TradersGuideofTexas.com

By Marv Meyers

marvoroza@aol.com

HOLLY LAKE RANCH, Texas — A few years ago the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected job losses would be erased by year’s end should current growth rates be sustained.

Apparently all those jobless folks would be gainfully employed at a McDonald’s somewhere near you.

Is this a great country, or what?

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

This would be a great time to move: paradigm into a higher-paying position.

We are moving into a buyer’s market for job seekers. Take my job, for instance. No, really, I mean please take it.

There is no way you can call what I do work.

PHOTO: Marv Meyers, Traders Guide of Texas’ columnist, gets ready to toot his own horn.

Are you kidding me?

Please do not rat on me, but anyone can do this, anyone.

Trust me.

First get yourself a book called Roget’s Thesaurus.

It’s chock full of adjectives you can sprinkle throughout your articles and spice up your columns real good.

Next get “Big Words for Dummies” or “Five Dollar Words for Dummies.”

Basically the very same book with different covers. One’s cheaper.

It makes no difference whether you know the meaning of the words or not.

Why am I telling you, practically a complete stranger, about these valuable secrets?

The truth is I am about to get fired.

You can smell a pink slip coming from a mile downwind, can you not?

When you mention some event next Tuesday and your boss changes the subject you know the gig is up.

He does not want to go there because he knows you will not be there next Tuesday.

You might as well put an egg in your shoe and beat it.

You know the mantra, “Good luck, Marvo, and don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.”

How can they fire someone who seems to have it all? Friendly, kind, helpful and plays well with others?

Crunch the numbers. They pay me big bucks for such $5 words as ostentatious, belligerent or obnoxious.

This column contains 500 words. Don’t ask why. It just does.

Do the numbers.

Five dollars times 500 words a week equals $120,000 per year.

Now, if they fire me and hire you for, say, $100,000 a year, they have just saved $20,000 a year.

I was planning to quit anyhow.

Why would a smart guy like me let his superiors know he’s planning to go Splitsville, you might ask?

Simple. The guys I work for never read this far down my column anyway.

Their attention span is shorter than a rutabaga and about as intuitive.

The job for which I am best qualified is one with short hours, good pay and no responsibilities.

Wait! What am I thinking? I already have that job.

I just hope and pray my editor and/or publisher does not read this week’s column.

Oh, woe is me. I am doomed.

Does anyone out there have an opening for an unemployed writer with a big mouth and mush for brains?

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To leave a comment for Marv or Traders Guide of Texas, just scroll on down.

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© 2007 Marv Meyers

If you’re part of a group — a church, scout troop, club, charity — that needs to raise money, here’s an idea.

An outfit called EcoPhones — headed up by Charles Drayton of Dallas — will buy old cell phones and other used electronic devices. The idea is that the fund-raising volunteers in your club or other group come up with ways to collect people’s no-longer-used phones and other electronic devices and send them to EcoPhones, which will pay according to a price list posted on the EcoPhones Web site.

PHOTO: A Nokia N91 could be worth $300 for your group

A typical price for an old phone is 50 cents or $1, but higher prices show up frequently on the list as well, $15 and $25 and all the way up to a hefty $300 for a used Nokia N91.

Here’s some verbiage from the EcoPhones site:

“Looking for a great way to raise thousands of dollars for your school, church or club? The EcoPhones Recycling Fundraiser pays up to $300 per item. There’s nothing to buy and nothing to sell. Simply ask parents, neighbors, coworkers and local businesses to donate and recycle their used consumer electronics.”

Solicited items can include:

• Cell phones

• Ink-jet printer cartridges

• DVD movies and videogames

• Portable DVD players

• Laptop computers

• MP3 players

• XBoxes, Sony Playstations, Wii

• Digital cameras and digital video cameras (DVRs)

• Digital picture frames

• Portable navigation and GPS devices (such as Garmin, Magellan, Tom-Tom)

Traders Guide of Texas has no connection with EcoPhones, but this looks legitimate and may be of interest to our readers who are planning fund-raising projects. This could work at least as well as yard sales and bake sales.

For information direct from EcoPhones, go to www.ecophones.com or call 1-888-326-7466 or 1-888-EcoPhones. Or write info@ecophones.com.

If you have a comment about this article, including any experiences with EcoPhones, please write us using the “Leave a Reply” form below. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks from Traders Guide of Texas!

TYLER — The Compassionate Friends of Tyler will hold its fourth annual Butterfly Release Saturday, May 19, at 1 p.m. at the First Baptist Church’s south campus, at FM 2813 and Highway 69 South.

As stated in the newsletter of The Compassionate Friends, a national organization with an active chapter in Tyler:

“The mission of The Compassionate Friends is to assist families toward the positive resolution of grief following the death of a child of any age and to provide information to help others be supportive.”

For more information contact Margie Newman at 903-561-1447, The Compassionate Friends of Tyler at 903-258-2547, Tony Loper at 903-780-7104 or Pat Settle at 903-570-8412. The local mailing address is P.O. Box 9714, Tyler, TX 75711.

See also www.compassionatefriends.org and www.TylerTCF.org.

Group M7, headquartered on the fifth floor of the former Blackstone Hotel, just north of the historic square in downtown Tyler, Texas, is in the business of constructing professionally designed Web sites for local as well as national and even international businesses.

Mary Lingle, chief designer for Group M7, mentioned the other day that one of her favorite Web designs spotlights the lowly cupcake.

TheGreeneKitchen.com of cupcake fame is owned and operated by Elissa Greene, who lives in Plano but whose cupcake factory sits in Nocona, the town halfway between Gainesville and Wichita Falls that’s famous for its boots.

Mrs. Greene notes that the rising popularity of “cupcake boutiques” has helped her baked goods rise above the rest.

PHOTO: Elissa Greene

“‘Old-fashioned recipes made from scratch’ is our motto, and that’s no exaggeration,” she beams.

Rumor has it that The Greene Kitchen often has customers asking Mrs. Greene not to tell their mothers that her cookies and made-from-scratch desserts are better than Mom’s.

Another rumor — more than a rumor, actually — is that you can go to the Greene Kitchen Web site and enter the “Free Cookies for a Year Contest.” If you’re the lucky winner you will choose from a dozen freshly baked, homemade cookies per month for an entire year sent right to your front door.

How do you enter? Just fill out an online form that authorizes The Greene Kitchen to E-mail you notices about new items and holiday specials. (Mrs. Greene promises not to share your E-mail address with anybody else.)

To get your hands on Mrs. Greene’s homemade cookies and treats, go to www.thegreenekitchen.com for ordering and shipping details.

PHOTO: Group M7’s Mary Lingle with daughter Erin

To get your hands on a professionally designed Web site of your own, call Mary Lingle at (903) 595-3240, or visit www.groupm7.com.

To enjoy the talents of fine-arts students of the University of Texas at Tyler, you’re invited to visit an exhibit of several works of art on campus through April 20, 2007.

See the works of five students in the Meadows Gallery of the Cowan Center, 3900 University Blvd., Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The art department of the university also invites you to a reception in honor of the five students on Friday, April 6, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Even if you miss the reception, you can still view the students’ exhibit through Friday, April 20, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The students are Amber Elise Berry, Allison Nicole Chew, Lecia Joy Ferguson, John Daniel Simmons and Jonathan Peter Syltie.

The students’ art projects serve as partial fulfillment of the degree of bachelor of fine arts.