Tag Archives: Social

Making Money?

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I typically don’t bother with these sites at all, because most of the time you have to spend money to get anything at all, but this is an exception.

SendEarnings(.com) is a survey site whereby you can make money by taking surveys for which you qualify. Now, these surveys may be few and far between, this isn’t going to be a “Make $150/hr” or “Make $3000/wk” job-replacement style site. What it will give you is various other offers in which you may be interested, most of which reward you in some way. For example, there is currently a Discover card on offer, and they’ll credit $15 to your SendEarnings account if you sign up and they give you the card. (Discover are also advertising a $50 cashback). You’ll get various percentages credited if you make online purchases at online stores like eBay, Walmart, Petsmart, etc. If you’re into playing online games, (this can cost, although after a week they offered $20 in credits free..?) then you can join online competitions against other people for money that can be used to play more games, or withdrawn to your SendEarnings account.

The other way to make money is by receiving email. Seriously: Receive email (around 3 a day), click link, receive $0.02. You don’t have to buy or do anything besides clicking “Confirm reading this email” links, and you’re making money. (Pretty crap money, but still..).

Remember, this does not pay big! I’ve been fairly active over the last week or so and am now approaching $30. I’m running out of offers I can apply for that won’t cost me anything, and I’m not eligible for a lot of surveys (mostly because I’m not very adventurous..). I just started playing with the games today, since I got a credit for free. I’m going to again be cautious, I’m in this thing to make money – not lose it!

So, if easy money is your thing, sign up, maybe you’ll make something!

Seriously?!

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So, I was surfing around this morning, looking at free/cheap stuff (as I do..), and noticed two things that reminded me once again how stupid the human race as a whole is.

Now, I caught up with the whole Kanye thing yesterday, and to be honest I think it was rude and uncalled for. Unless of course, it was a publicity stunt, in which case it wasn’t a very good one. I heard rumors last night that he’d offed himself, which again is another stupid facet of the human race. More on that later. Maybe.

Yesterday I also read that Kanye had written all kinds of apologies to people, and this is where I get confused and frustrated (and to a degree, hypocritical). When someone does something wrong, and they apologize for it, and have been punished by the appropriate authorities, I believe that should be the end of it. This is where I have a problem with capital punishment too, because if anyone believes the United States is a Christian country (which I don’t believe it is or should be, by law at least), then by Christian nature we have an obligation to show forgiveness to those who have sinned against God and against us. That is, if I kill your daughter, and I’ve served my required prison sentence under law, and I’ve shown regret, apologized and asked forgiveness of both you and of God, then our religious obligation is to forgive and forget. Anyway, getting off-topic.

IF Kanye had messed up, realized, regretted, apologized, and we’d all said “OK, don’t do it again..”, all would be swell. But that’s not what’s happening. In my search for cool cheap stuff this morning I came across two “one-day-only” deals for T-shirts. Let me show images, because I doubt the links will work too long into the future..

kanye1kanye2These two shirts are the epitome of my dislike for todays societal culture. Sure, one of the side-effects of being famous is that everyone sees everything you do, and they all get in line to either crucify or congratulate you. And commending is fine, everyone needs some love, crucifying also has it’s place – noone likes the stuck-up people who are never wrong. But I mean, really guys. Are T-shirts professing your ‘hatred’ for someone you’ve probably never met necessary?

Just for reference:

From Dictionary:

v., hat·ed, hat·ing, hates. v.tr.

    1. To feel hostility or animosity toward.
    2. To detest.
  2. To feel dislike or distaste for: hates washing dishes.

v.intr.

To feel hatred.

n.

  1. Intense animosity or dislike; hatred.
  2. An object of detestation or hatred: My pet hate is tardiness.

[Middle English haten, from Old English hatian. N., Middle English, from Old English hete.]

And from Thesaurus:

verb

    To regard with extreme dislike and hostility: abhor, abominate, despise, detest, execrate, loathe. Seelove/hatred.

noun

  1. Extreme hostility and dislike: abhorrence, abomination, antipathy, aversion, detestation, hatred, horror, loathing, repellence, repellency, repugnance, repugnancy, repulsion, revulsion. See love/hatred.
  • An object of extreme dislike: abhorrence, abomination, anathema, aversion, bête noire, bugbear, detestation, execration. Informal horror. See love/hatred.

