My Daily Life and Thoughts while in San Diego |
List of Best Posts
This blog is where I express myself to the world or at least to those who might stop by to read what I post 
. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers.
I may turn some of my posts into a book. I may cease blogging here altogether. Who knows. But for now..I am content to post away in this, my own little corner of the world.
Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
Please know that I am open to any input on any topic I write about. If you have something to say about anything you see written here please....feel free to speak up in the form of leaving a comment or sending me a PM (private message).
And if you are in San Diego and wish to meet the one and only Carlos (that's me)...drop me a private message. I always enjoy meeting one of my readers!
Thanks.
Carlos
PS. If you want to follow my blog such that you will get an email when I write new posts you can subscribe to my blog.
. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers. I may turn some of my posts into a book. I may cease blogging here altogether. Who knows. But for now..I am content to post away in this, my own little corner of the world.
Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
Please know that I am open to any input on any topic I write about. If you have something to say about anything you see written here please....feel free to speak up in the form of leaving a comment or sending me a PM (private message).
And if you are in San Diego and wish to meet the one and only Carlos (that's me
)...drop me a private message. I always enjoy meeting one of my readers!Thanks.
Carlos
PS. If you want to follow my blog such that you will get an email when I write new posts you can subscribe to my blog.
Curbside house number painting...a breakthrough...maybe?
After calling and calling businesses for window cleaning and even just to find a job that pays me immediate money, to no avail...I think I have stumbled upon something that may pan out to help me make much needed income.
Perhaps even in time to pay my rent on Feb 1!
Curbside house number painting!
I previously looked at that a couple of weeks ago but was led to believe that it was illegal to do it in San Diego. It turns out that it isn't! The city even has a kit for how they want it done that I will go pick up as soon as I get through posting this.
The rainy weather the last couple of days has put a complete halt to my attempts to get more window cleaning work. The daily labor, daily pay places have no work at all. I've even made calls trying to dress up in a custome for local businesses while holding an ad for them on the street corner (they too only pay every other week).
I still haven't tried showing up at the local Home Depot and hanging out there to see if some contractor picks me up to dig ditches. I may still try that but for now...no immediate income anywhere.
I must wait for a regular paycheck which I simply can't do as I need the money to live on daily. I just can't wait a couple of weeks to get paid.
If anyone is praying for me still...please pray that the Lord would allow me to either get enough from pawning my computer to fund curbside painting myself or that He would graciously find me someone willing to fund this while I do the work, in exchange for a nice payback for their initial investment.
Like with any business venture there is some element of risk but if I have to...I will knock on hundreds of doors to get enough work to make ends meet.
Once I make enough to meet my immediate needs...I might get a regular job or continue to just do curbside painting...if it turns out to be lucrative.
If I don't post in this blog for a while...well...I pawned my computer and will post an update, God willing, when I get it back.
UPDATE:
Well...I took almost three hours to go downtown and get the kit to find out what the city expected of me as a curbside painter. Though I had high hopes...I also knew that it might not pan out to be something that I could realistically do and as it turned out...it wasn't. Not because I can't actually do curbside painting. That is easy enough but rather because the city's demand for information from curbside painters is so inclusive and so invasive as to border on the absurd.
They wanted me to submit to a criminal background check, to give them my finger prints, my Social Security number, to list where I have lived and worked for the last five years, where I was born, whether I have ever had a licence issued to me, my business phone number, my home and fax numbers, my cell phone number, my weight, height and hair color, my driver's licence number, where I have gone to school in the last five years AND...get this...I MUST consent to having ALL...that's ALL the above information and more besides be "subject to public disclosure per the California public records act.".
Oh...and I must pay close to $200 to give them the privilege of not only knowing all that about me but also to allow them to make it available to any Tom, Jane, or Harry that wants to know it and makes a Public Records Act request for it.
As I said...absurd!
