8/13 - Fate and our trip to the Keys

Do you believe in providence, karma or fate?

I planned out a trip to the Keys this summer.  The game plan was to take the Amtrak out of Penn Station to Miami.  From there grab a hotel for the night then rent a car.  Drive to the Keys and get a room at the Sombrero Hotel in Marathon.  Why there? Cost and it is in the center of the Keys for the most part.  We would leave late in July and come back to NY (yuk) the first week of August.

While there I wanted to reach out and meet face to face some of my FB friends.  Lunch or a drink or two, or something like that to BS a bit.  I’m not going to mention who I wanted to meet here.  I want to learn firsthand the business climate there and see where I can market myself to prospective employers.  After all I specialize in network / computer support and webpage design plus have a lot of marine service experience as a chief mechanic and parts manager from working in a yacht dealership.

Of course while there do some ‘tourist’ stuff.  Things like hanging out at Mallory Square during sunset, lunch at the Hog’s Breath Saloon, a brewski or two or three at Sloppy Joe’s, maybe lunch at the No Name Pub.  Watching the Dolphins at the DRC.  And enjoy sitting on the beach just letting time slip away.

Next thing you know, my pathetic below poverty level unemployment ran out.  There is no way I could finance the trip on that but it did supplement what we have.  At least it would have paid for a few nights at the hotel.

Because of the stoppage of funds the trip is now on hold, again.  Please feel free to insert some appropriate language here, I know I did.

As you would have it we were hit with yet another tragedy.  My sister-in-law who lives in Phoenix had two CVA’s with the second being pretty bad.  For those who do not know what a CVA is, it is a Cerebral Vascular Accident or a stroke.  We have been on the phone with her and her husband on a daily basis.

There is improvement and she is now stable and out of the hospital, but there is a decent amount of damage.

It was decided that we are going to have to drive, you heard me, drive to Phoenix from Long Island.  My wife refuses to fly and the train is totally out of the question.  So we are going to rent a car and three of us are driving the entire distance.  It will not be cheap and it will not be comfortable.  But it is something that we have to do, for what if.  We are leaving NY on 9/1 and hope to be back 9/11 of all days.  Of course if things for her get worse then we are going to bump the trip up sooner.

I figured that with the three of us taking turns driving we should make it in about a day and a half depending on traffic and how we hold up.  But I am allowing three days each way to be on the safe side.

I guess there was a reason as to why we never made it to the Keys in July.  Providence, karma?  Who knows?  But I am NOT giving up on my dream or plans on going to the Keys.

8/3 - NY Afforadble Healthcare, what a joke

Everyone is aware of the ObamaCare law which mandates that all Americans have affordable healthcare. But the law does not state what is to be considered affordable.

Case in point, in New York they came up with the affordable heathcare reform on the heels of ObamaCare. Looking at the New York Affordable Heathcare site paying from $3,000 to $4,000 a month is considered affordable.  I would like to know what Governor Cuomo has been smoking.  I don't think many indviduals can afford that unless you are very well off.  Cuomo has always been in favor of the rich and could care less about the working class or the low income.

Of course there is Healthy New York. This plan for a family of two will cost just over $1,000 a month. Better than the Affordable Healthcare but still not affordable.  Healthy New York does not cover anything much.  No durable equipment, only a hand full of medications, and if you need surgery you are better off grabbing the kitchen knife and doing it yourself.  So for the most part Heathy New York is a waste of time and money.

Next is Family Health Plus.  This is a free program and it covers a lot.  Unlike Healthy New York it will pay for durable equipment, most medications, most surgical procedures, doctor visits and more.  It is a great plan but it is very difficukt to get into.  Your household income must fall between a certain amount.  Even with New York Unemployment which already is way below the national poverty level is far too high of an income to qualify for Family Health Plus.

Next is Medicaid.  In Nassau County you have to sign over everything you own to the Department of Social Services who administers Medicad here.  You cannot have any savings for at least three years prior, have to sign over your life insurance to them, cannot have any retirement, if you own a home that must be signed over to DSS, if you own a car that must be signed over to DSS unless you can find someone who will pay for the car insurance, gas, maintenance, and if there is a note on it they have to take that over.  Also with Nassau DSS ypu are not allowed to be in debit to any credit card agencies for they consider that a luxury.  And the big kicker, you cannot have anyform of income at all for three years. Gotta love Nassau County.

Once you get onto Medicaid the care you get is pathetic at best.  Beyond substandard.

To add insult to injury with Medicaid in Nassau County, let's say you are on it for a year and then finally get a job, something that does not exist in New York, Nassau DSS will garnish 50% of your salary to get paid back.  If you had a surgery during that year, you will be paying them back for the rest of your life.  So once you get onto Medicaid in Nassau, you will never get off it.

How do I know this, we were being forced to go that route and when we learned how much we would lose we backed out.  Plus a neighbor of ours had to go onto it.  She was forced to sign over everything to Nassau DSS.  DSS allowed her to live in her home with her mentally disabled son.  When she died and before she could be put into the ground Nassau DSS evicted  her son onto the street then turned around and sold the house.

