Really Good Quotes

Greetings, Quotaholics:

I am quite lucky. I have a job. It is only part-time and doesn’t pay a tremendous amount. There are no benefits other than one week paid vacation each year.

My husband was out of work for only a short time when he was downsized a few years ago. He was given a severance package and was hired before his severance ran out. His job is middle management and comes with a host of benefits including generous paid time off and insurance.

Other people, unfortunately have not been as lucky as the two of us. They are unemployed and have been for quite some time.

There are a host of reasons why someone may be unemployed. They may not have the skill sets needed for employment outside their former work area. They may be unable to move to a location with a better job rate. (For example, if one spouse has a job in the area, it may be impossible to move away as the spouse have to quit his/her job. There are also issues with child custody that may make moving unavailable.)

According to USA Today, the US is going to change the way they measure long-term unemployment. So many Americans have been unemployed for so long, the two year upper limit for the designation of “long-term” is no longer giving an adequate picture of unemployment in America.

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics will shift the upper limit from two to five years beginning this Saturday. It is hoped that by changing the way the agency gathers information, a more accurate picture of the economic reality for Americans will allow a better understanding of the problem. Hopefully, this will also allow a better solution to the problem.

The current form, regardless of how long one has been out of work, has a top limit of “99 weeks or over” and the new forms will give an option at the top of “260 weeks and over.” The two year limit has been in place for 33 years.

Without the extra data, it is difficult to compare this recessionary unemployment with previous recessions. Although it feels as if the country hasn’t seen anything as catastrophic since the Great Depression, without more information, we cannot be sure.

The changes will not affect how the unemployed are counted or how the unemployment rate is computed. Nor will affect the way unemployment benefits are paid. What it will do, is give statisticians more information to work with.

In the last decade, the percentage of people who have been out of work for more than one-half year has risen from 11% to 42%. The rate of unemployment, according to the Bureau, has increased from 29.4 weeks in November 2009 to 34.5 weeks in November 2010. Nearly 10% of the 15.1 million jobless Americans have been looking for work for more than two years.

For those who are unemployed, looking for a job becomes increasingly desperate, disheartening, and stressful. While the coming year is still looking “sluggish” for those seeking jobs, 2012 is supposed to find the job market opening up.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment in the US was 9.8% in November 2010. I live in South Carolina, and the November 2010 unemployment rate for my state was 10.6% which shows that each state has a bit of a different number of unemployed. It is possible to find information for each individual state at the linked site.

Are you currently looking for work? For those living outside the US, what is the unemployment rate in your country? What happens to those who cannot find work? Here we do have unemployment benefits which pay out some monies, but it is not equal to what one could earn (if one had the job).

If you or friends and family have been out of work, how long have you been struggling with this issue? Is it related to the current economic conditions or were you unable to find work before this latest market “correction” or the banking bust? Have you been lucky to remain employed throughout the last decade? To what do you owe your good luck?

Busily,
   

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“Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth and that which enables him to die for the truth.” - Edith Hamilton, American educator and author. (1867-1963)

“No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.” - Samuel Johnson, 1709 - 1784

Break The News Gently!
[Thanks Bonnie]

A minister was asked to inform a man with a heart condition that he had just inherited a million dollars. Everyone was afraid the shock would give him a heart attack.

So the minister went to the man’s house and said, “Joe, what would you do if you inherited a million dollars?”

Joe replied, “Well, pastor, I think I would give half of it to the church.”

At which the pastor fell over dead.

“A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps.”

“I am not disposed to complain that I have planted and others have gathered the fruits.”

“Life should not be estimated exclusively by the standard of dollars and cents.” - All by American inventor Charles Goodyear born on this day in 1800

Tazz has some Holiday Cheer to share.  Here’s your 15 minutes Tazz!

Well, I wanted to write and wish everyone a most wonderful holiday season. I’m a little late for Christmas so I’ll just say I hope everyone who celebrated had as great a Christmas as I did.

I started the holiday season on Christmas Eve by visiting with my boy friend and then on Christmas day I ate dinner with he and his son, and then I went to my daughter and partook of another feast. Then we had an open gifts party and then it began to snow. We now have a white blanket on the ground, but everyone got home safely last night. We had four generations in one house, and I think that makes a holiday really special.

How did you celebrate the holiday season? Did you have lots of family and friends? Did you have a holiday feast? Did you spend a quiet day at home, or did you go out and look at all the pretty decorations around your town? I love hearing stories of other’s holiday parties and plans so I hope everyone had a great time, and I hope that some of you will write of your holiday adventures.

I want to especially thank the RGQ staff, and all of the readers for making this a most wonderful ezine to read. I look forward to RGQ each day it is due to be out, and it is one of the first things I read in the morning when it is in my in box. If for some reason it doesn’t show up, I can be found on one of the links reading away.

Happy Christmas and Happy New Year too!

My New Year’s resolution is to get all my boxes from my recent move unpacked and organized. What are some of yours? - Happy Christmas To All From, Celine Kitty, and Tazz!

Deliberation (Part Two)

I’ve alluded to the need for stealth in placing and finding geocaches.  Primarily, do to the inane nature of people being curious about things for which they are unfamiliar, "muggles" will see cachers and wonder what they were doing.  Often, especially with children, curiosity will lead them to look for whatever it was the other people were looking for just to find out what it was.  If it is a larger cache and includes "swag" items (items meant for trade by and for ongoing geocacher finders), they may feel it was supposed to be taken by the finder.  So they do.  It is then no longer available for geocachers to find.