I can't find out the Social Security number and other fine details about the Chief of Police by making such a request but I MUST make ALL of MY information available to anyone that wants it (subjecting me to identity theft big time) in order to do...get this...curbside painting!
What is this country coming to? Someone needs to seriously sue the city of San Diego for unfairly burdening those who want to do curbside painting in a way that one would never be burdened with for fitting their mold of what should be allowed such that I can go and become a hamburger flipper or wage slave at some other job without any such intrusiveness and demand for irrelevant information being placed upon me.
Curbside painters unite! Better yet I should probably contact an ACLU attorney and see if they might want to work with me when I don't give out irrelevant information and am denied the opportunity to be a curbside painter. Maybe a lawsuit or two will straighten things up a bit and not subject me to what I view as unfair process of law where I, as a curbside painting want-a-bee, am automatically considered to be more likely to committ a crime and am required to give out all the information they demand.
I suspect they have no hard stats to prove that such a demand for information is neccessary, relevant, or even useful in preventing crimes on the part of all ten of the curbside painters that I was told are legally licenced to do this (I wonder why just ten people gave out all that info and subjected themselves to such nonsense
).
Perhaps even in time to pay my rent on Feb 1!
Curbside house number painting!
I previously looked at that a couple of weeks ago but was led to believe that it was illegal to do it in San Diego. It turns out that it isn't! The city even has a kit for how they want it done that I will go pick up as soon as I get through posting this.
The rainy weather the last couple of days has put a complete halt to my attempts to get more window cleaning work. The daily labor, daily pay places have no work at all. I've even made calls trying to dress up in a custome for local businesses while holding an ad for them on the street corner (they too only pay every other week).
I still haven't tried showing up at the local Home Depot and hanging out there to see if some contractor picks me up to dig ditches
. I may still try that but for now...no immediate income anywhere. I must wait for a regular paycheck which I simply can't do as I need the money to live on daily. I just can't wait a couple of weeks to get paid.
If anyone is praying for me still...please pray that the Lord would allow me to either get enough from pawning my computer to fund curbside painting myself or that He would graciously find me someone willing to fund this while I do the work, in exchange for a nice payback for their initial investment.
Like with any business venture there is some element of risk but if I have to...I will knock on hundreds of doors to get enough work to make ends meet.
Once I make enough to meet my immediate needs...I might get a regular job or continue to just do curbside painting...if it turns out to be lucrative.
If I don't post in this blog for a while...well...I pawned my computer and will post an update, God willing, when I get it back.
UPDATE:
Well...I took almost three hours to go downtown and get the kit to find out what the city expected of me as a curbside painter. Though I had high hopes...I also knew that it might not pan out to be something that I could realistically do and as it turned out...it wasn't. Not because I can't actually do curbside painting. That is easy enough but rather because the city's demand for information from curbside painters is so inclusive and so invasive as to border on the absurd.
They wanted me to submit to a criminal background check, to give them my finger prints, my Social Security number, to list where I have lived and worked for the last five years, where I was born, whether I have ever had a licence issued to me, my business phone number, my home and fax numbers, my cell phone number, my weight, height and hair color, my driver's licence number, where I have gone to school in the last five years AND...get this...I MUST consent to having ALL...that's ALL the above information and more besides be "subject to public disclosure per the California public records act.".
Oh...and I must pay close to $200 to give them the privilege of not only knowing all that about me but also to allow them to make it available to any Tom, Jane, or Harry that wants to know it and makes a Public Records Act request for it.
As I said...absurd!
I can't find out the Social Security number and other fine details about the Chief of Police by making such a request but I MUST make ALL of MY information available to anyone that wants it (subjecting me to identity theft big time) in order to do...get this...curbside painting!
What is this country coming to? Someone needs to seriously sue the city of San Diego for unfairly burdening those who want to do curbside painting in a way that one would never be burdened with for fitting their mold of what should be allowed such that I can go and become a hamburger flipper or wage slave at some other job without any such intrusiveness and demand for irrelevant information being placed upon me.