Now in December the minimum wage is to go up to a whooping $9/hr.  Do you think with that people can get health insurance?  Let's do the math, shall we?

NYS Minimum wage ($)                      9.00
Times a typical work week(hr)            40    
Gross weekly salary                     360.00
(Less 25%) taxes                        (90.00)

Net weekly salary                       270.00
Times weeks in a month                    4.5  

Net monthly salary                    1,215.00

Right off the bat you can see that the new minimum wage of $9 that takes affect in December cannot possibly cover what New York claims to be affordable healthcare.  Mind you the figures still do not cover rent which is an average of $1,600 a month in Nassau, food for a family of 4 can run $200 a week, gas for a car and more.  Without the health coverage you are running into a deficit.

Governor Cuomo obviously does not care.  So as far as affordable health care in New York, there is none.

6/30 - Using socail media

As many know, my job search is going no where fast. I've sent out close to 2,000 resumes, registered with 150 employment firms, attended cattle calls (job fairs), reached out to past vendors for suggestions, attended networking sessions, had my resume re-done, connected with 800+ people on LinkedIn, and have about 300 or so Facebook 'Friends', and knocked on hundreds for doors to get turned away.

Recently I read an article posted on LinkedIn in using social media for the best coverage. The article was mainly targeting businesses in how to get the most out of it and when people are most likely to see your posts. It was based on an in depth study on when the most traffic is which means the most exposure. It was broken down not only by day, but as granular as to the hours of the day.

As an example, you have an eatery and want to post about an upcoming special or your signature dish. You would not want to post it at 11pm when traffic is low but more so during the day between 9 and 5 with 11 to 2 as the peak times for people to catch the post.

Using this theory I am going to try and use the social media in that manner. I have a very valuable product that I need to market and that product is me. So by 'selling myself' on social media routinely just might pick up some interest and get me an interview or better still a job offer.

Looking at the data from market researchers I am drilling down the best times in when to post. From there I am creating several posts in word ahead of time so I can copy and paste them in. With Twitter since you are allowed only 140 characters, MS Word will help with the count. I just need to be very creative in marketing which is not my strong point.

I am going to post as to why you should hire me without being too wordy. Blasts of some of my selling points. A new one each time. Keeping me in the eyes of the viewers. A FB connection posts several times a day with photos of herself. She is keeping herself in the public eye. I have no idea how much business she is getting from FB, but she is very successful over all.

I don't know if I would want to post that much, for it could be considered as spam. But in her case since she has a great body, that is an asset. In my case, I am not very photogenic although my professional profile photo shows up on LinkedIn and Twitter where I use my real name.

I will say that one of my posts on LinkedIn did get positive attention. And one of them was from Key West so I know I hit the right nerve.  Now to keep it up.

Not only am I going to post as to my attributes in why you should hire me, but give away some free tips as well. And while I am at it, I am going to create some tutorials and put them on Viemo a video sharing site like You-Tube.  The big difference is that I pay for the space and the video length can be a lot longer that You-Tube allows.  From there include the URL to the video in my posts.

As for doing that with Twitter, I am going to use Google's URL shortener.

Hopefully that will land me a few interviews and maybe a job offer.  In the Keys I hope.

'till next time

6/24 - Key West remains a dream

Earlier in the month my wife finally agreed to visiting Key West so I started making all the final plans and getting costs nailed down.

I selected the date for our trip, leave NY July 27th on Amtrak. Arrive in Miami the next evening. Cab to a hotel nearby for the night. Next day rent a car and head to the Keys. A few hours later arrive at the hotel and spend 5 days in the Keys enjoying life and checking out the areas. Then back to Miami, hotel, next day return the car and Amtrak back to Penn Station.

I have the train selected, the hotels and the car as well. We will save money by getting a room we can cook in and buy food from Publix. There are laundry facilities in the hotel plus a few laundomats near by. Our daily excursions were to be to let our passions guide us. A few must do stops are planned like Mallory Square at sunset, lunch at the No Name Pub, The little Key Deer refuge, and possibly the Dolphin Research Center.

Of course no trip would be complete without stopping off at the Hog's Breath Saloon and Smokin' Tuna. Might even run into Mayor Gonzo Mays at The Tuna. A brewski is in order at Sloppy Joe's and The Green Parrot would be great.

And naturally I would love to be able to sit down and meet some of my 'FB friends' like Dawn, Steve, Judy, Bucky, Stacie, Johnny, just to name a few.

At the end of the day I figure that the entire trip will run just under 3 grand. Not too bad. The bulk of the money would be for the train, hotels and car rental. The actual stay would be relatively cheap. Would be great if I could get and stay there for free, wishful thinking.

Time to start gathering the finances in order and finalize everything before making the reservations. Then it hit hard, real hard.

Looking at our bank balances we have the money. Plus I was able to sell a webpage (finally some income) that would help cover the trip. When running down our checking account I found out that my unemployment has stopped. My benefits have been exhausted without warning. Mind you it was way below the national poverty level to begin with, thank you very much Albany, but at least it was something coming in.

