Employment and a Mac laptop

Posted by liquilife on 04/23 at 02:39 AM

Well, as spring has arrived with warmer weather, some good things have finally happened in my life. I was recently hired on full time as a web developer for Skaggs Design. This comes after a winter of truly fearing for my ability to pay rent on a monthly basis. Looking back, all I can do is shake my head and wonder how I made it through this winter. I can now live life normally once again and wake up every morning knowing I have somewhere to contribute my talents to. I wish I could say I am 100% happy though. The truth is, with our current recession, I have so many friends who are currently out of work. The most notable is my sister. After receiving employee of the year and working for her company for many years, she was recently unexpectedly laid off. How do you console someone who has gone through this? I really do not know.

To those who are unemployed, here is a few humble tips and tricks. No, I’m not going to tell you to “network”. Rather, think about it from this angle: Employers are literally fearful at the moment of putting their jobs in the papers and online job listings. Why? Because they have to deal with so many replies. Even worse, most of the applicants who respond are very much not qualified for the work they are applying for. General laborers to company executives are all applying for the same work out of desperation.  As an employer, this makes it incredibly difficult to sort through a stack of resumes to find that one applicant who is a match for the job. So, how can you exploit this in your favor? It’s quite easy. Get your resume in front of large groups of Employers. The most easiest and effective way is to post your resume at Craigslist. An unusually high number of employers are looking for qualified job candidates using this method to avoid dealing with the masses.

When posting your resume, here are a few things to remember. Keep the title clear and concise. If you are a chef, indicate that in your title. “Professional Chef looking for full time employment”. I’m sure you get the idea. Another is to format your resume using some basic HTML. This can be easily achieved nowadays. Go to http://www.fckeditor.net/demo and use their online editor to format the resume/text you will be posting on Craigslist. Once you are happy with the formatting find and click the button “Source”. You’ll see a bunch of HTML mumbo jumbo along with your text. Just copy and paste this into your Craigslist posting. Viola! You have an HTML formatted posting.

Post your resume two or three times a week on Craigslist. I found the best time to be right about 11:30. Employers tend to take a break from what they are doing shortly before lunch and start working on a less interactive project, such as randomly browsing Craigslist.

Well, this rant went an entirely different direction then I expected. So much for talking about the new Mac Book I am getting next week…

Posted by liquilife on 04/23 at 02:39 AM | 124 comments | Permalink
Tagged under: resume, craigslist, employment

One reason I love New York

Posted by liquilife on 04/18 at 06:57 AM

Let me preface this posting with a note. I generally find the NY subway performers to be generally annoying. I know, sounds horrible. It is true. With that being said…

I was heading to the N train the other day, walking through the underbelly of Times Square and stumbled across this performer. He would stand perfectly still until someone would put money in his bronze bucket. At that moment he would make movements similair to a robot, complete with realistic sound effects. People were lined up to give him money just to see what he would do next.

What a genius!

pic

Posted by liquilife on 04/18 at 06:57 AM | 18 comments | Permalink
Tagged under: image, new york, subway, performer

Crash course of events

Posted by liquilife on 04/11 at 04:29 AM

Here is a long awaited update to liquilife.com. It has been almost 10 months since I last made an entry! Can you believe it? I do have a pretty good reason for allowing this to happen. Thank you to my unexpected readers who emailed asking if I was still alive. Yes, I am alive and healthy. I do have some changes to my life though, so we’ll cover that first.

Most of you will remember that I was with Anna. You also probably recall our decision to pack up our bags and drive cross country to New Nork City while waiting for my Swedish citizenship to be approved. Well, we did indeed make the trip to NYC, however that’s as far as we got. To cut through the needless details, Anna and I are no longer together. This means that we are not moving to Sweden.

As for me, I moved to Astoria and am renting a room for the time being. I am very, very busy lately contracting with 3 companies providing front end web development. Once one of the gigs works into a full-time offer then I will feel secure enough to upgrade out of this room into my own apartment. I’m pretty sure I want to relocate to Brooklyn when this upgrade occurs.  I do have to admit that I am quite happy at the moment with my situation so there is no huge rush.

So, there is a crash course series of updates explaining my silence for the past 10 months! Now that I will more regularly have Saturday and Sundays off I will be spending more time updating my poor website.

Until next time, enjoy this picture I took yesterday morning. I heard many people talking outside my door and was shocked to see hundreds of people walking past my house for no apparent reason:

image

Posted by liquilife on 04/11 at 04:29 AM | 1 comments | Permalink
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Introducing Dr. Zoidberg, our new bearded dragon

Posted by liquilife on 06/15 at 07:36 AM

Let me introduce to you our new pet lizard. He is a bearded dragon and we have affectionately named him “Zoidberg”. He has a partner as well who belongs to Evelynn and Richard. They both live in a cage together and will for the next few months until they grow a bit more into size. Zoidberg is a male and will grow up to be a foot long or so and can live up to 18 years. It’s fun watching him go after the crickets, and I have to be honest, with how small he is right now I’m surprised he can fit 3 crickets in that tiny stomach of his! Anyways, Anna is quite happy to have a new pet. She is excited. Below is a picture of Zoidberg.

image

Posted by liquilife on 06/15 at 07:36 AM | 0 comments | Permalink
Tagged under: bearded dragon, lizard, zoidberg

Moving to New York!

Posted by liquilife on 03/26 at 05:05 PM

image

Some pretty big things are happening here in my life. As some of you know my wife and I have been waiting for my Swedish dual citizenship to be approved. Once approved we will be high tailing it to Sweden where we will enjoy great Health Care and what I hope will be a more rich enjoying life style. The entire process is expected to last 6 months. That’s a whole lotta waiting…

The other day I really got to thinking. If I have 6 months left in America why are we not traveling and enjoying ourselves? My wife has a very mobile job that pays well plus weeks of vacation time banked up. The only thing holding us up was my job as a Property Manager. Well, one thought led to another and by the next day we had an idea in rough draft mode allowing us to make the 2,500 mile drive from Spokane, WA to New York, NY. That’s 41 hours of driving by the way.

The plan evolved yet again with some good friends living in New York offering to rent us an upper floor of their home. This offer would be as long as we needed, in this case about, oh say, 6 months. A full fledged plan to travel to New York was hatched complete with room and board! My wife will be able to finally meet all of her co-workers and I’ll be roaming the streets of New York. I will of course pick up a part-time job while there.

This morning I put in a verbal resignation at work of my departure for May 1st. Doesn’t get any more official then that, does it?

Here is to hoping my van can make the long trip cross country!

Posted by liquilife on 03/26 at 05:05 PM | 0 comments | Permalink
Tagged under: resignation, new york, sweden, move, healthcare, drive