Curbside painters unite! Better yet I should probably contact an ACLU attorney and see if they might want to work with me when I don't give out irrelevant information and am denied the opportunity to be a curbside painter. Maybe a lawsuit or two will straighten things up a bit and not subject me to what I view as unfair process of law where I, as a curbside painting want-a-bee, am automatically considered to be more likely to committ a crime and am required to give out all the information they demand.
I suspect they have no hard stats to prove that such a demand for information is neccessary, relevant, or even useful in preventing crimes on the part of all ten of the curbside painters that I was told are legally licenced to do this (I wonder why just ten people gave out all that info and subjected themselves to such nonsense
).Total Comments 6
Comments
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Carlos, it is very easy for a few of these posters, with secure jobs and homes, some of whom have never had to walk in your shoes, to criticize your efforts to make a living, just to SURVIVE, in a heartless world.
We know that all our actions and words are judged, whether we want to acknowledge this fact, or not.
Meantime, my belated suggestion is to go to temporary employment agencies and take whatever work they give you. Long ago, in Santa Barbara, I walked into such an agency, looking for a job opening in office work, and was hired on the spot as an employment interviewer for that agency... the interviewer was quitting her job.
That agency did not charge fees of the person applying for job openings. They charged the employers who hired the job seeker. There was a certain fee, don't recall what, but it wasn't exorbitant.
There are the agencies that do charge the job seeker and make pay arrangements so you can pay off the fee in a few pay checks.
Do look into this as a possible way to get work at various jobs, and eventually one of them could become permanent.
This, too, happened to me, when I moved to Oregon and applied at Kelly Girl (not just girls anymore, though) and was sent out to work for a police academy, where I could have been eventually hired on permanently.
All this to say that you need some help in job seeking and not all on your own. It will wear you down. It is especially important, now, with a rent deadline due in a week.
I am sure that with another month you could establish yourself. It is a sorry state of affairs when someone is trying so hard to do well, and the criticism flows freely.
Also, get a re'sume' in order (I can't figure out how to do the accents correctly)
SummertimePosted 01-24-2009 at 09:45 AM by Summertime
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Thanks very much for the suggestions Summertime. It's certainly a breath of fresh air to hear positive suggestions such as yours (others have also given them though not many) as opposed to the usual put downs and negativity thrown at me on this forum for trying my best to make ends meet without resorting to soup kitchens, welfare, and the like.
Not to mention all the assumptions that continue to be made about me that are absolutely incorrect. The latest being that I am critical of the San Diego Chief of Police (for using him as an example of someone whose private information is not public), that I am disallusioned at riding public transportation, and even that I probably became a US Citizen by claiming refugee status! Unbelievable!
I have a very good lead to a potentially good job that I will be applying for but again...it does not pay immediately. So if hired...I will have to work it part-time initially.
The problem is that I need money right away. I can't wait for money to start rolling in Summertime.
I need to eat (I've been able to get by on $5 a day but that's cutting it down to little more than bread - on a good day with peanut butter and jelly, a couple of pieces of fruit, and one hamburger per day). I also need to pay $5 a day for a bus pass to get around (which I am only getting when I absolutely must get around - staying near home the other days). I wish I could buy a monthly bus pass but I don't have $66.50 to get that not to mention that they don't sell them in the middle of the month.
So...I need to find work that pays me right away. Not two weeks from now.
Tomorrow I will go and try to find businesses that might benefit from having someone hold a sign on the roadside for them to advetise what they have to offer. One business that I spoke with today was very, very interested in that. And if they do it...they are willing to pay daily.
It's only $8 an hour for a couple of hours but that's enough for me to survive on and a little extra. If I find a few such business I could end up making enough to not just survive but to end up relatively well off with respect to my needs which are really quite small. At least until I find something that pays better.
Please continue to pray for me.
