Six-Figure Jobs You Don’t Need A College Degree For
January 20, 2009 by admin
Filed under General News
Here are 14 ways to get to six figures without doing four years first.
Maybe you don’t want to spend all that time taking classes in obscure subjects while hoping to find your calling and piling up student loan debt. Maybe you don’t really care so much about college. You just want to work and make money.
You can do it, but there aren’t many fields where it happens very often. In our list of 14 potentially six-figure jobs that don’t require a four-year diploma, only two have a median wage of above $100,000. For the rest, you’ll have to be in the top 10% of earners, and even then you may find yourself working 50 to 60 hours a week.
Dr. Al Lee, director of quantitative analysis at Payscale.com, says that most of these jobs share a few qualities. (Payscale’s research provided the numbers that made this list possible. The company measured the average earnings for people with eight or more years in their field.)
No test can tell an employer how good you might be at some of these lines of work–real estate broker or fashion designer, for example. That’s why a degree is less important to a potential employer than field experience and demonstrated past success. Either you’re good at it or you’re not.
Many of these jobs rely on variable pay (commission and overtime) to break six figures. Good plumbers, ultrasound techs and construction managers generally do a lot of overtime. It’s far more valuable to a company to pay them extra than to hire an additional employee, Lee says. And that means workers can break past what they would earn if confined to 40 hours a week.
Stress is pretty much a given in all these occupations. A high price for failure is not uncommon. Cost estimators can’t estimate too high on a project or they’ll risk losing it to a competitive bidder. They can’t go too low or their company won’t make money on the deal. Radiation therapists and ultrasound technologists have to worry about the danger of malpractice suits. Court reporters mustn’t miss a word in the courtroom. Air traffic controllers know that hundreds of lives ride on their actions.
Almost all these positions produce revenue that can give them a clearly defined monetary value. An executive chef at a hotel can pull in guests or send them fleeing. An ultrasound technologist or radiation therapist paid $100,000 a year can bring the hospital several times that. A sales manager’s value can often be pinpointed in dollars and cents at the end of the year. Also, a few of these jobs–air traffic controller, police supervisor, court reporter–have unions to thank for their good pay.
Lee says now is as good a time as any to start on the path to one of these jobs. The market may be in bad shape, but companies will still need competent workers. When better to find out if you’re truly good at something than when it’s most difficult?
He says of people who make more than $100,000, "At the end of the day, the largest percentage of them are degree-holders." But you definitely can get there this way–not that it’s easy. "You learn on the job. You pay attention. You move your way up."
Could it be time to design your five- or 10-year path to six figures?
Source: http://www.forbes.com/leadership/2009/01/12/six-figure-degree-jobs-lead-cx_kk_0112nodegree.html
US Airways Plane Goes Down in Hudson River
January 16, 2009 by admin
Filed under General News
A US Airways flight from LaGuardia Airport in New York went down in the Hudson River this afternoon with 155 passengers and crew on board, and rescuers moved quickly to remove everyone from the plane as it gradually settled into the frigid water.
Authorities said there were no fatalities and that all aboard got off safely.
Flight 1549, an Airbus A320, appeared to make a controlled landing in the water shortly after takeoff from New York bound for Charlotte, N.C.
Television news footage showed the aircraft resting apparently intact in the water as ferries and rescue vessels surrounded it and helicopters flew overhead.
Inflatable boats were deployed to carry passengers from the plane to the nearby vessels.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, Laura Brown, said, "My understanding is that everyone is alive. I don’t know if there are any serious injuries or not."
Brown said the plane appeared to have hit one or more birds on takeoff. Initial accounts indicated the airliner lost both engines.
"We understand there were eyewitness reports that the plane might have flown into a flock of birds," Brown said.
But Ellen Howe, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, confirmed only that there was "no known nexus to terrorism" in the downing.
