Gardening: Near Endangerment and the Proliferation of Green. Day 26

Day 26? While I posted up day 1 on the 2nd of February, I planted the seeds and what not on the 28th of January. Anyway moving on.

Can you see which one has sprouted?

Throughout the month I did my best to take care of my plants and I was rewarded. As of today both plants have sprouted. To be exact the Lemon Basil sprouted on Day 26 and the Sweet Basil on Day 12. I remember being worried on Day 11 because I accidentally left the hose on and the Lemon Basil pot got blasted somewhat by the water. I panicked and added a layer of soil and re-watered it; hoping that all the hose did was expose the seed some.  As of today my worries are gone as a single sprout protruded from the pot. I know a single? That isn’t much but its shows that at least 1 seed survived the onslaught and that I do not have to start all over.

Can you spot the green dots?

As I have learned the plants need lots of sun and to my disappointment, because of the angle my window sill is, I do not think that they get much light so I have started to put them on the porch ground where sunlight is hitting and then as the day closes move back to the window sill. However, that habit died quickly and it seems they do in fact get enough light as the Basil continues to grow. Another problem is that recently the city has been experiencing very moody weather from raining days , cold days, to nice warm days. However, this particular breed of seeds seem quite temperature tolerant.

Basil Sprout City.

The day after the hose incident the Sweet Basil sprouted and has been growing strong since. However, the problem now is that the pot has multitudes of Basil sprouts growing. I could pull up each one and put them in their own pots but what I have decided to do is let nature thin them out and then move the remaining ones into new pots.

As for my watering habits, I use a hose “gun” and set it on flat. I use to use it on mist but I found myself watering the pots several times a day. Not a good habit when I find work. Putting it at the flat setting and spraying the water from the opposite end of the porch as to not turn the pots into mini-lakes, I water the plants once per day for 60-70 seconds. The plants seems to like that as I also water at random times and it isn’t a day consumer so I will stick to that for now, and adjusting the watering time as the plants get bigger.

Can you spot the lone green trooper?

Day 26 and looks likes I have found a enjoyable  hobby I can keep up.

Gardening: My New Hobby. Day 1

Hard to believe but I have yet to find a job. Over the years I have applied to the big franchise stores like Walmart, Publix, and chain restaurants like McDonald’s to no avail.  I have tried Craigslist and I found a one time gig as a handy man’s assistant but I was so bad I do not blame him for not contacting me since then. To get over my joblessness and part of creating a healthier me, I have decided to start growing my food.

I know that hardly seems to be a normal response to joblessness but what the hey; people are motivated to do different things. So in an ironic twist of fate, I end up in the gardening section at Walmart. As I walk around and look at the different the tools and seed packets, I see how expensive some things can be. On one side of the seed isle, packets go for upwards $2 while on the other as low as $0.20, while on the opposite row where you grow the plants from its “fruits” such as onions, beets, and so on, they could go for even higher, but since my growing skills were basic at best, I knew I wasn’t going to buy them and ignored their prices. I go for the cheap part of the isle and buy 8 packs some 20 cents, some 50. After that I go where the pots are. I live in a deed restricted neighborhood and they want the front(and back but they are not stupid enough to go spy on someone’s backyard without a lot ruckus from the homeowners) yard vegetable and herb free. The front and back yards were covered by lawn grass anyway and digging up the yard for space was not a option. With this in mind, I decided that whatever I grow will grow for the rest of its life cycle in a pot.

Because I choose to do pot gardening(lol it sounds like I am growing marijuana), it also limited my seed choices and I kept my self away from most creeping vines accept peas and away from anything that grew like a bush or tree.  I bought two small clay pots and moved on to the biggest hurdle of the day: the potting soil. Because I am walking home from Walmart, it was best to not have much carry weight and the soil bags I have gotten in the past were heavy even when it was just a case of getting the bags into car trunks. Like a ray of hope I found smalls bags of plant starter soil for $2.00 and bought two. The reason I bought two is because I thought one would not have enough to fill up both of the pots.

After paying for the goods and getting home and almost getting murdered by seagulls who thought I was going to throw them some McDonald’s (see that is part of the problem, bad food choices in my diet but I didn’t eat the night before and I was hungry),  I decide to wait another day to begin growing the stuff. Around Monday afternoon, I decide it was time to plant these seeds or I never will.

Next came the choice of what to plant. I had a total of 10 seed packs, 8 from Walmart and two I won from Listia. I have the following: Ruby Queen Beet, Early Golden Acre Cabbage, Prizehead Lettuce, Little Marvel Pea, Black Seed Simpson Lettuce, Straight Eight Cucumber(there is a sexual preference joke somewhere there), Organic Cilantro, Scarlet Nantes Carrot, Sweet Basil, and Lemon Basil.

At first I was gonna do the beets and a basil but the size of the pots discouraged me from choosing them. The size of the pots also knocked the out everything but the two basil as choices and in a way that was good. Since I am starting new and all, its best that I start with a plant that I don’t have to wait to fruit, a creeping vine that will need ever more space, or a root that will need a bigger pot anyway. Herbs are good starters as you just pick off leaves as you need them and they keep on going.  My decision for the future is that I will do plot gardening like said earlier but I will tailor each plant to a different pot size. I’ll have to research the ones I didn’t pick so that I buy pots that give enough growing and maturing room.

The Sweet Basil package has the plant germinating in 10-18 days and from what I can gather of Lemon Basil, 4-6 weeks but I doubt it will take that long. I took one of the soil bags and to my surprise one had enough for both pots with some left over. After put in the seeds, covering them and watering them, I take the soil bags and put them into trash bags to keep bugs out of them as they often get in the garage where I store the other yard equipment. Oh yes, I forgot. I bought some sticker labels to put on the pots to know which is which.

I know it seems mighty early but where I live we are so far getting warm days with a few cool ones. If this turns out correctly, I will have started to grow my own food. Now I just need a wide field and some money. Haha.

Requiring a State Id or Driver’s License to Vote is a Bunch of Bullshit.

So today I just got my voter registration card meaning that I can vote but something has been bothering me. When I registered two-three weeks ago, the guy who registered me said that I needed to bring a photo id to the voting center to vote and voter card indicates that as well.