    • Now, many people might say “THAT’S HOW I FEEL!” and this last point is aimed at you (although I doubt you’ll get it..):

    “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” — C. S. Lewis

    Today is Boring.

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    Really. It is. You probably don’t even want to read this, because it is only going to be boring.

    I received an email from my potential employer pretty much saying I have a job. I am going in on Wednesday to do paperwork and generally hang out. I *do* need to get documentation from my former “employers” regarding number of hours working with children. If I can’t prove 1000 hours then I’ll be an aide rather than a leader, and the pay rate drops accordingly. But hey, a job is a job.

    I also have 2 Saturdays coming up working high and low ropes at Camp Horizons for two larger groups. That’s an extra $70/day too.

    The only other “excitement” today involved getting lunch at Subway. I won a free 21oz. FUZE Tea, and a scrabble letter. Other than that I’ve been sitting here watching nothing happen on TV and watching facebook. I guess I could do some programming stuff, there is an outstanding bug in my ticketing system that is to be fixed, and I have an idea for fixing my service detection system reading false positives. I should also work on expanding the system and stuff. Maybe a website? Could be a good moneymaker. Who knows.

    See? Boring. If you made it this far, congratulations. Have a nice day.

    Form I-797C, Notice of Action

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    This is to notify you that your application for permanent residence has been approved. It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to permanent resident status in the United States.

    I received this notice yesterday by mail, and according to emails my card was sent July 14th, so I should have it early this week.

    In other news camp is going well, not too many problem campers. One of my campers went to hospital for a broken finger (playing tetherball) and was covered by camp for it, the rest have been mostly fine. We’re implementing a few new rules regarding hygiene and such to prevent the spread of disease, particularly swine flu.

    Dear Bebo Spammers…

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    I keep getting friend requests on Bebo that I could probably block with a simple Regex. Names that don’t have any similarity to the users username, and a username that invariably is a name, a capital letter, and several digits.

    It’s about all I get emails about from bebo anymore, and I see no real reason to log in except to decline all these requests.

    There are at least 2 a week, usually more. I get similar spam followings on Twitter too, but it’s not quite so bad.

    So maybe this should be addressed to Bebo, to clean up your site. And to the spammers, give it up. I’m not going to befriend your profiles, nor am I going to click any links therein.

    Disappointment

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    This is partly to test WordPress’s new Blog-by-email. We’ll see how it works.

    Yesterday I received a phone call from Rackspace, with a variation of that dreaded message. “We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates.”

    I felt kinda like some of the people on Millionaire must feel when they’ve been going for the million dollars, and got the answer wrong and going home with $25,000.

    Let me explain. What I had were two options, I could work at Rackspace for ~$45k/yr doing something I would really enjoy or I could work at a camp doing something I would also enjoy for the summer making ~$150/wk. I had 2 really great interviews at Rackspace, even they said the second one went really well, but apparently not good enough.

    I’m trying to keep positive, I’m still applying for 2-3 jobs including one at JMU, and working at camp will still pay all our bills (and let us catch up on the ones we’re having to skip this month) along with Kelly’s summer job. I’ll just have to start applying again as summer comes to a close.

    I’m particularly looking for IT work within VA, and I don’t mind commuting up to 2 hours each way in order to take a job worth anywhere from $30k up (So from the DC Metro area down to Blacksburgish, and out to Richmond. I’m in the Harrisonburg/Rockingham County area right now). I intend to relocate if the job is at the outer reaches of that range along with my wife and puppy. I have reliable transport, and while I have no formal computing qualifications I have professional and personal experience with PHP/MySQL, computer hardware testing, computer software installation and general computer troubleshooting and problem solving. I’ve worked on a service desk (Level 1 and 2) for a 5000 user organization supporting Novell Netware and Active Directory (on the same network) as well as Alcatel based PBX systems. I’ve also been administrating Linux servers for several years. I’m happy to take an entry-level position (Helpdesk, Desktop support, etc), though I’d like a company with good promotion paths that will allow me to progress beyond, as I’d like to move into server administration, and possibly network administration also.