A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, Laura Keehner said, "There is no information at this time to indicate that this is a security-related incident. We continue to closely monitor the situation, which at present is focused on search and rescue."
Alberto Panero, a passenger on the plane, told CNN in a telephone interview that everyone on the plane was "pretty much okay" after the impact.
"This was a near-death experience that thankfully did not turn out that way," he said.
Panero said, "Thank the Lord, and thank the pilot. I can’t believe that somehow he managed to land that plane safely."
He said the pilot told the passengers, "Prepare for impact," just before the splash landing. For a moment afterward there was pandemonium, he said. Then, "a couple of people took charge" and calmed people down as they made their way to the exits.
"The plane started filling with water really quick" after it hit the water, another passenger, Jeff Kolodjay, told reporters after being rescued. He said a couple of women sustained "bad leg injuries."
Kolodjay said he waded through frigid waist-deep water as he got off the plane. "It was pretty scary, man," he said.
Passengers stood on the wings before they were picked up by rescue boats.
A witness, Ben Vonklemperer, told CNN he saw the plane "making what appeared to be a very gradual landing" in the Hudson. "It appeared not to have any landing gear engaged," he said. "It basically just hit the water."
The incident occurred on a cold winter’s day, with the air temperature at about 21 degrees and the water temperature just above freezing. In those temperatures, passengers would have faced hypothermia in minutes if they gone into the water.
As the passengers were taken off the plane, it appeared to be gradually sinking in the river near 48th Street in midtown Manhattan. The tail section was partly submerged.
Officials said the plane took off from LaGuardia at 3:26 p.m. Eastern time with 148 passengers on board and five or six crew members. It crash landed into the Hudson less than three minutes later.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was dispatching a team of investigators from Reagan National Airport this evening.
Brown, the FAA spokeswoman, said air traffic at LaGuardia was operating normally within about an hour after the incident. Immediately after the plane went down, authorities ordered a "ground stop" at the airport, halting plane traffic into it and delaying departures.
US Airways issued a statement saying airline officials were in direct contact with local, state and national authorities and were cooperating fully with emergency response efforts.
Doug Parker, the chairman and chief executive of US Airways, said the plane had 150 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants on board when it went down.
"Everyone is off the plane and accounted for," he told reporters shortly after 5 p.m., citing a preliminary report.
He said it was "premature to speculate about the cause of the accident" and that the National Transportation Safety Board "will conduct a thorough investigation . . . with our complete support." He said US Airways is "committed to determining the cause of this event" to prevent it from happening again.
"Right now we’re working to care for those who have been touched by this accident," he said. People in the United States can call 1-800-679 8215 for information on family members who were on the plane, Parker said.
Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this article.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011502571.html?hpid=artslot
Fargo woman wins ‘Real Chance of Love’ reality show
January 13, 2009 by admin
Filed under General News
Abbie Noah is Fargo’s latest reality TV winner as the hairstylist ended VH1’s “Real Chance of Love” hugging, kissing and smiling with “her man.”
Monday night’s finale featured Noah as one of the final four women vying for the hearts of two men – Real and Chance, two brothers who call themselves “The Stallionaires.” The show’s premise featured each brother choosing his prospective “love” from a group of women.
As the show started Monday night, each brother had two final women to choose from.
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| Abbie Noah, aka "Cornfed," won VH1’s reality show "Real Chance of Love." |
Noah, who was known on the show was “Corn Fed,” was up against a woman dubbed “Bay Bay Bay” for the love of Real. Early in the episode, Noah and Bay Bay Bay argued during a poolside dinner in a Puerto Rico resort. Noah left the table crying after Bay Bay Bay and Real each wondered if the polite, sweet Fargo woman could handle the honest, harsh lifestyle of Los Angeles and the celebrity scene following Real.
“I’d feel absolutely devastated if Real doesn’t pick me,” Noah said early on.
During the show’s final selection, Real again questioned Noah’s ability to handle his lifestyle in Los Angeles.