Look, I am all for preventing voting fraud but not at the expense of tearing up the U.S. Constitution.  I am talking about the 24th Amendment that abolishes all taxes on voting:

 

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

In order to get a Florida State Id or Driver’s License you to pay a fee or tax, cheaper when directly from the capital, and an additional tax is levied when you try local.  That means  that the State of Florida is taxing the right to vote through State ID’s.

Considering the fact that I didn’t need an ID to register and considering all of the information I had to provide, why an I.D. all of a sudden now? The fact you sent me an Voter card means I passed inspection. If you were truly about preventing fraud while letting legal citizens vote, you would allow citizens to use SSN cards which are free but those would arguably be illegal under the 24th Amendment as well seeing as you need a picture ID to even get one, which isn’t free as pointed out earlier, funny being how you need a SSN card to get a State ID in which itself is an paradoxal rule/law.

Then, apparently in Ohio their Photo Id law was stroke down not because of going against the 24th Amendment but because there isn’t enough time to do the I.D checks and the law will be valid for the 2016 Election. Bullshit.

I am considering challenging the Florida law that requires Photo I.D’s to vote. I have already made contact with a constitutional lawyer’s office and will be talking tomorrow to the lawyer about this offense.

I am looking for one of the two outcomes:

1) The Florida law requiring Photo ID’s to vote be stroke down.

2) Florida Photo I.D’s be made free.

If none of this comes to pass I will vote by mail ballot.

Folks who are sending me comments about On-Page SEO.

I have gotten a lot of comments about my blog’s On-Page SEO which I guess effects my google and Alexia ranking. I am not looking for fame or popularity, otherwise I would be posting even when I have nothing to say. If I wanted popularly or a lot of clicks then I would try to make a social networking or news sites, not a blog.

For all who have sent me comments about On-Page SEO or are about to, watch and listen to this carefully.

If you are not one of these people then have a good day.

A Note to Some Commenters.

I am noticing a small trend in some of the comments that I am getting. Well only two but I want to nip this in the bud before it becomes a majority.  Some people have been sending comments about my spelling. That would be fine if they were valid or that a significant portion of my posts were littered with misspellings. However, I get these comments after the fact that I have gone through and corrected my spelling and grammar(well grammar to the best of my ability) meaning such comments are bullshit. For the record I have spell checker on my web browsers, so I know when I am misspelling something. My response to such comments (I have them removed as spam so you can not see them):

If you are not one of these people then have a good day.

Potteremore: A Mixed Bag of Spells and Potions.

I must confess, I am a Harry Potter fan and as such I have a Pottermore account. I am in Ravenclaw and my wand is Pine, Phoenix Feather, 14 1/2 inches, Supple and as I write this right now I have accumulated 394 house points. As for who I am on Pottermore, I will not say since I have no desire to get bombarded with friend requests.

For those without a Pottermore account, Pottermore is an interactive site where people can become students of Hogwarts, get a wand and get sorted into a house while going through the chapters to unlock info about the series not in the books. An interactive Encyclopedia or sorts. As it stands only Philosopher’s Stone and the first 4 chapters of Chamber of Secrets is open.

While exploring each chapter you also gain items, books,  potion ingredients, badges, and Harry Potter universe info. Outside of the chapters, you have your character interface in which you can go to Diagon Alley which connects to Gringotts Bank and Diagon Alley South. This is used to purchase schools books, supplies, and what not that are used in the Harry Potter universe. Next, is the Great Hall where you can leave comments for all students regardless of house can view and respond; and also view the house point totals to see which house is winning and which are not and the top point earners from each house. From there you have the Common Room which is the same as the Great Hall but only viewable by members of your house where you leave comments, see who are the top point earners of your house and see the recent actions by other members that resulted in the house gaining points.

From there is spells where you can practice spell casting and if one is confident enough play wizard dueling for house points. You have potions next to that which allow you to practice potion making or attempt to make potions for points, this is where the ingredient gathering from the chapters and Apothecary in Diagon Alley comes in.

Then you have the trunk which holds all of the chocolate frog cards, books, and miscellaneous items that you have found or received from other players go. Next to that is Friends where you can view who has befriended you, while giving you the options of sending them items or removing them from the friend list.

From there you have Favorites, which is material you have placed as your favorite from exploring the chapters such as characters, places, and objects.

Under that is a chapter bar which shows you where you left off in the exploration, then your wand description, student name and total points, and notifications for friend requests, potion brewing, duel requests, or the rare update from those who run the site.

Finally under that is your profile which allows access to Badges, Friends,Potions, Spells, Trunk, Favorites, and Drawings in-which you can submit to the site for showing to other members, remember,  has to be appropriate and Harry Potter related so no Dumbledore/Snape Yaoi pics.

Generally I like the site. I love the new info like on the Malfoy family, wizard dueling, and potions.

Lets now analyze parts of the site.

Names

When you join this site you will be given a choice of three randomly preselected names. You cannot have it regenerate new ones and you can not create custom names.  I will say that most of the names will suck. I had to delete my account before even starting the chapters many times because the name choices sucked. I understand that you want to protect youngsters and all but at least allow us to refresh the list selectable user names if what is given is not desired.

Wands

In the first book, once you complete your shopping list, you will be asked to go to Olivander’s to get your wand. This is done by having answer a questionnaire. They will be Height, Eye Color, Even or Odd Birthday, Trait Valued, Where you Journey, Fear, and which item would you pick. With my first time around, I got English Oak, Unicorn, 14 1/2 and I forgot the bendiness. This wood’s description is why I closed my first account and started all over until I got one that matched my personality. While I liked the association with nature, I hated that it said I was loyal and all that friendly stuff. Its a wand wood for those with or those who desire friends in my opinion and I crave very little human interaction. I think the problem lies in what the choices mean to me and what they mean to Pottermore.  The choice of woods represented isolation and rejection of modern society to me. The Castle represented to me station, rank, money, and social interaction, the sea the same with woods until I learn it results in Sycamore and  think it represents adventure and discovery akin to the Age of Discovery/Exploration where Christoper Columbus and many voyagers destroyed the myth of the Earth being flat.

So I searched around the net for someone who can break down these questions, I found this site. This site was collecting data on sortings and wand pairings and I was to see what my choices were. I choose Pine.