Carlos
PS. That took a lot for you to write such a long comment Summertime (based on what you shared with me through private PM). I really appreciate your effort to do that. God bless you!Posted 01-24-2009 at 11:30 PM by carlos123
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Hi, yes, it is an effort to type and I keep having to backtrack with a right shoulder in a sling, not to mention being woozy on 2 pain killers.. (in case anyone wonders what he means by 'effort.') In fact, that is why I am up this late. as been really in slumber-land most of the day, the cat and I were not up and about and rain was falling down. Makes for a dreary time.
It is not surprising, it is appalling, to find smugness and the sense of hostility which reigns over your endeavors. Kind of makes one recall the saying, "There but for the grace of God, go I."
The times are tough and people's attitudes are tougher, and callous, and indifferent. I knew this to be true but not as much as now having read your posts and the type of spirit which replies to them. But then, we know that is the way it is 'supposed' to be.
I hope your paychecks do come in on time this week and that you are offered work that will help you to establish your profession, whatever you choose that to be.
One thing.. the world is wide open to you in choices. You are not an illiterate, you are not an educational drop-out, even though there was a reference to non-educated Carlos.. ha~
Your writings are more articulate, grammatically correct and coherently put together than many I have viewed here and there.
You can take that from an English teacher.
In many cases, we know psychologically, that those with low self-esteem find a gratification in demeaning and criticizing others ~~(the people whose good qualities make they, themselves. feel less self-worth.) That is a real problem these days with so many lacking a kind and caring background and foundation.
So, let it all go down the drain, keep the faith.
And forget using your time and energy in futile exchanges with those who would be king.
SummertimePosted 01-25-2009 at 12:33 AM by Summertime
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Hi Summertime...yeah I sometimes wonder if I am wasting my time on this forum for in truth I spend more time trying to undo false impressions of me, assumptions, inuendos, and otherwise than anything else.
But...at the same time I enjoy interacting with others over the Internet immensily and it is a form of recreation for me to engage others in conversation here.
It helps me feel like I am a part of humanity. That I am not alone. That as tough as some of the circumstances may be that I am presently having to endure...that somehow, in some way God might use my experiences to point others to Himself or to encourage others who may likewise find themselves in need. As they see God help me.
I do hope that what I share does help others in some way or fashion for in truth, we are headed toward very difficult economic times. Perhaps far worse than anything we have experienced to date.
If God can use some of what I share to help others...it will be worth the seeming abuse I put up with here.
CarlosPosted 01-25-2009 at 03:27 PM by carlos123
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Kelly Agency paid weekly, years back.
At that time, the jobs paid around $5.75
an hour or whatever minimum wage was
in 1990.Posted 01-25-2009 at 03:59 PM by Summertime
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I've called Kelly before...though not in San Diego. Weekly pay a la Kelly or Manpower or any of those other agencies doesn't help much.
If I work this week...they don't cut a check until next Friday type of thing. Certainly not a daily work...daily pay type of place.
Given that I have to eat and otherwise get around by bus and only have about $40 left to my name...I am focusing on other, more immediate paying opportunities.
But...I will see about looking into them if I can't find anything else.
So far today...I have had one guacomole (just ate it straight out of it's shell with a bit of salt) and some dry no-name brand Raisen Bran type cereal that I bought a couple of days ago. Oh and I ate some peanut butter mixed with jelly too. I ran out of bread last night.
Surprisingly...I am feeling pretty good and am not even hungry
. I think my stomach has shrunk from even just a couple of weeks ago when I was eating at Hometown Buffet every day (yum...yum).
I will use some of that $40 when I walk to Food-4-Less (about 45 minutes away by foot one way) and get more bread.
Incidentally...$40 may not sound like much but compared to the .06 cents I was down to one day last week...well...I am relatively well off just now
Thanks for the tip.
CarlosPosted 01-25-2009 at 04:35 PM by carlos123
