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Archive for June, 2008

Spinach just wouldn’t be as funny

June 16, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, humor, food, writers, Iowa summer festival of writing, Iowa flood, Nora Ephron 2 Comments →

Adam Smith Puzzle

Image by Bob Janes, with permission

I’m still uploading my flood photos, but want to point out that even when we were being evacuated from our hotel and helping build sandbag levees and watching our plane tickets become useless as the only road to the airport was closed due to flooding, we kept on writing.  

Well, and drinking.  That was for the anxiety.

We talked about a lot of humor writing last week, and one title that came up was Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck. Kroger’s had the book on sale today, so I bought it. Here’s my favorite paragraph so far, from the essay “Serial Monogamy: A Memoir”:

Just before I’d moved to New York, two historic events had occurred: the birth control pill had been invented, and the first Julia Child cookbook was published. As a result, everyone was having sex, and when the sex was over, you cooked something. One of my girlfriends moved in with a man she was in love with. Her mother was distraught and warned that he would never marry her because she had already slept with him. “Whatever you do,” my friend’s mother said, “don’t cook for him.” But it was too late. She cooked for him. He married her anyway. This was right around the time endive was discovered, which was followed by arugula, which was followed by radicchio, which was followed by friseé, which was followed by the three M’s — mesclun, mâche, and microgreens — and that, in a nutshell, is the history of the last forty years from the point of view of lettuce. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

Writing in the midst of the Iowa floods

June 15, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, writing, Iowa summer festival of writing, Iowa flood 2 Comments →

Iowa City/Coralville flood photo
We got a little distracted this past week in Eastern Iowa. This photo from the University of Iowa’s online paper, for instance, is of the street I took into Iowa City just last Monday. More tomorrow.

Iowa at last

June 09, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, writing, vocation, Iowa summer festival of writing 2 Comments →

Keith Laumer Puzzle

Image by Bob Janes, used with permission

I’m in Iowa. Finally.

I’m not sure I will ever fly on a plane again, and certainly want to avoid Chicago O’Hare at all costs. I got there yesterday morning just fine, but only got out again mid-morning today — after having been bumped off three planes and thoroughly frisked by the security people besides.

The Iowa workshop, however, is absolutely fabulous.

This week I’m taking a “Humor Writing” course, and was able to catch up with what I missed from yesterday. We read and listened and laughed our heads off. Our teacher is also a playwright and she wants us to work on reading aloud — “performing” our work, too. I really wanted to go out to dinner and TALK with everyone after and then do some of my delicious homework, but I’m so tired I can’t manage another thing, and really feel like I’ll melt if I don’t try to get some sleep first.

I Didn’t Sell Out: I Monetized!

June 08, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, blogging 4 Comments →

I’ve been a member of the BlogHer network for some time now, and they finally invited me to sign the paperwork to advertise with them. I’ve just now inserted the code they sent me and have been hitting my “refresh” button over and over to see what sort of ads they’re running. Wow. Good thing Almostgotit finally decided to reveal her secret identity last week… several of the ads seem to have zeroed in on where she lives! (Yes. The Carribean vacation ones.)

If you love me, please click on my ads. A lot. I doubt it will do much towards keeping me in this fabulous beach side condo, but it may buy me a banana or two.

Friday Favorites: Finding Your Job Niche

June 06, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: humor, employment, affirmations, jobs, Friday favorites 1 Comment →

Proof that there’s a job out there for everyone. Happy Weekend to You!

You may need to watch this one TWICE.

6 Reasons Why You Need LinkedIn

June 05, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, technology, reviews, networking, employment, resumes, Career Transitioning No Comments →

LinkedIn.Com logoSome have called it “Resume 2.0.”   For others, it works as a universally accessible business card.  Whether you are looking for a job or running your own business, or simply want to control what people will see when they “Google” your name on the internet, you need LinkedIn.com

The whole premise works a little like the “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon” game — LinkedIn helps you build a growing group of “connections” — people you know and can personally vouch for — who form the “first degree” of an enormous “network” of people consisting of the friends and colleagues of your friends and colleagues. 

Sort of like the way networking works in real life, hey?

If you don’t have a LinkedIn.com profile yet, you need to build one, and here’s why: 

  1. All of LinkedIn.com’s basic features are free, and LinkedIn will even search your email address books for you to find those first contacts.  You don’t need to build your profile all at once, either, but can gradually add and learn as you go.  There are plenty of online resources about LinkedIn.com to inspire you, too.
  2. The more data you have online about yourself, the more easily search engines will find you.  It is more important than ever for anyone and everyone in the working world to have an online presence, and LinkedIn is a great way to help manage yours.
  3. In addition to your employment history and links to your other business or personal websites, you can add ”recommendations” to your LinkedIn profile, which you solicit from your own contacts.  This is a fantastic opportunity to create a public list of quick, mini-reference letters, and one that is entirely controlled by you: nothing goes “live” on your profile until you’ve approved it.  
  4. Sharing your LinkedIn.com profile is easy, and much less obtrusive than handing out resumes or business brochures.  You can even put your LinkedIn URL on a business card… a tactful way to assure that all the professional information you may want to share is easily accessible by anyone who wants it.  LinkedIn also provides a cute little badge you can add to your other business websites, linking folk back to your profile.
  5. Managing your contacts is easy, too.   Once people are on your contact list, you will receive regular updates or “pings” whenever they make their own LinkedIn updates, which is helpful information and often fun, too.
  6. LinkedIn is a great way to find former classmates and long-lost friends. People will inevitably find you, too: one quickly learns to gracefully ignore “link beggers.”  The strength of your network, after all, is based on the understanding that everyone’s ”1st degree” contacts are people she can honestly recommend.  It is perfectly appropriate, and tactful, to simply ignore any invitations from the high school boyfriend you never want to see again. Yes, really! 

Whaddya waiting for?  It won’t take long before you’ll be a true Insider, and then you’ll be ready for the latest in LinkedIn humor, too…

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Related Posts:

We Are *Always* Networking
Career or Blog in a Rut?  Find a Traveller

Library Wingding

June 02, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, writers, Thomas Hardy No Comments →

Thomas Hardy Puzzle 

Buddy Bob D. Janes (GreyHead on Flickr.com) gave me permission to share his fabulous author wingdings on my blog some time ago, but I’m only now getting around to it.

Due, no doubt, to the intensity of recent lectures to my eldest on the basis of our civilization’s monetary system.

Anyhoo. It’s a picture puzzle — see if you can guess the Thomas Hardy title suggested by this image!

My son needs a job now, too

June 02, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: humor, parenting, employment 4 Comments →

He’s just graduated from high school, and all of us are learning a new drill.  It’s hard not to feel like the world’s Number 1 Hypocrite when telling him that “I don’t really see myself working in a grocery store” is not an acceptable excuse for an unemployed 18-yr-old.

It only works when you are an unemployed 45-yr-old. 

After all.  I was cleaning vomit out of restaurant toilets when I was 18.  Which, as my son dourly pointed out this evening, CLEARly made the entire world a better place for all future generations.