Friday, May 4, 2012
The Box, new short story
I've been busy on a short story the last couple of days called The Box. It is intended for general readers, no violence and no foul language. There are two main characters in the story. A widower named Paul that builds furniture and cabinets in his garage where he has a work shop. The other main character is Johnny, a twelve year old. Johnny has been working in the neighborhood for a few weeks doing yard work. He's trying to save money. The two main characters befriend each other in the story, the widower begins to live again. He's been really down for the last few years. The kid begins to learn how to build furniture.
My original idea behind this story is that I wanted at least one thing I've written that I would want my Grandchildren reading.
Peek at the future
From what I was just seeing on the news the unemployment rate has dropped a bit more to 8.1%. It's beginning to look much better if you are needing to look for a job, know a couple of people that have had fairly short job searches in fact. Even according to a study that was conducted a few weeks ago employers are going to be hiring more college graduates than they have the last couple of years. All in all, the news is good.
Make sure you've updated your resume, at least upload it again to Careerbuilder and Monster. That way it gets refreshed and you will have the greatest possibility of a call from a job recruiter. Believe me, you want as many of those calls you can get except for when you are in the middle of an interview which has happened before.
Luckily I had remembered to turn the phone on to silence all most of the time when that has happened. About the only consolation for me is the fact that some of those were for selling vacuum cleaners. Don't really want to get a job selling vacuum cleaners door to door to tell you the truth.
However, there was a time or two that I forgot to turn down the ringer on my cell phone. Your best bet when this happens is for you to ignore your phone when this happens. That's what I did during the interview for the AAA Member Services Northern California call center job that I was successful at. I ended up working there 7 months until the call center closed and relocated in Oklahoma.
Make sure you've updated your resume, at least upload it again to Careerbuilder and Monster. That way it gets refreshed and you will have the greatest possibility of a call from a job recruiter. Believe me, you want as many of those calls you can get except for when you are in the middle of an interview which has happened before.
Luckily I had remembered to turn the phone on to silence all most of the time when that has happened. About the only consolation for me is the fact that some of those were for selling vacuum cleaners. Don't really want to get a job selling vacuum cleaners door to door to tell you the truth.
However, there was a time or two that I forgot to turn down the ringer on my cell phone. Your best bet when this happens is for you to ignore your phone when this happens. That's what I did during the interview for the AAA Member Services Northern California call center job that I was successful at. I ended up working there 7 months until the call center closed and relocated in Oklahoma.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
This years garden
I was just out weeding the rows of organic lettuce and carrots. They are beginning to come up very nicely. Between some of the rows there are also Cosmos growing. They had went to seed and had spread all over the garden area. We did try to collect most of the seeds but didn't entirely succeed. Still, it will be good that some of the Cosmos are growing in amongst the vegetables.
Cosmos grow to a height of around 4 feet tall, a little over 1 meter for my friends outside the US. What they will do is provide shade for the lettuce and carrots. Last year, the only shade provided was from the fence-line on the west side of the lot. That's also where the biggest lettuce plants was. While the lettuce does like a lot of sun there is such a thing as too much. We also planted tomatoes this year also, can't really tell entirely on the ones from seed. They look a bit like the Cosmos that seeded themselves.
The couple of all ready started plants that we picked up from Kmart aren't doing so well. The bell pepper plant looks pretty good though. There is also a nice patch of about a dozen garlic plants started. I'm so looking forward to dehydrating the garlic cloves and turning them into garlic powder.
When we got the house, the lot had been covered with weeds which of course went to seed. Last year we had to do a lot of weeding to do. This year, not so much. It is definitely becoming easier. Also, with all of the vegetable scraps that have been buried the garden is becoming very fertile. It's also higher than the surrounding ground, 2 to 3 inches. Next spring I'll probably begin turning parts into raised beds, I've already began that process with boards inserted at the bottom of the fence-line. I'm so looking forward to our first salad.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone, powered by Cricket.
Cosmos grow to a height of around 4 feet tall, a little over 1 meter for my friends outside the US. What they will do is provide shade for the lettuce and carrots. Last year, the only shade provided was from the fence-line on the west side of the lot. That's also where the biggest lettuce plants was. While the lettuce does like a lot of sun there is such a thing as too much. We also planted tomatoes this year also, can't really tell entirely on the ones from seed. They look a bit like the Cosmos that seeded themselves.
The couple of all ready started plants that we picked up from Kmart aren't doing so well. The bell pepper plant looks pretty good though. There is also a nice patch of about a dozen garlic plants started. I'm so looking forward to dehydrating the garlic cloves and turning them into garlic powder.