Rather than choose imagination, I choose Reliance. This represented the hard skin I had to develop through out my life as I had to deal with my class mates, bullies, and stupid older people. I choose Castle next, this being that while a Castle is full of people it can be big enough that you can find places of solicitude, just like how did public school and now college. Castles like the natural world can hold many secrets and can be places of knowledge such as having a library. Rather than choose a fear of heights I choose darkness because I find myself more scared of dreams that involve night time or darkness than the ones that involve me flying. I choose tall because as I child and in my teenage years I was usually taller than my former classmates. I choose the scroll because it could hold lost information and choose dark brown for eye color with my birthday being on an odd date.  So I ended up with Pine, Phoenix Feather 14 1/12, Supple.

Sorting

This is where you get sorted into your house.  My policy on sorting was different that I would accept the first sorting no matter what and if I decided to start all over would aim for that house for now on.  The questions I received are on the site I linked earlier under the name Umitencho but I got Ravenclaw. However, be warned that unlike the wand questions which were the same no matter what, there are you will get 7 out of 27 possible questions and an additional question in case of an housetall.

Wizard Dueling

Basically you pick a house to challenge where you are paired randomly with a player of that house. You pick a spell and the aim is to cast it as perfect as possible, doing so results in a high score. The player with the highest score wins. Spell casting works like a timed pressing game. Certain letters of the spell’s name pops up and you have to press them twice the moment a white wisp like cursor hits the letter. You can use your mouse or keyboard. Failure to complete the casting results in a low score and hitting the letter when the wisp is outside of the it also reduces the score. Each spell has a pattern, speed, and a highest score possible onto them and winning results in 5 house points.  Sort of like Elite Beat Agents for the DS.

I like dueling but it is broken. As it stands the Full Body Bind spell is the best spell in the game. It has a potential yield of 145 but is of medium difficulty in terms of speed and pattern. This isn’t fair to those who have mastered the pattern and speed of harder spells such as the Jelly Legs or Tongue Tying spells which are only capable of 135 and 140 respectively.

This should be reworked into one of two options:

• All spells should have the same potential score output. This allows for people to choose their spells on preference and favorites, allowing for some of their personality to come through. Personally, I like the Fire Making Spell.

• Score output should be determined by pattern and speed diffulclity. That means those who try the harder spells are rewarded more for completing these spells than they would for casting something like Fire Making or Pimple Jinx.

Either way as it stands Wizard Dueling is monotone with everyone shooting Full Body Bind at each other.

Spells

While some spells are reserved for dueling, some are not used at all because they are not open for use. While you use the Unlocking Spell once in the  Chapters that is it. I would prefer if there were more spell use in the chapters, and maybe a Spell Mini-game. In it you have to cast three spells correct or with a certain point score to win. Maybe a quiz where you answer by casting the correct spell. Maybe reward up to 3 points for this game. Allow for only limited use per day to reduce abuse.

Potions

Potion making in Pottermore is more interactive than Spell Casting.  When you choose to brew a potion you have the choice of one of three Cauldron types, you have Pewter initially but you can buy Brass and Copper from Potage’s Cauldron Shop in Diagon Alley. This affects how long it takes to brew your potion. Pewter is the slowest, Brass is faster, and Copper is the fastest.

You then choose a potion to brew and based on whether or not you have all the ingredients required, some may not be on the list.

Once you choose, you go to the making phase. You get a pestle and mortar on left, cauldron and its heater in the middle, ingredients on right in the from with the book with the instructions in the back with your wand being furthest right. From these you make the potion.  Click the book if you don’t know what to do next and if you fulfill a task, it will be scratched out, be warned the heating instructions will be scratched out the moment you start the heating so its not a reliable measure if you have done it right, use the meter and timer that are provided when the heating is started.

There are two types of ingredients. Dry and wet. Dry means you just pick up the ingredient and put it in its proper place with each placement equal to one measure. Wet ingredients have you picking up the whole bottle where you must carefully pour correct amount. A number will appear to show you how much is poured so far.

You may have to crush your ingredients before putting them in the cauldron. This is what mortar and pestle is for. Click the pestle repeatedly to crush until the meter turns green or is between the brackets. Stirring is one of the hardest actions in the process and can kill your time. Oh yeah, you have to make your potion before the hour glass runs out or it fails. My advice, for clockwise act as if you are drawing a circle going right to left and vice versa for counter clock wise. Once that is all done, click the wand and see if you did the potion correctly so far. That is right your not done. If you do it correctly you will be moved on to the next phase, brewing where you have to wait a certain amount of time to complete the potion. Once the wait is over which can be fill by taking a nap, reading, or youtubing, you come into the final phase where you do the final set of ingredient crushing and adding, stirring, and heating, before you click the wand again to see if the potion was made correctly. If done correctly you get points and the potion is sent to your collection, do it wrong and well no points or -5 points if you blew up your cauldron from over heating and you can just try again. The points rewarded vary by potion but it ranges from 3 to 11.

Personally, I blew up a cauldron accidentally out of anger when I released I messed up on a Sleeping Draught.  I got the wrong impression that exploding cauldrons were removed from the site when it went public this year. Boy was I wrong. If you blow up your cauldron, its is destroyed and you must return to Diagon Alley to purchase another one.

I have reached my personal quota of 3 of each potion but you can make more or less if you want to. Another good thing is that some ingredients respawn but only after your stock of that ingredients is 0. Simply go back in the chapter and moment where you found it and it should be at the same place for collecting. It is a good way to save Galleons since there is currently no way to make in-game money on Pottermore other than the one time collecting of Galleons through out the chapters and the allowance given once at the Diagon Alley chapters of each book. To see where the ingredients respawn, I recommend this site.

As it currently stand I have only one complaint with Potions. They are useless after being made. It basically turns into data hoarding since all you can do with them is gift them to others or keep them. Here is an idea, allow students to give them to Snape for Galleons or sell them to the Diagon Alley shops. Maybe depending on which shop you sell them to and what potion you sell them the amount of Galleons vary. However, the amount received should be equal to or greater than the costs of the ingredients that make up the potion.

House Cup

This is what the players at Pottermore are aiming for,  working together to get their house win the most house points and therefore win the house cup. Of course as I have learned we have cheaters. Its seems for dueling some players of using bots to get the perfect score and rack up points all day while they do something else. The punishment for this so far is having your points cut in half.  Then there is those creating what I call sabotage or sympathizer accounts. These are people who create accounts to join a specific house to sabotage it. They will lose in wizard dueling on purpose and blow up their cauldrons to remove points from that house.