“L.A. is not Fargo,” he said.
The statement brought tears to Noah’s eyes as she turned away in agony, unable to face the possibility she couldn’t be with Real.
But as Real turned to Bay Bay Bay he said he came to the show to find a relationship that had “fireworks.” And, he said, he didn’t feel the explosions with Bay Bay Bay.
Looking at Noah, Real said, “I believe you fell in love with me. I fell in love with you too.”
After an embrace, the show switched to a post-interview with Noah and she said, “I have been waiting this entire time to hear Real say he fell in love with me, and he said it. … I am absolutely in love with Real.”
She was the only woman on the show who found love. In a surprising move, Chance dismissed both of his final women saying he wasn’t truly in love with either of them.
The “Real Chance of Love” finale will be followed in two weeks with a reunion episode on VH1.
Fargo’s previous reality show champion was Caridee English, who won the seventh cycle – or season – "America’s Next Top Model."
Source: http://www.in-forum.com/News/articles/227643
Heritage Wealth Management Exec Fakes Plane Crash
January 13, 2009 by admin
Filed under General News
Now why would Schrenker do this? Well, reports are that he has been sued for $1.4 million:
In court papers filed in December in federal court in Indianapolis, collection agent Creative Marketing International claims that Marcus Schrenker, acting as an insurance broker, failed to remit commission reimbursements of $1.4 million to National Western Life.
That’s just part of it. Also, according to AP:
On Friday, two days before the crash, a federal judge in Maryland issued a $533,500 judgment against Heritage Wealth Management Inc., and in favor of OM Financial Life Insurance Co. The OM lawsuit contended that Heritage Wealth Management should have returned more than $230,000 in commissions because there were problems with insurance or annuity plans Heritage had sold.
So, besides the lawsuit, there was also a judgment already in place.
According to authorities, Marcus Schrenker made a fake distress call and secretly parachuted to safety near Birmingham, Alabama. Meanwhile, his plane flew on autopilot, eventually crashing late Sunday more than 200 miles away in a swampy area of the Florida Panhandle.
His distress call said the windshield had imploded and he was bleeding, but after finding the plane, authorities could find no such evidence.
At any rate, the name Heritage Wealth Management, in these days of Bernie Madoff ponzi schemes, should raise red flags all over the place.
Authorities are still searching for Schrenker. Shades of D.B. Cooper.
Source: http://www.huliq.com/3257/75920/heritage-wealth-management-exec-fakes-plane-crash
Cheryl Holdridge dies at 64; popular Mouseketeer
January 10, 2009 by admin
Filed under General News
Holdridge died Tuesday at her home in Santa Monica after a two-year battle with lung cancer, said Doreen Tracey, another former Mouseketeer.
Holdridge was 11 years old in the spring of 1956 when she auditioned and was hired for "The Mickey Mouse Club," which had debuted on Oct. 3, 1955, with 24 talented youngsters who sang and danced and yet came across as the kids next door.
Holdridge joined the Mouseketeers in the second season of the show, which ran until 1959.
She quickly became part of the core group that appeared on the famous Mouseketeer roll call at the start of each show, along with Tracey, Annette Funicello, Tommy Cole, Cubby O’Brien, Sharon Baird, Bobby Burgess, Karen Pendleton, Lonnie Burr and Darlene Gillespie.
"She was a good technical dancer, but I think she was picked mostly because she had this angelic look and a great smile; she’s known for her smile," Tracey said. With a laugh, she added: "We used to try to keep her quiet when she started singing because she sang off key."
The other reason Holdridge was included in the core group was that "her fan mail was quite high, and they need those ratings," Tracey said. "We were trying to win over the American public, which we did.
"Annette had the highest rating, but Cheryl came pretty close."
During her Mouseketeer days, Holdridge appeared in some of the show’s episodic serials, including "Boys of the Western Sea" and the "Annette" series.
