Work At Home – Sites

I always mention Clark Howard at least once a month on my postings, so I found one of his postings that caught my eye. This involves “Work At Home” Scams and opportunities.

As summer starts,  I know there are many people out there looking for jobs.  Clark put on his site some legitimate work at home opportunities.

The following bit of advice that I saw on this posting is really good for everyone that is looking for work at home opportunities.

Excerpted from the Clark Howard site:

One bit of advice before you take the leap into a work-at-home opportunity: Take an inventory of your talent, add a dash of creativity to your thinking and come up with a plan that suits you.

• If you sew well, do alterations for others.
• If you have a good grasp of a particular subject, tutors are always needed.
• Good with a computer? Consider teaching others how to use one. You might also want to do computer work for college and graduate students. Try putting up flyers around your area as well as the local colleges and universities.
• Create personal websites for friends and neighbors. Parents might want to purchase one from you as a gift for a child. It can used for photos and ‘firsts’ as the child is growing. This makes a great gift to the parents of a newborn!
• Are you handy with crafts? Costume jewelery making and selling can be aimed at school-aged girls or adults, and all well-priced gift items sell well especially before the holiday season.

The list can go on as long as you align your talents with services or products others need. Be imaginative and create a job! If you choose to go the standard work-at-home route, heed these warnings from the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau.

As usual, I thank Clark for always providing insights for the consumer and advice that is usable by all.  Clark’s site is one that I recommend everyone bookmark.

Yankee Stadium Visit on 6/17

I took my younger daughter to Yankee Stadium last night here’s my review of the trip/adventure.

Considering I’m a lifelong Met fan, I thought it was pretty brave of me to make the venture “to the house that George Built” – The NEW Yankee Stadium. On the whole I was absolutely impressed with the layout and the convenience factor of the Stadium. I just had and issue with the policy of  “being only allowed to watch batting practice of the NY Yankees and not the visiting team”. More on that in  a little bit.

I was also impressed with the fact that here were many many employees carrying around placards – “May I help you? .  Nice touch!

From where we live in Monmouth County, it took only about an hour (No traffic on George Washington Bridge – Thank God).  Parking was easy ($19 – which I thought was pretty steep). I guess that’s the going rate for parking at most stadiums this days. Who knows?

My daughter and I were in pursuit of an Yankee Hat and we finally bought one at a stall near the stadium. I was not about to pay $25 to $30 for an “officially licensed” overpriced MLB souvenir.

Tip to the frugal: Walk a few blocks from the stadium under the elevated trains and you will find excellent and cheap souvenirs (t-shirts ($5), pins, hats,  Books, and of course Hot Dogs!)

Best and cheapest meal: 2 Hot dogs and a soda for $4.00 on the local streets.  Of course that does not guarantee you that you will not be tempted by the overpriced meals in the Stadium!

When you walk into the Statdium you truly are amazed at the history of the Yankees.  Even as I am not a Yankee follower/fan, I was amazed by the historical banners of the players that line the main level. Sent Chills down my spine!

Very nice touch that photographers take complimentary pictures that you can pick up at the yankees photo’s website next day! You can just walk around and have as many pictures taken to your hearts content! The picture takers give you a card with the gallery # and you can retrieve your pictures the next day! Very nice!

Now back to the Batting Practice issue.  It seems that the Yankee policy is to only allow fans to go to the ground level seats for  –> YANKEE BATTING PRACTICE.  Once the Yankee batting practice is over you are shooe’d back to your seats. What’s with this? I go this curt response from one of the ushers: “Go Ask George”.  Hmm.. I looked around but couldn’t locate him.

Players in right field were great, they were tossing balls into the stands, but unfortunately, my daughter and I were not amongst the chosen. I was thinking about offering my pinky (a pink high bouncing ball) as a trade to the players, but I couldn’t get their attention. Also my daughter didn’t want to part with her $1 pinky ball.

So we ventured way up, up, and up to our nose bleed seats  by 3rd base. Our $20 seats were the second row from the last row on the top most seats of the stadium.. I can remember when these seats at Shea used to cost $1.50.  Again I digress, as I ‘ve not gone to a “new” ballbark and baseball venue in a long long time!

We watched a few innings and we got restless so we walked around the stadium. I gotta tell you. To really appreciate Yankee Stadium, you have to go to every level and walk each level’s promenade level.  Plenty of Elevators and stairs available.. Like that!

I think we must have walked at least 5 miles. The problem with the walking is that it makes you hungry, which in turn makes you want to eat more! I guess yesterday was a bad day for my weight loss plan.

We never went back to our self re-assigned seats for an inning or so after which  but we continued to explore the stadium and we ended up by “Monument Park” and the bleachers. I really think that these “bench type” seats are the best seats in the house.. Even though you can only see half the field..

BTW: note to self. I should not say out loud (on the phone) , “I’m glad the Yankees are losing”. Guaranteed to get dirty looks from the Yankee fans.  I gotta admire the restraint of the individuals who I said this behind.. they turned around and said to my daughter —> “You dad really doesn’t like the Yankee’s does he”? LOL

Another Tip: When you go to Yankee stadium for the first time, make sure you go to “Monument’s park” immediately. It’s only open for like an hour and a half once the gates open. We were late and could only look at it from afar.

Overall the trip to Yankee Stadium was great! I think I’ll even start rooting for the Yankees! What did I just say?

The reason I’m saying this is that, I learned a valuable lesson from my 10 year old last night. Just as she is a true Yankee fan, she also roots for my team (the metsies). So why can’t I be a dual fan like she is? I honestly couldn’t answer her with a straight face. So I’m going to make a genuine effort to at least tolerate the Yankees. Yet, I will still never have an Yankee  logo on any articles of clothing. Now that’s going too far.

I’ll absolutely go to NEW Yankee Stadium again. Especially when it’s for the subway series sor the Mets can beat up on the Yankees. Especially after the 15 – 0 trouncing we took last week during the start of inter-league play!

Rules for the Kids of the 21st Century

I was reading my email this morning  and a friend of mine sent me these rules for kids.  I was going to send it out to my friends, but I figured I’d share with this my friends in the blogsphere.  I’m sure that many kids/teenagers have seen these rules before, but sharing with you folks…

Fortunately, both my kids follow most of the rules listed below. The rules are especially pertinent as we approach summer when many of our teenage kids are out there looking for jobs are starting their first job….

To reinforce this powerful message, I posted the following on the bulletin board that we have in our house.   I especially liked Rule # 1.

In my house, my kids even went out and bought me a shirt a few years ago with the following quote and it is a classic:

“MYOB, Next issue move on”.

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Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parent’s fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them. Parents stop babying your kids and giving them everything they want.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to
leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

If you can read this – Thank a teacher!

Updated on 6/18:

Thaks to all for their comments.. I don’t think this is copyrighted. I showed this to my kids and they liked it too!