Collectibles

These simply are the items that go into your trunk. They include books, chocolate frog cards, and other items. My gripe with this is that many of these items only serve as data hoarding, giving you a one time house point and nothing else. For example, the seaweed does not have a purpose but I would prefer for it to become a potion ingredient. As it stands only the hairpin had a one time purpose of unlocking a locked closet in the Dursley’s house. That is what they should be used for, unlocking stuff or areas previously not reachable. While I don’t expect for them to give us full access to the information in any of the books, the chocolate frog cards should have more info on the wizard such as birthday and death(if applicable), house sorted and wand specifics, this could go a long way into helping people come terms to what wand and house they were given.

While its nice to win the house cup, I think there should be sub awards. The house cup covers the overall points. There should be a Dueling House Cup for the house with the most points in dueling and something similar for potions.

Two things not on Pottermore I think may come in the future or should:

Hogsmeade: I believe when Prisoner of Azkaban comes out we will be given access to Hogsmeade. Potter fans know this as a small little village near Hogwarts where starting in your third year, you may go to. In the top interface there is a locked tag. I believe this is where it will go.

Patronus: Another feature that I think that will unlock in Prisoner of Azkaban. The Patronus charm is a protection spell against Dementors, dark creatures that feed on happiness. I think perhaps there will be another quiz, maybe one dealing with what makes you happy that will decide what creature or near human that will act as the form of your patronus.

Features that should also be added but unlikely:

Animagus: Similar to patronus, a questionnaire to decide what creature our wizards can turn into. Animagus are wizards that can turn into a specific animal.

Craigslist Job Recruiters: They are Mostly a Waste of your Time.

I think it is no secret that many of us get bombarded with emails from bogus or crappy companies offering us “jobs”.  Many of these are either phishers, mlm crap, or people looking for referrals for their survey or trial offer sites.  I hate to say it but many of these people are lurking on Craigslist.

Why? Simple, part of getting a job off of a site like Craigslist requires that you either contact or leave a contact email, anonymous form or not, unless your trying for Best of Craigslist. All a spammer has to do is look in the classifieds where people post their resumes, or post a vague jobs posting and wait for a response. Once they get a response or find a resume they like, the person is hit with cookie-cutter emails which aim at getting a response so that they have an email to try to sucker out.

The ones I have encountered so far:

• Nigerian Id Theft – This is probably the most known scam out there. They send you post saying that you can receive money from some African Bank, all they need is your identity.  The funny thing about these schemes is that they can’t tell one number from another. Saying you gets thousands or millions but the number posted is in the millions or billions. Example.  “You will get TWO HOUNDED THOUSAND DOLLARS, $2,000,000.” Lol wut.
• Posing as legit companies – I got one email from someone acting like they were Craigslist and that my account was compromised. They wanted me to log back on with a link they provide. This clearly an attempt to steal my account. This being obvious from the fact that my browsers warn me not to click it and that the site URL did not sound Craigslisty. More than likely full of viruses. And when I sent this email to Craigslist, they confirmed that it was fake. I tracked this phony site to some guy in Hong Kong and got all of his personal info. I contacted him and he panicked, threatened to report me to the Chinese Interpol, and after bluffing on that made claims that he was tracking my IP to find me. I simply changed IP addresses to make sure and he never emailed me again. I also received during the conversation fake emails from Chase and other banks claiming that my accounts have been hacked and so on. Problem is this: I have no accounts with these banks and the emails made claims of hacking back in April. Cookie Cutter.
• Fake Errand Boy/Girl Jobs – These are people who claim they need an personal assistant to keep them on track with their lives. Once you agree, they send you a check. Here is the problem. The addresses listed on the mail of the recipient is from other “personal assistants”. What they do is collect your info and use it on other mail so that any tracing of  any bad activity links up to your home address and name. Its why they ask for name, phone, zip and all. So they have a list of address to pretend that they sent it from. What is worse is that the checks are fake and you would get in trouble not them for trying to cash it. I talked to one these scammers where I insisted on PayPal payment and they insist on checks. Because there is no pay check, just you getting in trouble with the law.
• Survey and Trial Sites – These are the ones that get my blood boil. They are no more than people acting as job recruiters who are only out to get referrals. While I have found survey sites that actually pay, most posted have you work hard for very little.  Recently, I have gotten emails from people saying they are an over worked worker and that their boss has authorized them to hire someone or something to that vain. They then link me to a survey site.  A clear ploy to get referrals. Then are Trial Sites. They act like they are survey sites but are actually trial sites. They pay you pennies for signing fr various services. When you click a survey you get a bunch of questions on a cookie cutter site that then afterwards want you to pay for something or give your cell phone number to charge you that way in order for them to consider your survey completed. Fake survey sites hosting surveys from other fake survey sites. Example, PandaResearch.

The next level are jobs are low or no paying jobs.

• Multi-Level-Marketing – While some of these jobs are legit, this corporate structure is the basis of many get rich schemes you see on the net. Empower Network, and any other site they has you paying some fee for months to them so that you bring other people to get the same  deal while you get kick backs from doing so.
• Commission Sales – Probably just another way of saying MLM but this refers to the physical items. This includes selling security systems, discounted cruises, and financial services.  The problem with these being that you have to sell a lot to make a decent pay check, they want you to sell to your family members; in which I rather just borrow from them than get the money filtered by a guy looking for referrals to get kick backs on and they  want you to sell in non-soliciting neighborhoods. In the case of finance services, they are bad for most of their customers. Primerica is a prime example.
• Click-Per-Ad – Way back in the early days of the net, this would have been a great industry to enter. Problem is that the market is swamped and if you didn’t enter like decades ago, then prepare to put yourself in the financial hole just on advertising your ads. The most famous of this is Anthony Morrison’s Hidden Millionaire. Avoid it like the plague. He is selling services that you can get for real cheap for hundreds to thousands of dollars plus a monthly service fee for one of his cookie cutter sites that have been black listed by google and yahoo. The only millionaires in his scheme are his close relatives and friends that make commission off of people buying into his crappy system. For more info, here.

The ones I am on the fence on are:

• Secret Shoppers – Basically you go buy something and report back your experience of the customer service. Problem being that they ask for info Nigerian style(name, address, and what not) and one claims to be from Dow Chemical Company.

I know I am forgetting something but that should cover it for now. The thing about Craigslist is that is not entry level friendly. 90% of jobs postings want experience, 75% of those who want experience also want a degree, and then you have the survey referrer, mlm, and what not taking the rest with 1% being actual jobs that are entry level friendly.