Unlike some of the other Mouseketeers, Holdridge didn’t have trouble finding work in television as a young actress after hanging up her Mouse ears.
She went on to play Wally Cleaver’s girlfriend, Julie Foster, for two seasons on "Leave It to Beaver." And she had guest roles on shows such as "The Rifleman," "Bachelor Father," "My Three Sons," "Bewitched" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show."
"Our reputations as Disney players opened doors," Holdridge told the Chicago Tribune in 2001 during a Mouseketeer autograph session at a Disney memorabilia show in Bloomingdale, Ill., that drew a crowd of more than 1,000.
"Directors knew we understood how to move on camera, how to hit our marks and say lines. Doreen and I went up for many of the same parts. We both did ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ and ‘Bachelor Father.’ "
Holdridge left the business in 1964 when she married Lance Reventlow, the son of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, "because that’s what you did then. You married and stayed home."
Reventlow died in a plane crash in 1972. In 1994, Holdridge married Manning Post, a prominent West Coast Democratic Party fundraiser and advisor, who died in 2000.
Holdridge was born Cheryl Lynn Phelps on June 20, 1944, in New Orleans and moved to Los Angeles when she was 2. Her mother, Julie Austin, was a former Ziegfeld Follies featured dancer and comedian and encouraged her to express herself through dance.
After her mother married Herbert Holdridge, a retired brigadier general, he adopted Cheryl in 1953.
At 9, she was selected by George Balanchine to perform for the New York City Ballet Company in a Los Angeles production of "The Nutcracker Suite." Her first screen appearance was a small role in the 1956 musical "Carousel."
Then came "The Mickey Mouse Club."
"She certainly was a very pretty blond and just had a very winning personality," said Lorraine Santoli, author of "The Official Mickey Mouse Club Book" and a former Disney publicist who worked with the Mouseketeers as adults in the 1980s and ’90s.
As an adult, "Cheryl was the most joyous person, is the best way I can put it," she said. "She saw the positive side of everything."
Holdridge enjoyed joining other former Mouseketeers at shows and appearances at Disneyland, Santoli said.
"She got such joy out of it, she really did, and she was so proud of the fact that she was an original Mouseketeer."
Tommy Cole said Thursday that "Cheryl was one of the loves of my life, especially because we were like family."
"Being one of the prettiest girls on the set, I always considered her Miss Sunshine," he recalled. "She’d walk into the room and this ray of sunshine would happen every time she smiled."
Cole was among the former Mouseketeers who visited with Holdridge on Monday night. And, he said, when he heard that she had died two hours after he left her side, "a little bit of sunshine went out of my life."
Holdridge, who had no immediate surviving family members, supported various environmental causes as well as the Children’s Burn Foundation in Sherman Oaks, Friendly House of Los Angeles and the John Wayne Cancer Institute at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, where donations may be made in her name. A memorial service is pending.
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-cheryl-holdridge9-2009jan09,0,7949485.story
John 3:16 — Latest Bible Verse to Be Featured On Tim Tebow’s Eye Black
January 9, 2009 by admin
Filed under General News
It’s no secret that Tim Tebow is passionate about expressing his Christian faith. In fact, he’s so passionate that he’s used eye-black markings this season as a way to share the scripture with others. During the BCS championship game, it was time for John 3:16:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16
You may have seen Tebow previously feature Philippians 4:13 during games, which reads "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
Tebow’s religious expression has been a big part of the wholesome image we see described in every single feature written about him. But not everyone
of his use of eye-black patches to get the message across:
But I have to wonder if his coaches or NCAA officials would allow him to have "There Is" "No God" written on his eye black below his right and left eyes. I imagine that these personal slogans will soon be banned.
There’s been similar points raised in stories published recently. David Whitley of the
writes:
Others feel religion and sports should not mix. "Why must he rub it in my face?" they ask.
And in
Still, there’s something strange about the alliance of modern sport and religion.
