Quirky Jessi: October 2010

Blogaversary or Blog Birthday?

Posted by Quirky Jessi

Either way, this month marks the birthday/anniversary of the Quirky Jessi site. I didn't do a recap or silly search results post last year....or even announce or celebrate it, tsk, tsk. For 2009, the recap would've likely consisted of all Snuggies things anyway, hehe. I figured I should probably post something about it this year. :P

Things my blog has taught me from this last year:

People still need help coming up with creative blog names. My 3 part series still gets a lot of traffic and I should probably put together a fourth given how many silly blog names I'm familiar with.
Snuggies are still rocking hard and in more varieties than ever. *Groans*
Even though Airborne was recalled in March of 2008, over 2 years ago, people are still searching for the recall information.
A comment on my Smooth Away review post asked about pubic hair and apparently thousands of other people have the same question. I still don't know the exact answer, but I can't imagine it'd feel too good even if it works well. Remember, it's kind of sand paper-like, eh.
"The 52 reasons I love you" book made it rounds on the internet, but most people didn't know the original source, so a lot landed on my blog and followed the link I posted. This is one of my big reasons for always trying to find the original source of something. I hate not being able to find it.
Banana masks are still frequently sought after and people still end up landing on my humorous take on how to do them instead of real recipes, hehe.
Fruit protectors are a necessity.
Mean letters from Santa are fascinating.
There's a huge need for butt boil pictures. Yeah...

What happens to your Facebook account when you die?

Posted by Quirky Jessi

I know this may come off as morbid to many of you or not something you care to discuss. After all, who actually enjoys thinking about what has to be taken care of after they pass? Not many.

Facebook may seem like the last of your concerns, but it does bring up a good point. What happens to your digital life when you die? Does your family even know where you spend your time online? Would they know what you wanted to do with your accounts?

Otrib is an amazing site that helps you take care of lots of these details and on the flip side, allows you to honor those in your life that have already passed away. There are also tons of links, articles, and communities to help you plan funerals, cut obituary costs (you can create and distribute an online obituary for free), find grief support, add virtual memorials (including timelines, photos, videos, text). It's all there in a single site and it's presented beautifully and helpfully....not morbidly.

Ten Weird Jobs that Pay Well (Guest)

Posted by Quirky Jessi

Today's guest post is brought to you by Courtney. Some of these jobs would be awesome to have.

Do you have an exceptional tongue? Enjoy diving in small ponds in search of errant golf balls? Or perhaps you’ve been living on the fringes of the law as a computer hacker and are ready to come clean while still retaining your skills? If these and other oddball job descriptions strike a spark, you may be a perfect fit for one of the increasing number of surprisingly well-paying careers (would you believe $100k+ for an airplane repossessor?) now offered in today’s diverse job market.

The keys to finding such unusual jobs as a flavorist (see tongue above) a pet-sitter, or even a cotton-gin operator is to first discover your passion, and to then research ways to convert that passion into a career.

Each year, for example, the MacArthur Foundation awards $500,000 grants to upwards of thirty people engaged in a remarkably diverse number of professions. In 2010 this included the following individuals:

Freehand Carver/Calligrapher
A Rhode Island stone carver/calligrapher who does all of his carvings by hand.

Jellyfish Expert
A Caltech professor who studies how jellyfish swim.

Apiculture Professor
A Minnesota professor studies bee pathogens.

Volunteering Violinist
A talented violinist who teaches under-privileged children how to play string instruments

Language Revivalist
A Native American who is attempting to revive the Native American language of Wampanoag.

Within virtually every field of endeavor can be found one or more unique careers. Here’s a short sample of other unique jobs:

Mystery shopper
Retailers are relying more and more on customer feedback to determine store layouts, product mixes, etc. This can become a lucrative career for someone who has mastered the fine-art of shopping.

Carbon Management Consultant
With increasing emphasis being placed on carbon-neutral or carbon friendly industry, this is considered one of the fastest-growing career paths both now and in the future.

Ethical Hacker
Although it sounds like an oxymoron, companies have a huge need to have their internal systems tested for security. Think of it as a way to use your computer skills for something besides changing your grade in that college science class you never quite made it to.

Personal shopper
For some, this is the job of their dreams. Generally working with a sizable budget, you get to buy all sorts of great clothes and toys, while getting paid to do it.

Flavorist
Food companies invest enormous amounts of capital in creating and producing new food products. But if they don’t taste good to customers, all that effort goes to waste. Flavorists get paid to taste and evaluate new products Getting paid to eat? Might want to ask if the position includes a personal trainer.

Additional jobs include such unique titles as forensic dentistry, drug testing, being a futurist (predicting future trends), a Christmas tree contractor, or crash-test dummy (just kidding on the last one).

These and thousands of other unique jobs are being filled right now; difficult economy notwithstanding. Start with a web search using key words for your dream job. You just never know when the next golf ball diver job will come up at the local country club.

A whole bunch of links

Posted by Quirky Jessi

Okay, so I haven't been posting much here obviously and it's partly because I'm putting so much time into Quirky Cookery. Outside of that, though, I've also been swamped with birthday parties and putting off doing everything I need to do to go out of town for a few weeks....which I leave to do in 2 days and I haven't even done laundry, much less packed.

It doesn't mean I don't have a thousand and one links for you, though. No, I'm not exaggerating. Here's several for you and it doesn't even make a dent in what I've found and loved. There's a huge variety here, too, so a little bit for everybody.