Exhale.

I got the call I have been waiting for since February 16th, 2009: I am approved for funding to go back to school. Being me, I won’t actually rest easy until I have signed the agreement with the MTCU on Wednesday, but the call asking me to come in is only because I was approved.

This is a huge weight being lifted. I mean, life isn’t perfect now or anything like that – but I am going back to school. It is a huge break for me. I am so relieved, and now I can finally be excited about going back!

I will try to keep my WP blog from turning scholastic, but I do plan on forcing myself to do well enough that I won’t be embarrassed to put my progress in print, for all to see.

Wish me luck. Send me KD.

 

YoogleTube

Ok, so here is where an “anonymous” blogger calls someone a skank.

Google – ya collective putz – A simple message saying, “we apologize for the inconvenience, but the username NoIAmChuck is already taken by YOU, on YOUTUBE.” I realized today when something a friend of mine had on another site linked to YouTube, and it asked me to sign in because it was ‘mature’. I can’t have NoIAmChuck@GMail.com because I already have a YouTube account under NoIAmChuck. Both are part of Google.

Google told some stranger, by court order, who was behind their avatar. They couldn’t tell me that even though my contact e-mail was the same for GMail and YouTube.

Sometimes, an entity gets too big to be effective any longer. Has Google finally hit critical mass?

 

Just Coal

Well, I feel a sense of deflation.

I have to applaud all of the people involved in this journey – everyone at the WIL, everyone at Goodwill, and maybe – just maybe – the people of the MTCU. After having my job thrown into the fire, and rifling through 1000’s of want-ads, I found out about the Second Career Program for putting people like me through school to – of course – start a second career. I have walked the path put forth by “the system” in order to get to where I am. I did, however, ask a few times, “how much will they pay”, “what kind of money will I get” and “will they pay as much as Employment Insurance”. I always got the same answer … “each situation is unique/different”.

On August 06, 2009 I met with my counsellor – the last step before submitting the application for funding. She sat down, asked what course I was taking, pulled out a printed table with a calendar on it and told me I would receive about $1000.00 a month. My jaw dropped, I grew pale, cold and felt as thought I was going to vomit on her desk.

The amount I get on EI is no great remuneration, but $1000.00 a month is actually, in London, about $300.00 more than what I would get on Welfare. Along with this stipend, I am also only allowed to work “X” number of hours – which my counsellor says is 10-15, but I think I am allowed up to 20. In order to stay alive, My Lovely Wife just moved up to full time at her job, which is good for money, but it means that the time she was spending with our baby’s baby is going to be greatly reduced. We haven’t babysat her as much in recent weeks, and with My Lovely Wife’s schedule, she can still have her in the afternoons and even the evenings, but getting her first thing in the morning is not an option anymore.

Now – all I REALLY need – is to get that approval for funding. Classes start September 08, 2009.

Wish me luck. Or, you can donate to NoIAmAStudent, e-mail me at…

 

Google This

I have been looking into a few things, and I am considering using the Google Picasa tools (a client-based part and a seemingly good web-based hosting site) for images/vids.

However, although I respect the “Guys at Google”, they are pissing me off.

I want to streamline my accounts everywhere by using my handle, “NoIAmChuck” everywhere.

I went to GMail to create a new e-mail, NoIAmChuck at GMail.com. Oops.

Desired Login Name: NoIAmChuck

Examples: JSmith, John.Smith

NoIAmChuck is not available, but the following usernames are:

• noiamchuck34
• noiamchuck407
• noiamchuck384
• noiamchuck156

Hmm… did I already register that name? Let’s see if I can get my password.

Reset Password
There are no Google Accounts currently registered to the username NoIAmChuck@gmail.com. If you spelled the address incorrectly or entered the wrong address, please try again.

If your email address is correct, then you may not have created an account with Google, even if you currently use some of our products. For example, it’s possible to use iGoogle and Google Alerts without a Google Account. In this case, please create an account.

If you’re sure that you previously created a Google Account with the username NoIAmChuck@gmail.com, contact us so that we can assist you.

If you can’t remember the username you used to create an account, read this help article.

I went on a huge trek through Google, and yet, I can’t find a way to ask the question, “WHO THE HELL HAS MY HANDLE?” There is nothing with that name anywhere on Google. Kinda pissing me off.

Maybe Picasa is NOT the way to go.

 

LOL, I Really “Phoned” It In.

I thought I’d give one of the new WordPress features a try: Post By E-mail.

It is an interesting system of a WP-generated secret e-mail (keep this to yourself if you get one, or anyone with an e-mail address can post to your blog). You can create an e-mail of your post, send it essentially to your WP blog, and WP’s mail daemon simply answers the e-mail, and posts your blog.

If you have been debating using it, or are scared to, it seems easy enough.

First off, simply write your blog as an email message. You can include formatting (like centering) but not everything always works. I mean, bold will always work, italics SHOULD too but some fancier stuff may not work:

1. You might
2. be able
3. to use
4. bullets, etc, too.

(I will use { and } in place of the square brackets – otherwise, my explanations will end up as directives, LOL)

{category 1337 5P34K,FYI} (These have to exist as categories in your blog already.)

{excerpt}some excerpt{/excerpt} (I don’t generally use excerpts)

{tags WordPress, Wisdom}

{delay +1 hour} (I didn’t use this one, but if you wanted to set something to post all mysterious-like hours after everyone knows you are nowhere near a computer, set a delay and all your readers will go “aaahhhhhh”)

{comments on | off} – you can turn {comments on} or {comments off} on each blog post separately. Did you know that?

{status publish | pending | draft} Like comments, you can set the status in case you just had to crank out an idea (in e-mail) but you want to do some editing, or find the right media etc to go along with the post.

{password secret-password} – Password protect it while you post it via e-mail.

{title LOL, I Really “Phoned” It In.} Set your blog title as you’d like to have it show. HOWEVER, for some reason, this doesn’t work. I put my title in the e-mail’s subject, and guess what? Shows up correctly now.

{end} – everything after this shortcode is ignored (i.e. signatures)

Oh, before I actually end, I am going to include, as an attachment, a picture. If you add more than one, they will end up as a gallery at the end of your blog post.