What really inspired me to write this post today is the guy named Matthew Grayson Scott. This guy I presume is the one I talked to weeks about working with Primerica. Actually he emailed me after seeing my original resume posting on Craigslist, which resulted in a phone conversation where he revealed what company he was trying to sign me up with. The funny thing is that he was quite dodgy on what job he was offering me. It was as a salesman position selling financial services but he called it “teaching”.  I told him I was gonna research his company to learn more and he said would pick me up and give me a tour of his offices. He never contacted me or picked me up after that and I left it alone. I was gonna say no anyway.

Then I get an email from him, not about the job but about the tone of my resume on Craigslist.. He didn’t like the fact that I called out on all of the scammers in the post. In fact all I did was list the scams and say not to email me if that is what you are offering. Here is a transcript of the conversation.  Please excuse the grammar and spelling.

The resume said:

I am an 20 year old college student looking for any type of work. However, do not contact me if your gonna send me those “get paid while at home” crap like payday or empower network, non of that mlm crap where I sale security or crappy financial services to people either. While we are at it stop sending me Anthony Morrison and stop sending me emails claiming you want to wire money and need my info, secret shopper, and stop claiming your a over swamped worker who needs me to join some survey crap site. I was once an intern at a electronics repair shop, helping them branch out online,where I did Data Entry with Excel, processed orders, organized the products, and packaged their products for shipping and what not. I believe the site is now called Shopapd.com.

Matt:

Dear Sir,

I am hoping that in reading this email, you will find a good job much quicker.

90% or more of your job post was negative, throwing dirt and bad attitude all over the place. Now believe me, I know what you are talking about, and there are so many scams out there that it is ridiculous! I understand your frustration, but as an honest employer looking for potential workers, I would not pick you because I know very little about you and alot about how negative you can be. I am not judging you, but letting you know that you are placing an image on yourself that is probably not true.

Furthermore, wouldn’t you agree that just because one company may sell bad insurance and securities with a terrible business model, does that mean that every company that sells the same products is the same? If McDonald’s hamburgers are disgusting to you, does that mean that all hamburgers are disgusting?

FYI, We are America’s largest and most successful financial services firm and we agree with you that everyone else is terrible and sells terrible products that we believe should be illegal!
Our A+ Better Business Bureau rating proves that our customers love and agree with us. However, you may not get the chance to see what I am talking about because you have judged my company, knowing nothing about it.

All I am saying is that you can’t judge one thing by another and try to keep your chin up. You may just miss out on the career of a lifetime.

I hope you find this helpful from one young business man to another.

Best of luck

Matt

Me:

That would be sound advice if 99% of the emails I got from my nicer posting weren’t scams.

Also, don’t email me if you’re not offering a job. I left the world of internet debates long ago. Not matter who wins but parties end up looking retarded.

An another thing. There is a difference in running a restaurant where you don’t have 90% of your money coming from sending out people into neighborhoods selling items or the that crap that Primerica sells

And lastly, if you actually read what I posted, you would know I was pointing at the scammers. If a legit job recruiter is looking for employees, then he wouldn’t be “offended” since he probably isn’t the Nigerian scammers, survey pushers trying to get referrals, crappy salesman trying to and I am not joking discounted vacation plans that I have to pay in first not to mention all of the Anthony Morrison crap and his clones trying to make a quick buck. And he or she isn’t probably the Chinese guy in Hong Kong who shitted his pants because not only did I trace his scams back to his actual email but found his personal info. Again, you are attack and going after the wrong person. I guess since you have a job you haven’t faced what we people looking for an actual job have so far on Craigslist. Go ahead and attack while scammers give job recruiters on Craigslist a bad name. Funny, after calling them out, I have not received so far a single email from those type of morons. If being a negative bitch who is just telling it how he sees it is wrong, then so be it.

Matt:

That is my point Mr. Mack. You let the 99% harm your chance of finding and making a great impact on the 1%

I am not against you on this, I agree with you. But let me tell you a little something I found out, 99% of people who are looking for jobs on Craigslist aren’t who they say they are either, so it is tough both ways.

Matt

Oh, I am sorry I did not read all your other emails before answering the one. I agree with you about debating online, although it seems you filled my inbox up rather nicely. I know the facts about my company.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. Mr. Mack, I was actually really trying to help you from the bottom of my heart. I am sorry that you took it how you do did. I do wish you the best.

Me:

>> So you are saying I am lying about who I am? Oh boy. This is nice. I wish you and your mlm scam the best of luck. You helping was merely attacking me for telling the truth. Rather than go after job seekers, you should be going after job posters for the bs they put on there. Thank you for wasting my time. How about this. Unless your offering me a job, don’t email me. Your emails are a waste of time and data.

You’d know what thank you. I now have another reason to create a blog post. The absurdy of your bullshit. Now fuck off.

As you can see I was quite salty. I just hate when a slime ball defends the actions of scammers and what not. Also, Matt you are not in the 1%.

Listia: My Experience as an Auction user.

In a country where the job market is not entry level friendly, I find purchasing new items difficult.  So I go to the next best thing: selling things online.

It’s simple; go to a listing site, post your item, someone buys and they get the item while you get money. But there are many ways about doing this and I choose Listia.

My first choice was Craigslist. Local Pickup, no shipping costs, easy right? Well despite getting offers, no one replied back after confirming that I had the items. I moved on to Amazon. They require a credit card. Seeing as my bank account fluctuates up and down it is not a good idea. Plus, I hear Amazon takes a percentage. Not only that they offer very little for selling the items to them and my printer was out of ink, so no printing shipping labels.  No thanks, but I will will limit myself to just buying off of Amazon.

Next, I choose Ebay. I was literally seconds from posting my entire Pokemon card collection and then I heard about Listia. It was through Facebook that I found it and I ended up joining.

What is Listia?

Lets establish what Listia is. This isn’t a money to item site. Listia uses what is called credits in which you use to win stuff through auctions, raffles, or the new credits store. The bread and butter of Listia is the user created auctions and not only do you not have to pay to list your items but you get paid credits(15) for listing.  It is for all tense and purposes a used item auction site even though some items offered in auctions might be brand new.