In my personal opinion, while it may be hard to ignore Tebow’s display, it’s nowhere near enough of an issue to start ranting about it. I believe in God, but consider myself to be in the group "spiritual but not religious." If Tebow wants to put his Christian faith on a pedestal, so be it — it doesn’t distract me in the slightest. And for viewers who might think it’s a bit too much, the remote control is at your side.
So what do you think about Tebow’s show of faith? Is it a bother or no big deal?
Source: http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2009/01/09/john-3-16-latest-bible-verse-to-be-featured-on-tim-tebow/
New 3G Palm Pre Enters Smart Phone War
January 9, 2009 by admin
Filed under General News
Palm today announced its long-awaited new operating system–called Web OS–as well as the new Palm Pre smart phone to match. The Pre will be available exclusively on the Sprint 3G Network in first half of 2009. The announcement was made at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show.
As rumored earlier this week, the new phone marks Palm’s effort to regain leadership in the smart phone market. Aiming for the coveted niche between iPhones and BlackBerrys, the Palm Pre with Web OS attempts to seamlessly bring together enterprise and entertainment into one device. You can see a gallery of Pre images here.
Palm did not announce pricing or an exact availability date for the Pre. (Stay tuned for PC World’s in-depth look and hands-on analysis of the new phone and its OS.)
The Palm Pre Handset Specs
The Palm Pre is a multi-touch screen device with a full vertical slide-out QWERTY keyboard and accelerometer. The EVDO-capable device is Wi-Fi-enabled, and comes with GPS, Bluetooth 2.1 with stereo support, and 8GB of storage.
The Pre has a 3.1-inch size display with 320-by-480 resolution. The multi-touch extends beyond the display to the center button, which Palm calls the gesture area for launching applications on the device.
The Pre also has a 3.0-megapixel camera with an LED flash and depth and field DSP software. Additionally, the phone has high speed USB 2.0 support as well as a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack.
The phone’s elegant, curved form factor is designed to comfortably fit in your hand as well as next to your cheek. The Pre is smaller in size than the iPhone and other smart phones on the market–it weighs 4.8 ounces.
The Palm Web OS
The open-source Palm Web OS strives to bring together all of the facets of a busy lifestyle and put it into one place for quick access to information with the flick of a finger.
The homescreen user interface (UI) has customizable application widgets running at the bottom of the display. Touch a widget and the app instantly pops up. All of your open applications appear on the UI as a deck of cards. Flicking from right to left and left to right on the gesture pad allows you to scroll through your "deck" of applications.
Seamless Synching
One of the most important components of Web OS is what Palm calls "synergy–synching information from various sources into one seamless application. For example, Palm’s e-mail application has an All Inboxes folder–a single place to check all of your e-mail accounts.
If you start typing an e-mail contact, Web OS searches across all of your e-mail accounts–both personal and work. If the Pre can’t find the contact, it searches your corporate exchange database and automatically enters it into your contacts list.
Another cool feature in Web OS is the Buddylist application. All of the contacts from your various instant messaging accounts, like AIM, Gchat or ICQ, appear in a single list. And if your buddy suddenly goes offline during a conversation, you can send her a text message to continue the same conversation without interruption.
You can also use the slide-out QWERTY keyboard to easily find information on your device–and on the Web. Start typing something and the OS automatically searches through your contacts and applications to find what you need. If it doesn’t find any matches on the device, it will search the Web.
The Palm Web OS has a unique notifications application that allows you to work without interruption. If you get an IM or e-mail, a small alert pops up at the bottom of your screen. You can choose whether you want to read the message right away or save it for later. You can even pull up a small dashboard that lists all of your notifications.
In addition to the OS, Palm announced the Touchstone–a stylish wireless charger that uses inductive technology. You simply drop the Pre on the magnetic Touchstone and it stays in place to charge.
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/156710-2/new_3g_palm_pre_enters_smart_phone_war.html
