Originally I had planned to be in here at least once a week, but that plan flew out the window in a hurry. Well, things have been changing very rapidly and I am looking for other types of work.
Currently I am trying to get a job as a cab, or taxi driver in Great Falls, MT. I used to drive a cab in San Francisco and it was quite a challenge. Sometimes fun, but there were many challenges.
Where will this blog take me, or where will I go with it? I don't have a clue at the moment, but what I do know is that I want to follow some of my previous dreams.
Here is a small list of my dreams and what I hope to accomplish with them. I will try to elaborate on them as I am able.
1. I love photography.
2. I love helping people.
3. I love working with wood, building things.
4. I also like being healthy. Unfortunately I didn't learn about health issues early enough because I now have cancer.
Time to elaborate.
First of all, I thought about being a mechanic because my father worked on cars while I was growing up. Yes, I really did like helping my dad work on the cars we had as a family. But I wasn't convinced that it what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. I used to work on others people's cars as a sidewalk or shade tree mechanic. It helped me to earn a little extra cash, and gain some car knowledge, but it still didn't convince me to become a professional. I still like tinkering around with the cars I own, but I don't want to do it for a living. Anyway here is the list.
1. I love photography. Actually, this was my first love when it came to what I wanted to do with my life. I used to have cameras and a fair amount of photographic equipment. I used to take lots of pictures of my first wife because she was an ex-model. She loved being in front of the camera and I loved photographing her. But all of the photographic equipment I had, which wasn't much these days, went by the wayside when I married my second wife. She thought it was a bunch of junk to put it mildly and she said I was wasting my time and that I should be looking for a real job. So, like an idiot, I sold all of my equipment for $200.00 and have regretted it ever since. It would cost me more than $5000.00 to replace it today.
When I first moved to the town where my second wife was, I had a difficult time finding work. I worked as a dishwasher at several restaurants in town. I worked sixteen hours at the one that paid best and quit the other, then I had to quit there because of new management.
Anyway it started snowing and I started to worry about earning an income. Since it was snowing, I spent my last bit of pocket change on a cheap snow shovel. I made my money back in my first two jobs. My ex said I shouldn't bother with snow removal because there were too many kids out there that would do it for less than me. I didn't see all of these kids she was talking about, so I went ahead and took the chance.
I called my new business, 'Have Shovel Will Travel'. I eventually built the 'Snow Removal' business up to where I needed to hire people to work for me. Guess what, I couldn't find anybody that really wanted to work. They would show up and watch me do the work and then expect me to pay them for watching me work. I had no idea there were so many comedians. Good by.
When the snow started melting, I found myself in a jam again. What would I do once the snow was all gone. I had made friends with the people that ran the local green house where I started buying most of my equipment. They suggested that I start power-raking and work my way into a 'Lawn Care' business. I did and made a pretty good living in the beginning.
Unfortunately, I really didn't know anything about running a business, so I struggled, a lot. The next three years were very difficult to say the least. Eventually, I got burned out on mowing lawns and moving snow, so I found a 'Real' job. That didn't go over very well either. I just liked the idea of working for myself, being my own boss as it were. So, I gravitated back to photography, but that didn't go too well, so I continued working at odd jobs wherever I could find them.
What happened eventually was, I went to work at a Ben Franklin five and dime. I became the assistant manager, but that was a short lived job as well. I had been there about a year when the store owner/manager came to me and said I was going to be laid off after Christmas because I was the last person hired. He always laid someone off after Christmas but I didn't know that until then, nice.
An interesting thing happened before the end of December. The store had just taken on a 'Film Developing' contract and the guy that set the account up asked my boss if he knew of anybody that would like to do the job of picking the film up and delivering it. He told the guy about me and I got the job. It was an automatic raise by about $900.00 per month. Cool.
Well, I will have to come back and elaborate later.
Next,
2. I love helping people. How? Any way I can. There was a time when I would stop and help someone on the side of the road at the drop of a hat. It they had a flat tire or some obvious car trouble, I would try to help in any way I could. But that all changed when I became a truck driver. Not because I wanted to change, but because the trucking companies I worked for wanted me to keep the wheels rolling, because time was money.
So, I ended up not stopping very much any more to help. Now, people would probably say, "It's just as well, you don't want to get mugged or even worse, murdered. Well, yeah, that would be a bad thing. Unfortunately because of all the gangs, car jacking's and unscrupulous people, people are vary wary. I can't say I blame them. But even trough it all, I am still to a fault very trusting. I'll explain later.
Now for number three.
3. I love working with wood, building things. I have always liked building things. I first found out how gratifying it was to build something while in high-school. I had built a knik-knack holder for my mother and someone else took credit for it and took it home with them. That kind of left a bad feeling with me, so I didn't pursue wood- working until 1990. I had played around with it earlier, but didn't get serious until 1990.
Unfortunately, I couldn't work fast enough to earn a real living with wood-working. I was too much of a perfectionist to make any real money at it. Case in point, I would build my letter files tough enough for a big truck, a semi to run it's front tire up on it and it wouldn't break like many of the items from china. I had built heirloom trucks for my boys. They would actually use them like roller skates. That's how tough they were.
Anyway, I had to find more work to stay afloat. Next,
4. I have liked being healthy, so I started researching health issues back when I was in my 40's (while driving trucks), not that I am really old or anything like that. My point is that I like the idea of being healthy and I also like helping people learn about being healthy whenever I can. Unfortunately it doesn't always work. Most people are so set in their ways, it doesn't seem to make any difference what I tell them.
A close friend of mine said he wasn't going to change his eating habits just because someone says it is bad for his health. He said I should be careful about listening to people and taking their word for it. He wants documentation. I told him there was plenty of documentation, but certain people don't want the information out because it would mean millions of dollars lost in business.
My friend then said that because we are no longer under the law of 'Old Testament', (we are Christians), we don't have to follow those laws. But it has nothing to do with the laws, our body chemistry has not changed since the bible times. I will go into more detail later.
Well, I will go for now, but I plan on coming back as often as possible to keep it up to date.
Thanks for visiting.
P.S.
If there are any typo's, I will try to fix them later. Thanks for understanding.