Buyers and sellers are given a feedback percentage rating which can go up and down based on how they handle the winnings with the buyer/seller. There are only three ratings, Positive, Neutral, and Negative; and the Negative can only be given under very extreme cases. But no matter which way you rate, you may write a comment under the rating saying whatever you want allowing you to explain why you gave such a rating.  These ratings are viewable to the public and helps buyers decide if they want to bid on a specific auction.

To instill buyer confidence sellers can go through various verification processes to show that the person is real and not a scam artist.  The verifications are Facebook and Twitter verification that links your accounts to your Listia account but be warned Listia will spam both each time you win an auction or list an auction. The idea being that you can get buyers from your “friends” on these social networks. Next is bank account verification where you make a small purchase of Listia credits. A must if you are charging for shipping in my opinion. I have it verified even though I will never charge shipping and of course phone verification for I guess if Listia wanted to call you. From there you have two forms of verification that come from listing activity. First, is Sellers Badge for completing (list, have a winner, send out, and have them verify that they got the item) your first auction and the Trusted Seller. You get this by having 15 auctions completed and have you getting positive feedback from the buyers. These are all given in the form of “badges” and are viewable on your profile page and any auctions you list. However the Twitter and Facebook badges also double as hyperlinks to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. I guess a way for seller to see if you are a real person or as another means of contacting you. There are other badges to be earned but they only appear on your profile page.

Listia also has a leveling feature but it has no use so far.

Of course, me being new to all this at the time, I acted as a buyer first to see if it works. Listia gives 500 credits, well it gave me that much for joining, to new users. After winning a couple of Yugioh cards I decide to start putting my stuff up for winning.

For a Seller, there are many options. Of course you have the title, the category where item belongs, photo of item, item description, and your shipping options, and this where things get tricky. For a seller listing from the United States. You have three options.

• Local pickup
• Will ship to the US
• Will ship Intl

From there you have three shipping types: Free, Flat Rate, Exact.

Free means the sellers has agreed to incur all costs in shipping the item to the buyer. Flat Rate means you post an exact number of how much the winner of the auction has to pay for shipping.  Exact means basically to be determined after winning.

If you also clicked Will Ship Intl(International), then you have the option of India, Canada, Europe, and Worldwide with the same shipping charge options as above.

Most people who charge for shipping do PayPal transfers. Again having bank verification is a must if you want people to trust you enough to shell out money.

Then you have Location. Basically saying where you are. You can put whatever you want and I have seen people put their home address, a dangerous thing to do. The idea being that you confirm that you live somewhere but since you can just google up addresses, its moot.

Also, your auction is set a minimum bid of 0 and to last 7 days.  You can change this in the advanced options right under location. Once you have the Trusted Seller badge you can do what is call Get It Now. Basically, letting a seller get the item now and end the auction but there is a listia credit fee and the get it now starts a 2000 minimum, so no cheap sales unless your selling a TV or Game System.

Once you submit and get a winner, you have a option. If the item is digital then you can just send it over the pm system or through each others emails.  If you are shipping the item out then the winner has to send you their Listia Verified Address of LiVA for short. The winner can set one up at the auction page or through their My Listia page(they can access it easily by just clicking their user name at the top right corner) and scrolling down to the bottom left and clicking Saved Shipping Addresses, there is also a Saved Meetup Information under it as well so people doing local pickup also have to have their info verified by Listia.  Once received, the seller uses that as the sending address and sends the item. Once you do so, you must press the sent button and now it is up to the shipping service you used. If the buyer gets their item and is satisfied they press the got it button and transfer the credits(automatically transferred once you get a winner if you have the Trusted Seller Badge) and and give feedback. You may give feedback as well and then the transaction is done unless the buyer opens a dispute in which can result in them getting their credits back which opens you up to negative feed back if they win the dispute.

Confusing? Here is Listia’s version.

Issues

Buyer:

• False Trusted Seller Badges:  What this means is the user has posted up several how to or recipe listings and sometimes the same one under a slightly different name in order to get the badge quickly through less than genuine means, and have not likely gone through the motions of physical packaging auctions. However, not all digital item auctions are bad. Codes and what not are fine as long as the user is getting something for free from the code. Examples here, here, and here.

• Perceived Bot Bidding/Late Minute Bidders: When you first start to bid you may notice that sometimes you are immediately outbid. This is not because of a bot. How bidding works is like this: it is called proxy bidding. For example, you see a pair of shoes at 120 credits with no bids. You must bid 121 or higher and if you go higher you are putting the most you would pay for the item. You put in 150 but to everyone else it shows 121. What it means is that the next bidder must put in 151 or higher to out bid you, sort of like a reserve price. You bid 150, someone bids 135. It will then show up as 136 with you as till as the lead bidder. However when it wins you do not give up all 150 unless others have raise it up that much. You can also adjust your bidding up and can still bid if your reserve bidding is defeated. Also, to minimize how much they shell out in credits, people tend to leave the auction alone until the last minute to sweep up the item. Learn the tactics if you want to win.

• Sellers trying to make a profit through Shipping charges: Beware of anyone who is charging for shipping. I understand that not everyone can do free shipping but there are a few bad apples in the bushel. Usually what they do is charge more than what it costs to ship the item and after shipping the item pocket the difference. That is against the rules. When you decided to list your items on Listia, you understand and agree that you are not on a money making website like Amazon and Ebay and that you make a 0% profit from all shipping charges. At best, research yourself to see if what they are asking for is fair. For me, I only bid on free shipping items.

• New Sellers: Listia is growing and because of its advertising on Facebook and may attract younger than 13 year olds to the site. These children then create fake auctions. Again, when deciding to bid on a new seller, look for twitter, Facebook, phone, and bank account verification badges. Another indication of a fake auction is a auction having a high start up bid for something that normally goes for cheaper. The person is trying to get the credits from having their first listing without having to give a thing. They should be reported immediately.

• Shilling: Basically a seller drive up the bidding on purpose to get more credits out of an item. They will do this by having a friend bid or by creating a fake account and bid on their own auctions. Unless they admit to it, you are gonna have to use your intuition on this one.

Sellers:

• Profit Auctions: These are fake auctions that try to get money for their items. Usually it will say “you get something random if you win” while the seller discuss business in the comments section of the fake auction. Besides the fact that this isn’t a money to item site, it distracts potential bidders from real auctions, and the seller earns badges from these fake auctions. Users like these are cancer of Listia.