    So while I continue to look for work, if you or someone/an organization you know is looking for an IT worker, let me know about them, or let them know about me!

    3 Out Of 50 Ain’t…All That Great, Actually.

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    Over the last 2 months or so I’ve been scouring ads online and in papers for jobs. I’m looking for something entry-level IT so that I can gain real and valuable experience. Mostly this means Level 1 Service/Help Desk positions. 2 huge negatives against me are a lack of college education (I might explain that in a later post) and lack of US Citizenship.

    This means I’ve been able to apply for about 50 jobs, from DC to Richmond to Blacksburg in Virginia. [It just got more complicated, I’ll explain that in a paragraph or two]. Of the 50 jobs I sent applications to I received exactly 3 responses. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was kinda hoping I’d have had a few more rejection notices rather than just being ignored.

    The first application I got a response from was James Madison University. They’d advertised a User Support position, and I applied within 30 minutes of seeing the ad in the paper. A few days later I received an automated email saying the position had been filled.

    The second application I got a response from was Highland Retreat, a Christian Camp about 15-20 minutes drive away in Bergton, VA. I just got a call from the director there, who reminded me how complicated my future employment status is just with a phone call to update me on how well things are going with that application.

    The third application I got a response from was RackSpace, an IT company with several ventures including MailTrust (Mail services) and SliceHost (a VPS company). I applied for a Datacenter Operations Technician position which would involve building servers, installing OS’s and diagnosing hardware and OS faults on servers in the datacenter. I have a phone interview with them tomorrow at 4pm, and I’m kinda nervous.

    My biggest worry right now is that I’ll jeoperdize one position and the other will fall through, primarily the camp one. The camp job is looking very certain, they’re waiting contact from the camps in NZ that I worked with so they have a NZ camp reference. The RackSpace job is a much better option in the long term though, but isn’t guaranteed. The fact that they had 5 positions listed on their careers site makes my chances of getting one of them that much bigger, but I don’t want to commit or decline Highland’s offer until RackSpace offers or rejects me, because $160/wk is better than nothing at all.

    So that is my complication – I want both jobs for different reasons, but the one I want more may not want me, and is moving slower so I may have to turn RackSpace down prematurely. I REALLY hope I don’t have to, a rejection I can handle, I’d much prefer that to having to say “well, you took too long and I’ve decided to work in a camp over the summer…” It’d be one of the most illogical things I’ve said in a long time..

    That’s my dillemma, suggestions from people who have been in a similar situation would be helpful!

    My Understanding of College Life

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    I didn’t go to College. At the time I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so rather than rack up thousands in student loans I decided to find a job and figure out what to study. The advantage was I didn’t get myself into a lot of debt, the disadvantage is I kinda need a degree to get any kind of decent job having moved to the US.

    Anyway, this isn’t so much about my experience in college (or lack thereof), but my understanding of what other people experienced. And it seems this cartoon sums it up nicely:

    procrastination

    Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

    Marriage

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    Alot of people don’t seem to consider the following, particularly females when begging their boyfriends to propose.

    Marriage doesn’t really change anything.

    Marriage is a lot like turning 18 or 21, or any other age really. All that really changes are a) your religious standing as far as having sex, and b) your legal rights as a married person.

    You’ll have a big lead up to the wedding, and the wedding and reception will be as big or as small as you want it to be, much like a 21st birthday party.

    You’ll go to bed that night (possibly doing something you’ve never done before), and you’ll wake up the next day and feel as though nothing has changed.

    I know of a few people getting married soon, and Kelly was asking for advice to give to the bride at the showers she’ll be at. This is the biggest piece of advice I could offer to anyone obsessed with getting married to their significant other (whether they’ll admit their obsession or not).

    It. Doesn’t. Change. Your. Relationship.

    Really.

    If the relationship changes, either you or your partner changed. Which shouldn’t happen. It’s that simple.