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.

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.

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.

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.

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...?

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.

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.