• Trade Binder Auctions: This is something unique to the trading card section of the site and a subcategory of Profit Auctions. Basically these fake auctions serve as trading and selling(for cash) boards. If you don’t want to give your stuff for credits then get off Listia and go to Ebay. We don’t need your auctions cluttering up the list. I suggest everyone block them.  Here is an example of trade binders:  Here.

• Item and Credit Thieves: Basically people who win auctions, get their item and make false claims about the item received so that they get the item and the credits back. They will break the item and post a picture of it saying that is how they got the item. Best thing to do is take a picture of the item before sending, and put in your item description that you are not responsible for the damage incurred by USPS, FedEx or whoever else you use. Don’t forget to use appropriate packaging. If  your service determines or listia determines that damage incurred during shipping is because you used inappropriate shipping materials, you will lose the dispute.Then there is those who claim they never got their item. Only protection is to get delivery confirmation. Another tactic is to get your service to declare your item fragile. Doing so causes the transporter to be careful when moving your items. Its a must do if you are shipping video games, their systems or any electronic products , glass, and cds of any kind.

• Non-Readers:  People who do not read the item description and ask what could be answered in the item description. It’s there for a reason.

Both:

• Listia doesn’t have a suggestion or ticket support help:  It does. If you have a suggestion or you need help such as deleting an account, account to credits issue, or a auction problem go here.

• Inflators: This means that someone starts listing items for higher than they normally go. This could scare buyers away and result in less bidding and cause a category to become more expensive to enter. For example, manga usually start in the hundreds but a user is listing them at 2k per book. He/She gets less bids but their flooding the market with their over priced item can cause the other users to post their items for higher. Making it a potential market killer; though so far it has made anything less than 1k a instant bidder magnet so far. Only time will tell.

Now recently, one of these trade binder auctioneers won one of my auctions. I have to say that they are some of the most stupid people on listia that I have met.  Idk, if the auction is still viewable but here. I post in all of my cards auctions item descriptions:  Used: Product maybe bent, peeling, and/or have scratches and/or dents. This is because I move my stuff around a lot and stuff maybe bent.  I use to play with these cards and not every child is careful and so many have wear and may have wear from trading(in real life) with such children. I used to get my cards from Shonen Jump Magazine before it went completely online and because many people may have handled the magazine before I bought it or from when I was extracting the card from the magazine, it may have bents. The shipping company may damage the cards as well so its very tricky when the card is leaving many hands. Not only that but when I give out bad condition Pokemon Cards, I tell people so in my item description if the card is in real bad shape and I add a legendary Pokemon as compensation since the item is damaged. Works so far. I don’t do so for Yugioh since I am still into it, and I leave my bad condition Yugioh cards out of auctions since what constitutes as appropriate compensation is tricky. Here is an example of one such a type of auction. Sorry if the link does not work.

The conversation went like this:

Javier83 : how used is it?

Umitencho: Read description to see what used means. Looks to be in Mint to Near Mint Condition to me.

He then preceded to win the auction. Now when I mean Mint of Near Mint, I mean it wasn’t perfect thus the word near. Shonen Jump cards tend to have bends. This one was hardly noticeable and very slight. That is why I post in the item description: Used: Product maybe bent, peeling, and/or have scratches and/or dents. Just encase I was wrong or the shipping company aggravates the flaws in the card.

Here is a picture of the card:

The item in the dispute.

Yesterday I get this message with neutral feedback:

Javier83:  u could have said it had a massive bend going down the middle

Me: Doesn’t know how to read item descriptions. Blocking from future auctions.

I gave him a neutral even though I wanted to give him a negative.

—-

I also sent him this message: You need to read item descriptions. In fact I am nipping this in the bud right now. Should of figured I was gonna face this from one of the trade binder fake auction users.

—-

That sums my new policy toward trader binder auctions listers and participants. I am blocking every last person I see posting them and comments on them that is participating in this fake auction scheme. Just because Listia tolerates them doesn’t mean I have to. Enjoy your bent card moron.

—-

My account is: Umitencho.

If you want to join Listia then here.

8 Tips For Finding Good Professors.

After 5 semesters, going on 6 staring this fall, at my college, I have encounter a few tricks and tips on how get good professors.

  Register Early

I can not stress this enough.  The tactics I am about to prescribe below does not matter if wait to long to sign up since the good professors classes usually fill up fast.

Rate My professor

Yes, I know many people say it is bias because students who failed are gonna vent on the site. However, people who pass also post on there. What is  important is the professors overall grade and Easiness Score. I’d say a minimum 3.0 is needed in order for me to think that the teacher is competent. 3.5 is good and 4.0 and higher is a must have. If you find yourself with a class with many highly regarded professors then pick the one with the higher grade or the one whose class time and location best fits you.

 My Edu

This little site is a great tool to see just how your teacher grades. What it does it compiles the a grades the professor has given at the end of each semester and tell what percentage of students got what grade include the percentage who dropped out.

 Other professors

Ask a professor for recommendations on who to take next.  Ideally the professor you are getting professor choice advice from is teaching a class related to what class you plan on taking next. A word of caution. Sometimes a professor may recommend a bad professor because they get glossy eyed over the professors qualifications such as prior work experience. This happened to me when I was choosing which programming teacher to take next. I had the professor before and knew how horrible they were.

The professor in question

If you have a professor in mind, then go meet the professor themselves and see how you like them. Some are friendly enough to talk about what their class is going to focus on and what not.

Department staff

Such as Math Department, Science Department and so on. This will take the longest since it best to talk to department head. They usually go by appointments.  Since they are in control of everything its very easy to see what is their general plan for the majors and classes connected to their department.  However, like talking to professors they can get blinded by a bad professor’s qualifications. I just want to say just because you know the subject very well doesn’t mean you know how to teach it to others.

While we are at the subject of Department Heads, its a very good idea to air out your concerns about previous professor you think didn’t do a good job of teaching. I talked to the Programming Department Head(well Science I think) and we got more professor variety with each new semester since then. Nice.

Students

Talk to students who have taken the prospective professor before. They will tell you about their experiences and the like. You can usually just talk to your current classmates to garner connections to these students or hang out at a library or your college’s student help/tutor center to find such students. Sometimes the tutors themselves may have taken the professor.  Be warned, a student who may have failed may over exaggerate and same goes for those who have passed, they could be teachers pets.

