Victor

I have a client who has a good job with a Fortune 100 corporation, and has been working there for over 10 years.

She is fearful of a lay-off, as many people are these days.

So, she went job searching, was called in for an interview, and was given a job offer at a significantly higher salary. Her dilemma is that she went to college close to 30 years ago, but never obtained a degree. She has been lying all along about having graduated from college.

She works as an engineer, knows her stuff, and was able to correctly answer highly technical questions at her interview.

Now, she is worried about accepting the job offer, resigning from her current job, and then the new employer discovering the educational discrepancy and rescinding the offer and/or terminating her, and thus she will be left with nothing.

I advised her that she shouldn't take the risk, and to keep her current job. However, she is enticed by the much higher salary, that the new company is small, she wants to take the chance that maybe the company does not do a thorough background check.

Any thoughts or opinions?

I am writing a story wherein one of the characters is recollecting certain events. In one of his recollections, he tells of a conversation that he has with another person. For simplicity, these are the basic mechanics:

Two guys are talking a hike. One guy starts to share an event in his life.

"I remember when I went past the fork in the road, I met up with two ladies. One of them said to me, 'what are you doing here.?'

"I answered, 'I am from the government and I am here to help.'

"One of the ladies looked at me stone-faced and the other laughed and said, 'We don't need any help, thank you.'

"And so I just continued on my merry way and said, 'So long.'"

*****

Obviously, this is just for illustration. My actual story has the character being more descriptive, and the dialogue is more complicated. As you can maybe surmise, the use of double and single quotes is cumbersome and confusing. The story within the story is about 3 or four paragraphs, with about 6 lines of dialogue. I tried the single-double quote approach and didn't like it. Now I am considering increasing the margins for the story within the story, and using double quotes for the dialogue.

Any other ideas or experience?

And please, don't tell me to scrap the idea and to just write out the story within the story as separate section.

I searched the Internet and all I can find are photos and information for truckers who need to know clearance.

An estimate is OK. Is it 100 feet high, 200 feet high? I am a bad estimator for distances, heights, etc.

Thanks.

How about the Los Angeles:

Jammers

Slammers

Traffic

Action

Machine

Loggers

Dusters

Devils...?

On the lighter side, the Los Angeles:

Riot

Smog

Bloods

Crips

Eme

Cons

Parolees

Homeless

Panhandlers

Wets

Fakers

Cracked Actors

Crack Babies

Plastics

Unemployed Actors

Servers

Day Jobbers

Off-ramps

On-ramps

Wannabees

Joes

Starbuck Playwrights

Next Best Things

Next Big Things

909-ers

Home Depot Loiterers

that Hostess Bakeries filed for bankruptcy, and Twinkies will no longer be available?

You can't expect them to live in their mother's basements subsisting solely on Cheetos and Diet Dr. Pepper, now can you?

De-skewing 2012 Election exit polling data, and parroting Fox News, requires a lot of energy.

especially during the Presidential Election year?

Last week, my pastor completely mis-stated the Obama Administration's position with regard to contraception and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in particular. I wanted to jump up during his homily and say, "No, Father, you got it wrong." Instead, I remained silent as the priest in so many words endorsed Romney and encouraged the parish to vote for him.

Last Sunday, the Pro Life committee was selling rosaries, prayer books, crucifixes, etc. to raise donations for a unwed teen mother shelter. I was dismayed to see anti-Obama booklets and pamphlets also for sale.

What happened to the Church's social doctrines of Peace, Economic Justice, and compassion for the poor and immigrants? Is the Catholic Church becoming a one-dimensional religion?

without the student's consent?

If so, why would Obama supposedly spend millions of dollars to "seal" his records?

Here is the deal. My daughter attends a charter school that is in very high demand. It is the type of school where parents buy homes within the school's service boundaries so that their children can attend the school. However, there is also open enrollment where kids from outside of the boundary can apply and be admitted, based solely on test scores and grades, and space availability.

Well, an acqaintance's daughter applied, but she was not accepted.

To circumvent the rules, this acquaintance of mine convinced a friend to fraudulently create a lease agreement for a condominium within the school's boundaries, basically showing that the family resides in the area and thus enabling the girl to attend the school. It is totally fraudulent. I know for a fact that the family is not living in the condo. Last week, I actually went to a pool party at the acquaintance's house, which is about 6 miles outside of the school's boundaries. The acquaintance even acknowledged that thanks to a friend who wrote up a lease agreement, his daughter is now attending the charter school.

First, I have a problem with the fact that quite possibly a more deserving student was denied admission because my acquaintance's daughter took his or her place. Secondly, the acquaintance's daughter, who attended the same elementary school as my daughter, is very mean to my daughter and bullies her.

