A few years ago, I worked for an Internet marketing agency.  Much of my work involved keyword research and search engine optimization and eventually pay per click.  I signed this agreement before I started for the company that said I wouldn’t work for another Internet marketing or search engine optimization company for a year after I stopped working for them.  This was supposed to be to protect their marketing secrets and give them a year to have come up with new methods and such so that I couldn’t let the competition know what they were doing.  I was told that this is standard procedure for any Internet marketing company.  Since I hadn’t even heard of Internet marketing, let alone any Internet marketing companies before I went to work for them, so I didn’t have a problem with this.  And since, while I’ve heard of several competing Internet marketing companies, I’ve never met anyone who worked for one nor have I had any contact with anyone who worked for one.  I almost think that this is the only Internet marketing company in the world, but that can’t possibly be true.  I mean there has to be more.  I signed an agreement saying I wouldn’t work for another.  Or did I?

It's been one hundred years since the

Chicago Cubs

took it all home. There is probably nobody alive today who can actually remember when the Cubs won the World Series the last time. But it lives in the never say die memory of the long suffering Cub's fan. It's always been "wait until next year" and wait and wait and wait. If the experience of watching the Cubs weren't so much fun, It's a struggle year in and out to really put much hope in "this will be the year", but after a while you just sit back and enjoy the season and Wrigley Field and the Cubs experience. Still, wouldn't it be a thrill to see the Cubs win? Tara is a big Cub's fan, but she never takes it too seriously. She would like to see them win the World Series, but she won't live or die by it. I usually tease her. I'm a South Sider, and can't help but rub in the White Sox win in 2005. This year we promised to go see a number of games, both Cubs and Sox. That was fine with me, though I wasn't so happy with the idea of going to see the Sox play because of the new and ugly ball park.

When my lease is up this October, I might just renew it for another year and deal with the $25 rent increase or I might go and rent a place with my friend Brett as my roommate.  I actually promised him we’d get a place if we could since he’s living with 3 other guys and it’s driving him insane.  For certain, I know where I don’t want to live.  Lincoln Park would be fine, but the people who live there are pretentious and all think they’re awesome because they go to DePaul.  The Lakeview Chicago neighborhood is all right, but it bleeds over into Lincoln Park and, actually, a lot of the neighborhood doesn’t have a view of the lake.  While I don’t think it’s the dank pit everyone else seems to assume it is, Humboldt Park is too far away from anywhere I’d want to go.  I like Wicker Park and Bucktown, but the aging hipsters can be too much to take.  And I despise the traffic in Wrigleyville, especially on days when the Cubs are playing.  So I guess it sounds like I don’t like any of the neighborhoods in the city of Chicago, but I do have to live somewhere.  

I am thinking that I may be able to start up a little store of my own someday.

 

I have wonderful ideas about what to sell.

 

I am working hard on learning to carve figurines and statutes like Grandpa does.

 

But I also have stated a collection of recipes from Grandma.

 

Since she is into organic gardening and cooking, I have learned a lot from her and want to learn how to market some of her ideas.

 

I am hoping she will be able to help me the way Grandpa helps Auntie Em in her store.

 

She already knows about the business part of it, I mean by that the bookkeeping part.

 

She knows all the tricks that data

backup services

use to keep track of important information.

 

I think we should start offering some of her baked goods in the shop.

 

Our shop could be about selling organic foods made from Grandma’s recipes.

 

What a great idea.

 

I am so excited I just about can’t wait until Sunday dinner to announce the idea.

 

Sunday dinner is where everyone has always put any ideas on the table so the family can talk about whether they are good ideas that will work, or whether the idea needs to be re-done.

My last year of college, my roommate and I got pretty crafty in our house. We had an extra living room in the house without much to put in it, so we decided to build a beer pong table and a bar. We used some pieces of plywood to build the bar, with some machine aluminum shelves underneath the bar and behind it to hold all of our alcohol. We even hung some track lighting over the bar, and put some lights on the back of the shelves so the bottles would light up. We were pretty impressed with our handy work on that, and got even more creative with the beer pong table. We bought a couple of bigger pieces of wood to make the legs, and used a long sheet of plywood for the tabletop. We decided to paint the table to make it look like the field at Soldier Field. We painted each of the end zones. One in Orange with CHICAGO in Navy Blue, and one in navy blue with BEARS painted on it. We spray painted the rest green, and painted on the yard markers and the hash marks. It really looked quite realistic, and we were proud of all of our hard work. 

Now that I live smack dab in the middle of the city I’m going to need to look for an employment upgrade – because if I don’t start making more money I’ll be hunting for a competent Detroit bankruptcy lawyer.  I had no idea how much money it cost to live in the city.  I grew up in kind of a back woods community and my family was pretty self sufficient.  We didn’t spend a whole lot of money, because we didn’t really need to.  In the city, everything costs more:  the food, the gas, the clothes, and the entertainment are all way more expensive – but that’s not even the only problem, you also need a whole lot more stuff to get by in the city.  You simply can’t function in the city without a cell phone, a computer with a DSL connection or a GPS and none of these things are cheap.  It makes me wonder how anyone with less than a CEO position in a major company can even survive in an urban atmosphere.  I guess if things didn’t work out I could always move back with my parents – maybe if I save up for a couple hundred years I’ll have enough money to make it.

 

I am beginning to feel a little hope for my friend, who I met when I was in college, and who has been wrestling with some financial issues.  She has been spending money with no regard for how she was going to meet her day-to-day obligations.  She has gotten so far in debt, I don’t see how she will ever get out.  She spends any money she gets her hands on, and does not think about the consequences.  She loves nice clothes, and she loves to go out on the weekends.  She loves her shoes and accessories too.  But since she has gotten to the point where she can’t pay her car payment, she had contacted an attorney and is talking about filing Chapter 7.   She also contacted someone who she says was recommended to her, who will help her sort out why she feels she needs to spend and spend some more, until she is just completely flat broke.  I hope she will follow though with the counseling.  I think the counseling is the reason why she finally called the attorney to get help straightening out her finances.  We are all optimistic about her getting on the right track.