Academic counselors

If all else fails then go to your academic counselor.  Since they are post to have a general grasp over everything they should be able to help you. However, the counselors at my college suck. Despite posted to being to  foremost experts when it comes to classes, qualification tests, credits, and so on, mine were absolute incompetent. There was maybe two good counselors but one retired. When I wanted to Clep, basically take a test for the credit instead of the class it turned into a goose chase of “idk”. When it came down to figuring out filling in a class for full time status, idk, until a guy from another department pointed to me the last competent counselor left.  Same with classes and the like. If a counselor is giving you the confused look at the end of the meeting. STOP and go repeat the above tips.

Despite all this… 

At the end of the day, no matter how great the professor is you should still study, do homework, and attend class. No one is gonna pass you for doing nothing.

College Classes Compromise

Finally, I got something done in terms of my college class schedule. But before I talk about it, I forgot to mention there is also a D session which is 4 weeks, in which to anyone taking a 4 week class, good luck, especially if its Math or Science.

Anyway, so after my previous post, I had to go back and forth between the finical aid office and the class adviser office. Usually I was met with “Idk” and “Other students are having this problem” which should be their slogan and printed and posted somewhere people can read it so that they have a warning about what they are about to deal with. 

So, initially I sign up for B session minus there was no Trig available. That scared me and after getting tired of the class advisers I go to the Math department. Luckily, the head had some free time and we talked. Her excuse? Apparently some Math professors quit and now she doesn’t have enough teachers and is basically begging professors to cover classes that have already started. After going no where for 30 minutes, she finally brought up something that was told me by my boss some weeks earlier(I forgot about it), clepping the trig course. The Clep test, which stands for College Level Exam Program) is a test you pay for in which if you pass, you get credit for that course. There are books to help with the test and all and you can take it as many times and any time as long as you pay for each taking. Basically a  Ap exam for enrolled college students.

I left happy in which I went to the Clep adviser and I again faced incompetence, since I had taken Trig before but didn’t get a passing grade(D), I wondered how that would translate on my transcript as in either it would stay on there and just have my second attempt aka Clep on there or just replace it altogether. She pointed me back to the Class adviser office and of course they didn’t know. Giving up on the question I went to the Financial Aid office. Also to note, all of this was possible in one day due to the systems being down and they had to turn people away, combine with what is a low attendance in these offices after A session starts, it was perfect since when I came in the systems were now working.

I was going since my since my financial aid status hadn’t been cleared and B session was due next at the time, Sept.22. Low and behold, there was another problem, apparently I left my asset information blank when I filled out my Fasfa form so I had to fill out a paper version of the asset sheet. Assets are basically your bank account, and stock holdings in which I had neither. I was served by this big light skin maybe black with Hispanic female who was clearly, a few weeks ago, to me to be a new worker. I asked her right out if my status would be cleared in time and she said no. I took the form and stormed out which later proved to be my undoing for B session. The following Monday I went back and was served by a skinny white female and come to find out I didn’t need my mother’s signature for this form and if I had turned it in earlier I had a chance to get cleared in time. >.> Talk about sending mixed messages. So I call my mother got her info which turned out to me entering in a bunch of zeros and wasting my time and holding my financial aid process up. 

Another problem was that my C programming course was dropped, I thought maybe it was due to the first due date but when I came to sign back up, it was nowhere to be found. Whether a class is full or not it shows up on the list if it is being taught at all. I go to the class adviser and she tells me basically that since not enough students signed up, the class was dropped. I was upset but I moved on. Having the time I went to the Financial aid office again, this time the white female again. Basically what happens when you have to submit missing info is that they stop reviewing your file, post that some info is needed, gets the info and I am put at the bottom of the list for people being reviewed, basically I am behind the people who need aid for the next summer semester. Sigh. After confirming I would be kicked out of B session. I gave up.

Over the week, I decide to sign up  C session classes, of course being 8 weeks, some of the courses I wanted initially would be available but I checked anyway. So looking at my list of classes that I wrote with the now retired class adviser I decide to take Finical Accounting and Micro Applications, which is just a fancy way of say  Microsoft Office. Nothing else seemed available but there were some Humanities courses available. I try signing up for one but then I encounter a hold. Giving up for the night I went to the Student Success Associate Dean. Apparently the school only lets students take two C courses at max due to the courses being speed up. To take more you have to talk to the dean or his aids and ask for a credit hour override, you have to have a above 2.0 gpa(I have a 2.68 gpa’ I know not in the 3.0′s get over it), have a good standing status and have a good pass ratio on my credit hours and he has to talk to someone on the phone. Either way I got the override. After finding one at South(I didn’t care where the class was as long as it was at South, North, Downtown, or Kent) but it was full. Lucky be the professor teaching it was the head of Humanities at South campus and her office was next door. She wasn’t there but her aid was and she let me in the class. So I had to take a different Humanities, Humanities Forum aka Hum2020( I wanted Humanities Foundations).So I had one more course to sign up for full time.

Remembering that the school sent me a booklet for some comp and business courses I go through it and pick two, Photoshop Basic and Advance. Both because they are one day classes and basic happens before advance.  I went in and there was a problem, the courses were only worth .67 credit hours. I needed at least 2 more credit hours  to get full time status which is 12 or more credit hours. So I left and found another course but it was full when I came back and I was in a slump. The Associate decided to call the class adviser office and recommended to me two people. After he had called and found one and secured me a meeting I went up to the office and talked to her. She wasn’t any of the previous advisers that I had met and that was a good thing as far as it was concerned. So after talking she searched the school database for available classes and found Florida History. I like history a lot but Floridian History sounded boring to me but it was that or nothing.

So that rounds off my schedule this semester, Financial Accounting, Humanities Forum, Microcomputer Applications for Business and Economics,  History of Florida and the Clep for Trigonometry. All I am waiting for is for my status to clear. It takes 2 to 4 weeks and 2 weeks have passed so far. Even then the due date is later on and unless there is more missing info I am fine.

Also, apparently there aren’t much C session class available due to the fact that if the student fails enough of them they lose their financial aid and the school gets in trouble and combined with a lower pass rate than that of A and B, the school is just saving its ass. Ironic in a city full of conservatives, its colleges don’t offer much class freedom. After all didn’t Ron Paul basically argue that Americans should have the freedom of choice and be allowed to face the consequences?

Next  semester, since my Financial aid sends money for both Fall and Spring semester, I am gonna sign up for Calculus, Managerial Accounting, C programming, and Intro to Java. That way I can decide which programming path to take.