When we got the house, the lot had been covered with weeds which of course went to seed. Last year we had to do a lot of weeding to do. This year, not so much. It is definitely becoming easier. Also, with all of the vegetable scraps that have been buried the garden is becoming very fertile. It's also higher than the surrounding ground, 2 to 3 inches. Next spring I'll probably begin turning parts into raised beds, I've already began that process with boards inserted at the bottom of the fence-line. I'm so looking forward to our first salad.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone, powered by Cricket.
Brian Bigelow Books
I just put together a list on Amazon of all of my books.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/R1NXKK0C8VHEHG/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/R1NXKK0C8VHEHG/
Tears of Crimson: Taking a bite out of.. Author Brian Bigelow
Tears of Crimson: Taking a bite out of.. Author Brian Bigelow: We ran across Author Brian Bigelow just as he was debuting his new book " Confessions of a Porn Shop Clerk ". The Tears of Crimson Mansi...
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Interviews at restaurants
These can be difficult to do right and be successful. They will throw you off more than a regular interview will having been there.
About three years ago I was had an interview with someone from an energy drink/fitness company at a restaurant. Looking back, getting a cup of coffee probably wasn't the best idea. A lot of people that are heavy into fitness aren't exactly into coffee so that made a rather bad impression. I just didn't know it at the time but was one thing that cost me the opportunity.
The interview was also at about 8:00 AM if I remember right so I wasn't quite awake either which didn't help any. Early morning interviews for me have either been the absolute best or the absolute worst. There really isn't any in between on those interviews.
There are a lot of things that have to come together to be successful in an interview. You need to be prepared ahead of time for most questions that will be asked. Try to be prepared for the unexpected question also, it will happen. Do you think that I was expecting a question about certain things bothering me at the interview for the job I'm working at? If I remember right my answer was "if it does I guess I'll get over it". Needless to say, I was successful and have been working there for over two years now.
About three years ago I was had an interview with someone from an energy drink/fitness company at a restaurant. Looking back, getting a cup of coffee probably wasn't the best idea. A lot of people that are heavy into fitness aren't exactly into coffee so that made a rather bad impression. I just didn't know it at the time but was one thing that cost me the opportunity.
The interview was also at about 8:00 AM if I remember right so I wasn't quite awake either which didn't help any. Early morning interviews for me have either been the absolute best or the absolute worst. There really isn't any in between on those interviews.
There are a lot of things that have to come together to be successful in an interview. You need to be prepared ahead of time for most questions that will be asked. Try to be prepared for the unexpected question also, it will happen. Do you think that I was expecting a question about certain things bothering me at the interview for the job I'm working at? If I remember right my answer was "if it does I guess I'll get over it". Needless to say, I was successful and have been working there for over two years now.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
My next book
I've been really busy the last few days, I've been on a promo event with Get The Job and on ReadIndies. I've also built a roof over the porch at our house and it looks pretty good even if I say so myself. It's also keeping the house 5 to 10 degrees cooler during the day. It's amazing how much of an effect that a porch roof that measures about 16 feet by 5 feet can have on your house.
At the same time all of this has been going I've been working on my next book which won't be on job hunting. It will be called "Confessions of a Porn Store Clerk" and at present I'm at about 4,000 words of the rough draft. It has only taken me two days to write that much which is blazing through a manuscript. One part of the book is about the crazy things that has happened in real life on my job. I'll admit that this book is writing itself, it's really amazing. It took me a bit longer to reach the same point in the 21 Days and Growing Things books.
Hope you are having a great day and wish you the greatest success in your job hunts.
My update since then is that I now have the rough draft completed. Tomorrow, I begin editing :-)
It's not a real long book at 6,500 words right now, it will probably get a little longer by the time I am done with editing. It's been a real blast to write, definitely different than the other books that I have written with how quick it has gone. I guess you could say that it's actually written itself and I've been along for the ride. Definitely not as quick as Frankenstein was for Mary Shelley. She wrote the rough draft for that novel in one night.
At the same time all of this has been going I've been working on my next book which won't be on job hunting. It will be called "Confessions of a Porn Store Clerk" and at present I'm at about 4,000 words of the rough draft. It has only taken me two days to write that much which is blazing through a manuscript. One part of the book is about the crazy things that has happened in real life on my job. I'll admit that this book is writing itself, it's really amazing. It took me a bit longer to reach the same point in the 21 Days and Growing Things books.
Hope you are having a great day and wish you the greatest success in your job hunts.
My update since then is that I now have the rough draft completed. Tomorrow, I begin editing :-)
It's not a real long book at 6,500 words right now, it will probably get a little longer by the time I am done with editing. It's been a real blast to write, definitely different than the other books that I have written with how quick it has gone. I guess you could say that it's actually written itself and I've been along for the ride. Definitely not as quick as Frankenstein was for Mary Shelley. She wrote the rough draft for that novel in one night.
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