Happy birthday, Nutty!

My dad got into our family's genealogy after he retired and traced us back to Rottweil, Germany. Then he traveled there and had the local librarian call up random Schmehs until one woman dutifully came out to meet with him and discuss the family.

In America he traced us back to our first ancestor here, John Smay, who came over before the Revolutionary War. In Germany he went back to the 1400s once they got into the church records.

My paternal grandmother's maiden name was French and she came out of Wales so we think her line were Huguenots who came over from France.

My mom's side is Scots and came out of Maryland, well before the Civil War. Probably back to Colonial times.

I think anyone working with youth would do well to share info like this with them. Eldercare, green energy, recycling technologies - those seem like growing industries.

I will once again pitch welding. Welders are needed to build power plants, wind turbines, and much of the needed infrastructure repairs, and there's a critical shortage of them. We've become so focused on college for everyone that we've shortchanged any kind of technical track in high school that would lead to high-end technical training schools for things like welding and auto mechanics.

Frankly, I'm not sure I want to believe in a god who can't even manage his own Rapture on time. Screw that.

If I were an all-powerful deity, I'd just pick one person at random to Rapture. Screw everybody else.

Or else just Rapture all the hairless cats or something....

Happy birthday, Spidra!

Aimee, that sucks hard. On the other hand, I'm hoping you get a new job that's less boring and more you.

In NY, I heard that elevator repairmen and plumbers were both in shortage. I know good mechanics are needed in my current area.

We've become so focused on college for everyone that we've shortchanged any kind of technical track in high school that would lead to high-end technical training schools for things like welding and auto mechanics.

amen. And we've created this generation that looks down on technical work because they've been told all of their lives that college is the pinnacle, and doing "manual labor" is beneath them.

And we've created this generation that looks down on technical work because they've been told all of their lives that college is the pinnacle, and doing "manual labor" is beneath them.

When S. was a teenager, he worked on a fishing boat in Cape Cod while he was up there visiting his sister. About 80% of the guys on the boat had gone to college and graduated, but they'd come back to run the business, because they liked the freedom of it, the hard work aspect of it, and not taking anything home with them at the end of the day, aside from worries about enough catches, I guess.

< perks up ears>

ha! i take it you're in the area. i'll technically be in Joliet and will probably have a little bit of free time if anyone wants to meet up. only problem is i'll be carless. i'm using a car service to get to and from the airport and relying on others to get me to places i'll need to be for wedding stuffs.

i'm unable to stop myself from looking at reasonably priced shoes. any opinions on how these would look with the dress? [link] [link] [link] [link]

In NY, I heard that elevator repairmen and plumbers were both in shortage. I know good mechanics are needed in my current area.

They may have been raptured.