what I come up with.
What the….?
What the...?
Okay folks, so who has seen this commercial? They even sent me an email today advertising this crap. What a hideous invention. Did you see the part in the commercial where the family was sitting around the campfire all wearing these things? They look like some kind of strange Kool-Aid drinker cult. Please tell me that you or no one you know has bought one of these things.
Back to WordPress
After a long time of doing my blogging in other places for all the wrong reasons, I have decided to come back to my wordpress blog. After every other platform I have tried, I have never been happier, and never gotten more readers than I have right here on wordpress.
I have tried many free platforms, including blogger, myspace, and xanga, among others. Of all of those, I have to say Xanga was the only decent one, and for a while, I was actually getting a few regular readers on that site, but it just doesn’t have the flexibility and functionality of the WordPress platform.
My long absense from WordPress really started when I got this stupid idea that I wanted to blog for profit instead of for fun. I needed a free platform that would let me host ads, so I chose blogger for it’s easy adsense integration. I blogged there for almost a year, and made about two bucks. The worst part was, pursuing the pipe dream of being a professional blogger took all the fun out of blogging. So I took a brief brake from blogging all together, possibly never to return to the hobby.
It wasn’t until I decided to put up a site for my new D&D group, and decided to use WordPress.com for that site, that I remembered how much fun I had blogging on wordpress, and interacting with the community here. So here I am, back at wordpress, and with no more pretensions of trying to become a professional blogger, or chasing any more get rich quick schemes. I guess some lessons I just had to learn the hard way.
Now I am just a regular guy, trying to find a real job, and enjoying my hobby of blogging.
99 Personal Questions
| What is your full name?: | Devin Jay Garman |
| Your birth date:: | 18 Apr 1983 |
| What color is your hair? Is it short, medium or long?: | dark brown, short |
| What color are your eyes?: | blue |
| How tall are you?: | 5′10 |
| Single or Taken?: | taken |
| Do you have pets? If so, how many and what kind?: | i have about a dozen fish |
| Who do you live with?: | my family and my fiancee |
| What do you do for school and work?: | I am in sales and marketing |
| Any kids? If not, do you want any?: | no and probably not |
| What music do you listen to the most?: | metal |
| Do you like to read? If so…favorite book(s)?: | i read allot, hard to pick a favorite, maybe the first Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy |
| Virgin or not?: | not |
| Name your 3 closest friends.: | Steve Dutill, Joe & Cortney Rollinski, Rob & Carrie |
| Which one is your very best friend?: | Steve |
| Your skin…is it fair, medium or dark?: | fair |
| How often do you really “go out”?: | a couple times a week |
| Have you ever lost anyone you loved?: | yes |
| Ever been in love?: | yes |
| On a scale of 1-5 how organized are you?: | 3 |
| Do you excercise regularly? If so, how often?: | i just started working out again after a long period of laziness |
| Zodiac sign?: | aries |
| Have any nick names? If so, what?: | not any that I want to mention here |
| Name a couple of T.V. shows you watch a lot.: | John Adams, The Sopranos, CSI, Stargate |
| Movie(s) you can watch over and over:: | fight club, lord of war, star wars, lord of the rings |
| Do you have tattoos? If yes, how many and where are they?: | one on each forarm and one on my right sholder |
| Any piercings? If yes, how many and where are they?: | left nipple, the right one fell down the drain in the shower. |
| Wear glasses?: | no |
| Have braces?: | no |
| Do you have siblings? If so, how many?: | 1 |
| Are your parents still together?: | yes |
| What is/was your worst subject in school?: | math |
| Your best subject?: | history |
| Do you currently play any sports? If so, what?: | no |
| Do you like to dance?: | sometimes |
| Sing?: | sometimes |
| Favorite color?: | black |
| Favorite Holiday?: | haloween |
| Where, outside of the U.S. would you like to visit?: | iceland |
| Do people tell you that you act older, younger, or your age?: | they used to say older, not so much anymore |
| Ever have an imaginary friend as a child?: | yes, his name was theodore |
| Ever been skinny dipping?: | no |
| Did/Do you enjoy highschool for the most part?: | no |
| Do any drugs? If yes, what?: | not any more |
| Drink? If yes, how often?: | yes, a few times a week |
| Smoke?: | sometimes |
| Ever been in a physical fight? If yes how many and who were they with?: | yes, two or three times, with some kids at summer camp |
| Have you ever cheated in a relationship?: | yes, one time |
| What’s your definition of cheating?: | intercourse |
| Do you wear pajamas to places other than at your house?: | yes, all the time |
| Have you ever stolen anything from a store or from someone?: | yes, cigarettes from giant |
| Ever cheated on a test?: | no |
| Ever been in any legal trouble?: | yes, a few times for minor things |
| Do you regret anything?: | yes, my legal troubles, and some drugs i did in the past |
| Name 5 of the most important things in your life.: | love,family, freinds, having fun, money |
| How many languages can you speak and what are they?: | 2, english and only a little german |
| Are you a touchy feely person?: | no |
| Do you take showers in the morning or at night more?: | night |
| Do you trust easily?: | yes |
| Any phobias?: | sharks |
| Are you a heavy or light sleeper?: | I have a hard time falling asleep, but ounce i get there i sleep heavy. |
| When did you make your wordpess blog?: | i dont remember, not to long ago |
| Any disorders you’ve actually been diagnosed with (O.C.D., A.D.D…)?: | OCD, ADD, Asthma |
| Are you a morning person?: | no, but i try to be |
| Sunrise or sunset?: | sunset |
| Ever had surgery?: | no |
| Ever come close to death?: | yes |
| Ever broken any bones?: | no |
| When you die, would you rather be burried or cremated?: | cremated or burried at sea |
| Play any instruments? If so, what?: | guitar, bass, drums, harmonica, a little piano |
| Have you been told you can sing well more than once?: | no |
| 3 physical features you get complimented on a lot:: | eyes, hair, pinky toe |
| Your least favorite feature:: | my nose |
| Clothing store you shop at the most:: | salvation army |
| What is/are your heritage(s)?: | german, irish, english, polish, native american, and a bunch of other shit |
| What is your religion or do you not really have one?: | no relegion, considering catholisism |
| Ever been cheated on?: | yes |
| Ever had a one night stand? If so, how many and do you regret any of them?: | probably around 5 or so, I don’t realy regret them |
| Current friend that you have known the longest:: | Bernie Loughren |
| Name someone you can tell just about anything to.: | Rachel, my fiancee |
| Sweet or Sour?: | some of each, mostly sour |
| Where were you born?: | St. Joes, Lancaster PA |
| Do any of your close friends have children?: | yes, lots |
| Are any of them married?: | yes, lots |
| Have you ever taken any antidepresants or anxiety medication?: | no |
| Ever seen a therapist?: | yes |
| Did/do you transfer schools a lot?: | no |
| Favorite animal to have as a pet:: | fish or dogs |
| How many floors does your home have? How many bedrooms and bathrooms?: | 3 floors if u count the basement, and 3 and 1.5 |
| Do you live in a neighborhood or in the middle of nowhere?: | neighborhood |
| Favorite food:: | Perogees or chineese |
| Do you like to shop?: | no |
| How often do you go online?: | all the time |
| How sexual are you on a scale of 1-10?: | 9 |
| Something or someone you miss the most from childhood:: | family trips |
| Have you ever slept with somone 10 years or more older than you?: | yes, older |
| Over 10 years younger?: | no, that would put me in jail |
| Are you usually late, early or right on time?: | early for work things, late for personal things |
| Are you happy with your life for the most part right now?: | no, I am not happy with my financial situation |
