Well, *whew*...good to know I'm in the right spot. Had read a few threads and wan't sure if this was for pros (or wannabe-pros like me), or if it was more of a journal-writer's club kinda thing (most of the active topics seem to be pointed in that direction). I guess this is more or less a heebie-jeebie thing going on with me...I became a farmer almost a year ago, and pulled all advertizing (even the signs on the trucks) because I wanted to take time to set things up here. Now I'm making ready for the whirlwind life of taking new clients again, but feeling rusty. My "employee" skills are even rustier, hence the worry about having a boss. I already solved the website issue...found a few old essays from the old site that could serve as publishable newspaper stuff, and working on cleaning up a couple that I've written in the past couple-few weeks (helps to have a wife who works as a copy-editor). Oh, another question: should I be cleaning up the 400-500 wd stuff or the 1000 wd stuff? BTW: to wax bloggish, one of the big reasons I want to write for a paper is just out of sheer frustration at rebuilding a website! I need to do it, because I wasn't as picky about what I put up 4 yrs ago, but now I'm faced with the nasty task of editing and posting 1,392 interlinked pages, a task that was making me VERY grumpy until I decided to just scrap the whole mess and start it over. Will probably lose my google ratings, but I'll get them back over time. As far as what I want from the paper: was thinking of getting paid with one graphical 4ci ad and 1 classified ad per week (would cost me a whopping $65.80 for the priveledge otherwise). Do you think they'd go for that? Also, this paper has a website (not a bad one, actually), and I'm wondering if my website would be viewed as an asset or a liability to an editor. For example, if I mention a particular plant in an article, I could provide links to my page about that plant in the internet version of the article (most of my website is just detailed information about plants). My website's pretty much a plant-geek blog now, but I'm hoping to start getting some advertizing activities going (mostly so I won't feel so guilty about wasting all this time studying plants). So, asset? Liability? Maybe it's good to put a foot in the door while there aren't hundreds of documents floating around on the web?

I wouldn't put important info on the computer either. One thing I never thought of, until a close friend mentioned it (he's a computer geek). When your computer goes into the shop to get fixed, the guy working on it has access to your stuff. I used to keep my credit card number and bank card number on a word document (missing a couple numbers on purpose). Since he told me this, I don't do that anymore.

Thank you Pattico, but I can not get the 50¢ out of this machine......bwahahahaha! These are all great tips, thanks, and keep them coming. I use a wooden salad bowl as a bead spinner, the bowl is just un-level enough to spin with one hand while I use a big eye needle to get the beads threaded onto my working thread, this is for bead crochet and it works great! I use baking soda, then vinegar to clear a clogged drain. First you put about half a cup of baking soda down the drain, then add about a cup of vinegar after it stops foaming use hot water to rinse it on down the drain we have a septic system and that doesn't disturb the balance.

As far as the trash folks are concerned, I tend to agree with lindsey_ca. Granted, the job used to be very smelly and physical, however, talking to several people who know the pay, they are very well paid for the job. Some do an outstanding job and of course some should be fired. I recall the days of 3-4 men manning a a truck. Today, with automation, it's often just one. But some on the older trucks really have to hustle while the new ones drive, push a button, watch the monitor and move on. Not far from a postal carrier IMO. Paper carriers are close to my heart. I carried papers about 20-25 years ago. It was for the big "business" paper which shall remain unnamed. I will say I enjoyed the job. I did it for probably a year and a half and it was a nice second income. Especially on the nice summer days it was very pleasant to be out at 4 or 5am cruising around when it's quiet, peaceful and refreshing. Turn up the radio a bit and off you go. Now of course, rain, snow and the like are the problem days. And in fairness to the carriers, it's not always the carriers' fault when the papers are late. I remember more than once when the plane was late arriving so we didn't have the papers to deliver. So we had to sit and wait for sometimes 3 hours or more and occasionally the paper would be canceled for that day. Many times the carriers lost on that. But the good part was I had the "bad" route. Nobody wanted it because it was so much driving. IIRC it was somewhere around 150-200 papers over 50-55 miles. Nobody wanted to drive that much with their new cars. Well I had a beater and I did all maintenance myself so I made out well on the mileage allowance. Things have changed though. I talked to a carrier for one of the big papers in town and the pay hasn't increased much from when I carried! AND to top it off, they make the carriers pay for the rubber bands and the plastic bags! (For this paper anyway) That really irritated me when I heard that. This explains the higher turnover rate. FWIW I got a couple tips as a carrier and I was the only one I knew of who did. I think it was $5 each. I was a bit surprised but then when I considered the snobs that got this paper wouldn't tip like the ones who got the daily local paper. The ones who tipped me sent it to the company specifying it was for me. That was very flattering. Carriers also put up with one other problem. The ones who keep calling and complaining for the purpose of getting their subscription extended. I had one person who kept saying they had a wet paper and when I delivered in wet weather I would double bag the papers. Paper in the bag, fold the bag over and the open end went in first into the second bag. No way could it get wet, but the complainers kept trying. The boss finally went out and followed me one day and checked the paper. They canceled the customer! :D When I got the paper and got good service I'd tip the carrier $5-$10 about every three months. Percentage-wise, that's pretty good. I was paying 75 per week for the Sunday only paper. But I did the several-times-a-year tip because of turnover. I didn't think it was fair to essentially penalize a new carrier doing a good job because the prior carrier got tipped at the holidays. And I would try to catch them in the morning. I'm usually up early on Sundays so it wasn't a problem. I would prefer to see people tip more frequently rather than at the holidays. A lot of people get jobs for the holiday season and could benefit from the generosity at the time and others are essentially doing the hard work all year long.