So, my question is, should I just mind my own business and not say anything, or should I anonymously "drop a dime"? The acquaintance isn't what I would call a real good friend, so I don't think there is any serious betrayal on my part. We are on speaking terms, and a lady whom I am dating is friends with the acquaintance's wife. I have spoken to the parents about their daughter bullying my daughter, but they are in total denial and refuse to accept that their little girl could ever behave in such a manner.

Anyone with similar experiences? Your thoughts or opinions would be appreciated. Thanks.

I mean, Romney has touted his experience as a job creator and private entrepreneur.

Let's see, he can use other people's money (namely, foreign banks, China and Saudi Arabia) to target vulnerable nations (especially those that are rich in natural resources), slash social programs, and eliminate government regulations and labor laws, and sell the countries to the highest bidding vulture capitalist or American Corporation to pay back China and Saudi Arabia - all while giving himself and his cronies a nice cut of the action.

I am, of course, referring to the law of supply and demand. In the US, the demand has decreased, while supply has increased, and yet, we see the prices hitting record levels.

Something is wrong with this picture, and someone is getting screwed.

I am thinking of attending a conference in the summer, but want to know if Cleveland is worth visiting. The conference is more of an excuse to visit than to conduct business.

I am aware of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and some of the historic buildings, but what else would you recommend for a visitor?

Can you recommend some nice hotels near Public Square? Also, is the area around Public Square clean and safe, and is it within walking distance to tourist attractions?

Gingrich, Romney, Bachmann, Santorum, Cain, Paul, Huntsman, Perry... are you guys serious?

Is the GOP throwing the election?

After his debacle in the debate in Michigan last night, and his drunken meltdown in New Hampshire last week, why is he still in the race?

Your party does not have a viable presidential candidate, and Obama's re-election is all but assured.

The only candidates that might have a shot at defeating Obama (Romney, Paul, Huntsman) won't win the nomination because of the right-wing, Christian-Conservative Tea Party whackos that have taken control of the GOP.

A neighbor recently confided that she was swindled out of $250 by a man posing as a cable installer. It was presumably a special limited time offer, whereby for only one time fee, a customer could have cable TV and Internet for only $250, and the service was good for as long as the customer stayed at the current residence.

Well, for a couple of weeks, the service was good, but then the Internet was gone, and there were only limited channels. So, my neighbor calls the cable service provider, and guess what? She is not even a customer. The company sent out a technician and installed legitimate services, and he advised my neighbor to contact the company about the fraud.

However, since the con man cable guy knows where she lives, she is hesitant to make a complaint. She just wants to take her losses and forget about it. I advised her to make a complaint because this con man is probably continuing to defraud dozens of people, and is causing legitimate customers' service to be more expensive and of lower quality.

Thoughts or opinions?

That is, it's GOP operatives that have revealed the sexual harassment charges against Cain when he was President of the Restaurant association.

It is not Democrats or the "liberal" media.

As a democrat myself, I would love to see Cain win the nomination. There is no way that Cain, a whacko extremist, parody-of-himself clown, can defeat Obama. The GOP insiders know this too, and yet Cain is in the lead. This scares the GOP power brokers. It certainly does not scare Democrats.

Maybe this question doesn't make sense, but if you read my other question, maybe it will.

I still receive the cable television signal, and can watch television. My laptop can see and connect to the wireless router that is connected to the cable modem, but the cable modem does not have Internet access. It was working fine before.

The reason I believe that the cable modem does not have internet access is because my phone uses VOIP, and now I do not have phone service. Like I said, everything -- phone, internet connection, and cable television was working fine before. I did nothing... changed nothing... just all of a sudden, no internet connection.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

OK... I know how to configure Netgear router... went to IP Address in browser, set the password... etc. etc. Been there and done that. Internet access was fine for about a week. Then, poof... Internet access was gone.

My laptop can see the wireless router and can connect to it. So the problem is with the cable modem. However, I am receiving the cable television signal, and I am able to watch television, which is confusing me. I would have thought that if my internet was gone, I would not be able to receive the cable tv signal. (BTW, I have the coaxial set up, and everything is properly connected.) The other thing is my telephone uses VOIP, and so I do not have telephone service either.

OK, so I contacted my technician, who texted me a 12 digit code, with which I had no idea what to do. So, I called the technician, and he said he left an instruction document in my Favorites folder. Apparently, that 12 digit code enables the cable modem internet connection to be activated somehow. I said "Great."

But, I had forgotten that my laptop crashed, and I had to do a complete restore, which meant I lost most of my files, including the documents in Favorites.

Does anyone have a clue about what I am talking about? Does anyone know what this 12 digit code is, how it is used, and where I might enter it? I know about configuring wireless connection, but configuring wireless connection through Windows Vista does not have anything to do with the cable modem.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Oh, and before you guys start telling me to contact my cable/internet provider, I have my reasons for not doing so, just yet.

Thanks, again.