I’m finally almost organized again after a computer crash. I don’t know what caused it, but the repair shop had to completely reinstall the system because there was a problem with the operating system and the BIOS had an incorrect setting for the fan. Most of my data was already backed up, so there wasn’t much lost, but some things had to be redone anyhow.

It feels good to be able to work again on my computer. Sure, we have the old computer still set up and it works well enough, but it’s a bit slow.

As you can probably guess from the title of this post, I’m feeling pretty wiped out at the moment. There’s just been so much going on in my life the past few days.

I’ve had a cough that just won’t go away for several days now. It’s not so bad most of the day, but if I lie down or when I get up, it starts up again something awful. As you can imagine, that makes it pretty hard to sleep.

Add to that that my new computer broke down on Friday, and despite an initial estimate that there was a chance I’d have it back the same day, here it is, Sunday night, and I don’t. The frustration is quite draining. Thank goodness we kept the old computer and it has almost all my data on it so I can still work a little.
Today was my 3 year old niece’s birthday party. All you parents know how draining little kid’s birthday parties are!

And yes, of course, it is THAT time of month.

I took Friday and Saturday off while waiting for my computer, only logging on to work a very little bit, but I can’t do too much of that. I love my work and it’s frankly draining to avoid it. I love being creative and coming up with new articles and new websites. It’s a bit challenging deciding what to do; I had gotten things organized very nicely on the old machine, so that I always knew what my goals were, and that’s a part of what was lost. It’s also very hard to focus when I’m this frustrated.

However, I do intend to get more than a gripe session accomplished tonight.

California just released its 2005 Academic Performance Index (API) Base Report. The results in San Diego County were very interesting to me. The schools are rated on a scale from 1-10.

The depressing part is seeing how my old high school has fallen. I went to Gompers Secondary School, which was an excellent magnet school when I attended, specializing in math, science and computers, and attracting students from throughout the district. Its score? A 1. Even in my senior year we knew things were going downhill fast there, but it’s sad to see it sink so low. It just changed over to a charter school, so I hope things start picking up.

On the plus side, the Poway school district schools, which is the area were I live now, are doing great. They’re almost all 9s or 10s. If we find a way to afford to buy a home in the San Diego area, you’re going to have a hard time getting me to buy anywhere else!

Well, the new section on unresearched work at home jobs is about as much work as I expected, which is to say a lot of work! But that’s fine, since I planned for that. I just hope people are finding it to be a good resource.

My system for locating the jobs seems to be working all right. I have several sites bookmarked, and I’m always keeping my eyes open for more resources. I’m getting more efficient at scanning the jobs so that I don’t waste time on jobs I can’t post anyhow.

The big question, as always is “am I unintentionally posting a lot of scams?” and of course the answer is that quite honestly I do not know. I hope that anyone who comes across a scam posting in something I have listed will take the time to comment on it so that I can get rid of it, and hopefully learn any warning signs I am so far not aware of.

Here are some of the things I watch out for:

• Bold text or ALL CAPS - Either one is an attempt to draw extra attention to the ad, and I automatically mistrust that.
• Listing the same job in too many cities - I saw one job listing claiming they need 9 people, yet they had listed themselves in dozens of cities. That’s probably a really hard position to fill, a pitch for a home business where they don’t really care how many answers they get, or a scam. Guess which one I tend to suspect?
• Ads promising you can earn an excessive amount for the kind of job - Yes, there are sales jobs where you can earn six figures a year. But most people won’t earn that much in them. Promising outrageous earnings is also a hallmark of a scam.
• Ads that are too vague - I know that a lot of job listings on Craigslist are really stealth ads for sites such as legitjobs.net; or at least, people start getting emails for them when they apply to said jobs. So I mistrust any job that it isn’t at least reasonably clear what the job is. Am I posting some of those stealth listings? Probably, but I hope I have avoided posting too many.
• Anything that just gives me that feeling - Sometimes I just don’t quite feel right about a potential job lead, so I just don’t post it.

Now, there’s no way for me to know for certain how well I’m doing at not posting the scams unless people tell me. I hope over time to better learn which job listings to avoid, but there will always be the possibility of scams. The scammers are always changing their ad styles, after all.

One thing you hear a lot about on the news right now is bird flu. Will it change and start being transmitted from human to human? How bad could the ensuing pandemic be? What should you do to prepare.

Now, while the things they are talking about are pretty scary, the thing to remember is that we are likely to get some warning before things get bad… IF they get bad. Such a disaster has to start somewhere; it is not going to hit the entire world at the same time.

I recently decided to start my own disaster kit in my home. Not so much due to bird flu. I live in earthquake territory, which of course does not give warning. I’m not following the guidelines for preparing for a pandemic, but I am preparing for a disaster in which we might need help but not get it for a few days.

What am I including? Food and water, obviously. I still need to assemble the basic medical supplies. Flashlight, batteries, etc. We own camping supplies already.

I’m not the paranoid sort, but I do see having something set aside for such a contingency as a good idea in general. It’s just good sense. California’s website has some good tips on being ready for earthquakes.