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Jerry Loggins Notes

Notes on life, family and friends by Jerry Loggins

When Kenny was thinking about taking the latest early retirement offer from the telephone company, he said that he was thinking that he would use the incentive money to move his family down to Florida and try to find a job doing the cabling work for another telephone company like ABC Telecom. He was showing me a magazine that was all about the telecommunications business, and there were a lot of advertisements and listings from companies that were hiring people in the industry.

I was quite amazed to see dozens of listing for employment opportunities for experienced Central Office Equipment Installation Technicians in foreign countries! Kenny explained to me that a lot of the older systems that his work crew had been ripping out of the old central offices were actually being sold to foreign countries for them to use in their telecommunications infrastructure. The equipment that our telephone companies were retiring and “junking out” that was over twenty or thirty years old was actually an “upgrade” to these other countries’ systems!

Just learning that made me stop and think for just a moment about how much technology has advanced over the past few decades, and how we, as citizens of the United States are blessed to have access to the newest technologies. There have been times that I’ve seen television shows, and gone to museum exhibits and learned about third world countries that take things that have been cast off by other countries and ended up using them to improve their lives. The old adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is as true today as it was in my grandparent’s day!

Science project secret

Posted by J L on April 17, 2013
Posted in BusinessFriends and FamilyParentingShopping  | Tagged With: ,

Sometimes I have to wonder what in the world the kids are up to with their science projects. I’ve learned over the years to not interfere – they aren’t little kids anymore, but when they ask me where they can find a local company that performs tube bending services I have a really hard time not asking a million questions! I swear if they weren’t such upstanding kids, I’d wonder if they were up to mischief!

Finally found some time to look online to research, as I promised at Easter dinner last night, and find the best cheap postcard printing options for my kid sister’s boyfriend. He is starting his own landscaping company and wants to try various marketing attempts in order to get the word out and get some business drummed up as soon as possible. There is a lot of money out there in this type of business, but a lot of competition to try and get over, around and/or above and I will help him (for my kid sisters sake) in any way that I can.

They have managed to stay together (without a lot of unnecessary drama) for over two years, so this just might be the one. He is a good enough guy to get along with when I see him on occassion. A step up from previous relationships, in the whole families opinion. With that said I guess I better sign off and get my butt in gear and send him the links that I have come up with and see what he says about that before proceeding. The weather is getting nicer with each day that arrives and there a tons of landscapers taking advantage of it.

 

Joke on Me

Posted by J L on April 1, 2013
Posted in BusinessLife 

The boss decided to play a joke on us today. Since it is April Fool’s Day, we should have been suspicious anyway. But, to be honest, I didn’t think that the boss was the kind of guy to play pranks. So we showed up for work and everyone found a pink slip at their workstation. It said, “Terminated” in big letter, and your heart just stopped beating for a moment when you saw that. But then you read the rest of it and at the bottom it says “April Fools!” I have to say that some of us didn’t think it was very funny, but we laughed to be good sports.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend one of the local Elk’s Lodges meetings, with one of my neighbors that has been trying for years to get me involved in one or more of the local civic organizations that he has faithfully belonged to for most of his adult life. It runs deep in his family and the community, which I think is pretty impressive. I am envious of people that can and do devote so much of their time and energy to the numerous charities and organizations that have been around for a good amount of time all across the country.

This particular Lodge is having a rough time recruiting enough members to keep all their positions filled and to head all of the various committees, etc… From what I hear that is happening with just about all the organizations, they are all in need of new blood and they seem to like the scent of my blood. They were all over me the minute I walked in the door. Don’t get me wrong, they were all very nice and no one invaded my personal space, which is something that I’m a real stinker with the older I get.

I came home with a nice stack of business cards with names and contact information. The one gent that I will give a call to works for the CSI Tech Staffing Agency and I know several professional people that are looking for employment and I’m always trying to network and advocate for them when I’m able to. And last night was the perfect time for that. It was an interesting evening, I’ll go back a few more times and see if it might be something that I would want to commit to.