Question (Response)

• Do you own this place? (Yes.)
• How much are you selling this stuff for? (Its not mine, so its free.)
• How old are you? (Shouldn’t you be in school?)
• Are you going to rent out the store front? (I received two proposals for a hair salon and a magic shop. If it had been a combined offer, I might have considered.)
• Are you a single lady? (I don’t recall having a conjoined twin.)
• Do you have any work for me? (Do you have any work for me?)

I love presenting my hometown,
breaking bread with strangers,
hearing their stories,
and telling them mine.

I love meeting people who,
had they not requested a temporary home,
I might never have chosen to befriend on my own,
Due to my assumptions or daily routine.

And Reilly’s response:

My word, this portly pundit has shown his penchant for gross generalizations and… the firm calves of cyclists. But with respect to the former, the rotund writer fails to acknowledge the other 85 percent of cyclists who fall outside his stereotypical misconception: children riding to school, adults commuting to work, underserved populations with no transportation alternatives, etc.

I wonder if cyclists stereotype newspaper columnists as grumpy, overweight, old white men with an ax to grind with this radical, changing world.

The only thing I would add is that bicyclist are not just guys. We’re also gals.

Meghan, Samantha and Me: Bike Gals

“It’s back to the old barn-raising thing,” said Nicola Macpherson, a mushroom farmer who lent a hand at Wiseman’s farm near Union in Franklin County. “You can’t do all this stuff by yourself.”
Sometimes you need a mob.

The basic notion is almost as old as farming itself: People join together to get a big job done. And crop mobs are contemporary incarnations of this old-fashioned concept.

Summary below:

Proposed rules from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could have a significant negative impact on the state’s local food economy, according to a nonprofit group that serves the interests of local farmers and consumers…

Carolina Farm Stewardship Association says costs for small-scale farmers and food suppliers to comply could exceed 150 hours in labor and as much as $20,000 in consulting and testing per year.

The group’s executive director, Roland McReynolds, says small businesses are not the source of the vast majority of illnesses that the legislation targets.

“These and other costs for complying with one-size-fits-all food safety rules could force many small farms and food businesses to abandon value-added markets,” McReynolds said.

It could also lead to significant job losses, he said.

My favorite Twain Quote:

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

Share you favorite quote from this great, American author in the comments below.

Gather copies of your past quarterly or annual reviews, use the positive feed back from those reviews to evaluate your strengths, you can also lift language from the review directly onto your resume.

Layoff Checklist

When you have lost your job, it’s important to check on compensation due, benefits, references, and unemployment. Review this checklist to make sure that everything is covered, then focus on your job search.

Five Things Not to Do When You Leave Your Job

Leaving a job is often upsetting, whether you were fired or finally decided to quit. You may have trouble remembering to do the right thing. Here are five things you should avoid doing.

Ten Steps to Find a New Job

Ten steps to find a new job, including where to look for jobs, the top job sites, how to use your connections, how to ace the interview, and how to follow up.