I have been approached many times by curious muggles wondering what I was doing.  Most of the time, especially if it is an adult, I will explain the game.  Sometimes I just explain that I am involved in a scavenger hunt.  I’ve even told muggles that I was looking for something that was lost.  How I explain what I’m doing all depends on my quick assessment of the muggle and how I expect they may react.  Of course, if approached by a police official, I explain completely what I’m doing lest I get a new set of bracelets and a free tour of downtown enroute to a cozy semi-private room.

Often,even after considerable pondering of where and how to place a geocache, a geocache will disappear.  Muggles, a general and all inclusive term, will abscond with the cache.  Sometimes it is simply damaged beyond repair.  Frequently, the cache is simply opened and the contents strewn around.  Nature even gets involved.  As hollow spots, indentations in natural formations, overhangs and similar locations are desirable to hide and protect the cache, Nature’s critters find these same spots attractive for the same reasons.

Animals seeking a good spot will select the same spot the geocacher did.  While preparing the new dwelling, the cache may be kicked out as an unwanted impediment, or destroyed and used as bedding or shelter materials.  Once, for example, while searching for a cache, I got way too familiar with an unsuspecting raccoon.  I apologized, of course, but the apology just wasn’t enough.  I’ve learned, if the cache isn’t inside the spot it looks like it was meant to be placed, there may be a living reason for that.  Reaching into a small recessed spot may not be advisable under such circumstances.

There are other reasons caches disappear, as well.  Sometimes, even though the hide was created to be permanent, something totally unrelated happens to dislodge it.  Trees die and city workers cut down the dead tree unknowingly taking the cache that is attached to one of the branches.  I had just such a circumstance happen to one of my caches.  Sometimes the finder isn’t as diligent in replacing the cache as they should be.  Failing to secure the cache as needed can result in it being dislodged and kicked aside to such a degree it rolls down a hill out of access, or something similar.

Recently, a cacher found what he thought was a perfect location for a cache.  For whatever reason, a sewer access had been built that was 20 feet high.  Concrete pipe had been stacked to the point the manhole, and it’s cover, was up in the air.  Due to it’s design, it couldn’t be climbed, therefore a cache on top would be a considerable challenge to retrieve and replace.  Retrieval may be easy enough, but the replacement could be tricky.  Or maybe it was the other way around.  Either way, I’ll never know.  The day after the cache was placed, city crews came out, removed the concrete tubes above ground and created a more standard manhole.  The hide was destroyed and had to be archived after only one industrious and energetic cacher had the chance to find it.

Construction causes a lot of caches to disappear.  Undeveloped land becomes a new neighborhood, or a new shopping center is erected.  Expansion of existing neighborhoods and shopping facilities takes it’s toll.  It seems any viable piece of ground will eventually be modified to residential, commercial or industrial use.

Here’s your quiz:
Have you created something only to have to remove it due to outside influences?
Are you a hunter that found their hunting stand was no longer there because the tree fell?
Have you placed a rope swing on a tree that you found broken later?

Deliberation (Part Two) - Because There Was A Part One
Cliff (the High-Tech Redneck who doesn’t rate a fancy ’signature pic’)

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December 29 is the 363rd day of the year (364th in 1. leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are two days remaining until the end of the year.

Holidays and observances

• Constitution Day (Ireland)
• The fifth day of Christmas (Western Christianity)

Events on this date

• 1170 – Thomas Becket: Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
• 1778 – American Revolutionary War: 3,500 British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia without firing a shot.
• 1845 – According with International Boundary delimitation, U.S.A annexes the Mexican state of Texas, following the Manifest Destiny doctrine. For others, the Republic of Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
• 1860 – The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior is launched.
• 1890 – United States soldiers kill more than 200 Oglala Lakota people with four Hotchkiss guns in the Wounded Knee Massacre.
• 1911 – Mongolia gains independence from the Qing dynasty.
• 1934 – Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.
• 1940 – World War II: In The Second Great Fire of London, the Luftwaffe fire-bombs London, killing almost 200 civilians.
• 1959 – Physicist 1. Richard Feynman gives a speech entitled "There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom", which is regarded as the birth of nanotechnology.
• 1966 – The Beatles start the recording session that would become the hit single Penny Lane at Abbey Road Studio.
• 1975 – A bomb explodes at La Guardia Airport in New York City, killing 11 people and injuring 74.
• 2003 – The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct.

Born on this date

• 1721 – Madame de Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV of France
• 1808 – Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States
• 1809 – William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 1843 – Elisabeth of Wied, queen of Romania and novelist
• 1859 – Venustiano Carranza, 54th President of Mexico
• 1896 – David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican painter
• 1908 – Helmut Gollwitzer, German theologian
• 1910 – Ronald Coase, British economist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1921 – Robert C. Baker, Inventor of the chicken nugget
• 1936 – Mary Tyler Moore, American actress
• 1946 – Marianne Faithfull, British singer
• 1954 – Prince Takamado of Japan
• 1966 – Martin Offiah, former rugby league footballer
• 1972 – Jude Law, British actor

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Uses for WD-40
[Thanks Herm]

Keeps bathroom mirror from fogging.

Good ones.  Let’s pick on England and all the foul weather they’re having.

Next opening line…
In England they have so much snow…

Hints:  Here’s a great new rhyming/composition tool.  http://www.writerhymes.com/
There’s also a great rhyming dictionary at http://www.rhymezone.com/
Limerick rules.  http://freespace.virgin.net/merrick.sheldon/limerickrules.htm 

Submit Opening Line
Submit Limerick

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