So once again I am forced to put the trip on hold and going to the Keys remains nothing more than a dream unless I get lucky in finding a job here or better still in the Keys.

'till next time.

6/9 - Crime is up in Nassau County

In a recent news report, the area in where I live is covered by the 6th Pct of the Nassau County Police.  Rape, murder and burglaries in my area are up 18.91%.  In an area south of me in the same police precinct it is up 10.93%.  Not very comforting

At the same time in their infinite wisdom Nassau County Officials closed and merged the 3rd Pct with the 6th.

But over all rape, murder and burglaries in Nassau County are up 1.24%.  This is not very comforting.

Aside from the fact that our property taxes are hitting all time highs as much as a 30% increase, foreclosures are on the increase, LiPA is sending the rates through the roof do to their mis-management of Sandy, stores are closing left and right, crime is now going up making Nassau an unsafe place to live.

In last weeks Newsday it was reported that 60,000 people are leaving New York each year.  Talking to people I know they too are fed up with the crime, taxes and LiPA and they are planning on leaving.  A woman down the street from me no has her house on the market.  I look around and see many places with for sale sign on them.  More now than ever before.  I wonder why.

Is it time that we too should think about getting out of New York?  I should say so.

 'Till next time


 References:

Nassau County PBA Blames Police Precinct Merger For Crime Spike-http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/04/17/nassau-county-pba-blames-police-precinct-merger-for-crime-spike/ 

Spike in Major Crimes in Some Nassau Precincts-http://fios1news.com/longisland/node/31447

 

6/4 - Been off line

I've not had the chance to do much blogging for a while.  We learned that the building where we live is going on the market which means we will have to move.  Right now no dates have been set so we are in a state of limbo.  In order to prepare we have been collecting boxes and started to pack up things we are not using.  This way when it happens there will be that much less to do.

The big problems are - where are we going to move to and how are we going to afford it especially since I am still out of work.  As many of you who read this blog knows, I hate NY and would love to move to the Keys.  My wife on the other hand refuses to leave Long Island.  I even showed her the difference in the cost of living in how the Keys beats this area hands down, but she will not budge, yet.

Once there I might be able to secure a job. at least I would hope so.  Reading some of the other blogs and from other resources the job market there really does not seem to encouraging.

She had major surgery recently at North Shore University Hospital and is now home recovering.  My plans now are to do a trip to the Keys with her in July or August during the peak of the heat for the area to face the worst and check things out.  Maybe then she will decide to move there.  The reason I want to face the worst is that will help determine if we do truly like it there.  I am certain that the summers there are no worse than here.

I can also use the time to knock on doors since my networking attempts have not produced any results.  If all goes the way I want, then good bye NY hello to the Keys.  But first things first and that is to do a trip there. 

If you have followed this blog for some time you would know that I am contemplating two way of going there.  First the Am-Trak to Miami and rent a car the rest of the way or drive the 1440 miles from NY to there.  Both have advantages and disadvantages.  Right now as of this writing I am leaning to driving the whole trip back and forth.

Once we get there finding work and a place to live will be on the top of the to-do list.  What would be ideal would be a rent to own arrangement.  Unless of course I hit the Lotto then it boils down to simpler decisions.

 'till next time

4/4 - Cold Spring

This is supposed to be April, spring time but right now it is only 35 degrees out and with the wind there is a wind chill of 28. They say it is to hit the 50's later on with rain at the end of the week. Rain is a far cry better than snow, that is for sure. But you know exactly where I wish I was right now and it is not in NY.

COBRA was killing me financially, $2,000 a month and on the below poverty level unemployment, things get dicey real fast. We were able to go onto the Healthy NY plan, finally. Originally the monthly premium is less than half of COBRA for the standard plan. And with the way our idiot governor recently slashed unemployment, that savings helps.

The cards came in and I noticed that we were put into the high deductible plan.  Something that can seriously hurt us financially, but not as bad as COBRA.  I also noticed that the premium is even lower.  I guess that is because of the plan.  I called the insurance company to find out why we were in the HD plan to begin with.  As it turns out that idiot governor we have eliminated the standard plan as a cost savings.

Bad enough the unemployment here has been seriously reduced to way below poverty levels but to have us pay a high deductible on insurance is insane.  It is already hard to make ends meet.  The citizens of NY should simply band together and demand that Cuomo get kicked out of office.  He has no idea of what it is like in the real world.

Cuomo has done nothing to stimulate job growth especially for the mature worker, he slashed unemployment benefits, screwed around with health care making it hard to afford for those in low income.  He is only for the wealthy.  God I hate New York with a passion.

Later in the week I am going to do some volunteer work at a disaster relief center.  This will not only give me something else to do but may open up some networking opportunities that may lead to a job.  I heard about them from an executive networking group that I am a member of.

One thing that was suggested to me at another networking group I go to is to post some computer tips and suggestions on the groups I am a member of on LinkedIn.  This way people can see that I have something to offer.  Do this as a weekly tip from moi.  Might be a good idea, even expand it to my Facebook page.  Then maybe someone will get the idea to reach out to me and start up an employment conversation and make me an offer.

'till next time