Search This Blog

Thursday, September 22, 2011

9 FUN THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND ^_^

1. Try speed dating and get a bunch of dates
lined up.

2. Join a fun adult learning class that a lot
of women will go to such as, like: Massage,
dancing, cooking.

3. Go on a road trip with some friends and visit
tourist areas where groups of single women (on
holiday) are looking to have some fun.

4. Eat out at a restaurant with a friend/some
friends. Chat up the waitresses.

5. Take public transport to a far away destination,
or into the city and chat to women who sit next to
you.

6. Join a gym and start working out. Spark up
conversations with girls who are working out.
(Wait until they are having a break between sets).

7. Take a weekend holiday. Meet groups of single
women who are on holidays and looking for some
fun.

8. Go to a cultural event. Meet women of that
particular culture, or other women who've come
along to learn about the culture.

9. Join a mixed sports team. Meet women in the
team and make friends with new people.

SKATEGIRL >> Patti McGee: The First Betty is a champ!

Pat McGee, inductee at the IASC and 1965 skateboard champion
Patty McGee in the original picture of Skateboarder Magazine' cover
Patti McGee: The First Betty is a champ!

Last year, after the first round of inductees at the IASC was announced, several girls got pissed off that out of the five nominees there was no girl. This year, the IASC has learned its lesson and the very first women skateboard champion is part of the cru.

And guess what? Known by her peers as the “First Betty”, Patti McGee was already skateboarding when your mother was not even born! She recalls that she and her friends had to skate in deserted parking lots until the security guards or the police would come to chase them. Doesn’t sound familiar? She started skating right when “they invented parking garages. The exits were a challenge not to mention having to watch out for the security guards. Yep, not much has changed for skaters there!”

Pat McGee, inductee at the IASC and 1965 skateboard champion
Patti was born on August 23, 1945 at Santa Monica and like most skateboarders at the time, she says that she “started out as a surfer, so when there was no surf my friends and I would find a hill to ride. That’s how I started skating". McGee, who grew up in Southern California, was an avid surfer and begged her mom to take her to the beach to catch the waves. When skateboarding entered the scene, McGee found a new freedom and, in 1962, she started skateboarding with a "Bunbuster" by Cooley, during the Easter vacations when she was at the Hollywood Teen Fair. In an interview for Skateboarder Magazine in 1965, she recalls that: ”I had been asked by a sporting goods store to give away a skateboard at a drawing every evening. One evening, the kid that was supposed to do the skateboard demonstration did not show up and they asked me to take his place. So, in front of 1500 kids, I did my first skateboard demonstration.” Already a skateboard warrior at the time, she set the trend for many decades to come. She recalls that “no hill was too steep, no parking lot too tall, no pavement safe; we couldn’t get enough.” Something that could definitively be the title of the next YouTube craze.

The year was 1965 when Patti McGee, only 19 at the time, became the first women skateboard champion at the “Women’s National Skateboard Championship"(Danny Bearer won the men’s division). Following that achievement, she became the first professional female skateboarder in history and the demo girl for HOBIE Skateboards (and Vita-Pak) and traveled for about one year demonstrating the boards at a national level. The craze for skateboarding was high and everybody wanted to be with Patti. So, she did several commercials for national brands, then she appeared on national television program like “What’s My Line” and “The Johnny Carson Show”.

Patti McGee
Pat McGee, inductee at the IASC and 1965 skateboard champion
Patti McGee
On National television, she demonstrated to the whole world what could be done with a skateboard: a kick-turn (also know as a tic-tac), a 360, several walking the board maneuvers and a handstand. Those flat tricks were considered radical at the time, especially if you remember that the wheels were made of metal, that they had no grip, that they were doing an awful noise; and that the boards were made of skinny solid wood that was not wide enough to place both feet.

But what she considers as the highlight of her carrier is not the national tour with Hobie or the TV shows but the cover of Life Magazine. She recalls that "I appeared upside down on my board doing a hand stand on the cover of LIFE magazine on May 14th, 1965," she said.

"I also got the cover of Skateboarder Magazine. That will always be my pride and joy. It’s also another first for girl skaters." Yes, on the cover of the fourth issue of Skateboarder Magazine! And that was back in 1965.

Unfortunately, as Jim Fitzpatrick told isTia in a (exclusive) forthcoming interview with isTia : “The crash was the result of people discovering that skateboarding is painful. The excitement of "How cool is this?!?” became: “Shit, this hurts!”. So, most kids who bough a clay wheeled-skateboard never bought another one. One and done! This is too difficult, it hurts when you fall!”.

Suddenly, due to poor quality equipment (Steel and Clay wheels) which lead to numerous accidents, many American cities banned skateboarding and by Christmas 1965 Skateboarding had died and along with it the national contests dried up, the sponsors disappeared, the brands and the magazines went out of business and it took 10 years for the next skateboard revival to hit the concrete with a vengeance.
Pat McGee, inductee at the IASC and 1965 skateboard champion
A Blue-eyed blonde, Pat McGee is a rare combination of
beauty and skateboard talent. Pat, 19 says the secret of her
championship form is plenty of practice.
Original comment from JohnSeverson - Skateboarder Magazine
When Dogtown Legends like Tony Alva, Jay Adams or Stacy Peralta started ripping the empty pools in 74-77, she had already left the scene for skiing at Lake Tahoe. And it's just too funny that the most famous image of the 1965 national champion is showing her skating around a pool... Then she went into Turquoise mining in Nevada and later worked as a leather smith. For 15 years, Patti ran a southwestern Trading Post in a place called Cave Creek in Arizona and she is currently involved with in a screen-printing business with her daughter, Hailey Villa. The business, “First Betty”, prints skate-inspired girls clothing line. Still in the skateboard business after 53 years!

And this year, she will stand beside skateboarding inductees and icons including Torger Johnson, Stacy Peralta, Steve Caballero, Eric Koston and Bob Burnquist at the next IASC event .

“IASC recognizes the importance of honoring the pros that made skateboarding what it is today,” said John Bernards, IASC executive director. “Without those icons and legends, the tricks skateboarders are doing today would not exist. This year’s inductees represent the best, most progressive skateboarding from 1960 to 2010, and we congratulate each of them on their accomplishments.”

Pat McGee, inductee at the IASC and 1965 skateboard champion
Because of women like McGee, skateboarding has become more than a just a sport for the dudes. She has certainly paved the way for other female shredders. While it’s true the industry caters toward our counterparts, it’s nice to see McGee will receive the recognition she deserves.

These days, Patty McGee is not shy to say that she is 61 and that she still rips like in the good ol’ days. Her top two skateboarding influences are Dave Hackett and Peggie Oki, she stills read skateboarding magazine (she is a fan of Concrete Wave and Thrasher) and she is riding a Dave Hackett board, a gift from Death Box.

So next time you se a grayish ol’ woman ripping on a skateboard ask her for advice, she may have a trick or two that she has kept secret during all those years… You never know who you talk to…


All pictures from Life and Skateboarder Magazine.

Friday, September 9, 2011

The Ten Worst Things to Put in Your Cover Letter

It's never too early to make a bad impression.
A cover letter or introductory email is often the first thing a potential employer sees when reviewing a job applicant. It's the first opportunity to impress recruiters and hiring managers and, therefore, the first opportunity to disappoint them. Everything from copy mistakes to inappropriate jokes in a cover letter could derail an application.
Here are the top ten worst things to put on a cover letter:


1. Next to Nothing
While writing something that's too long is a common cover letter mistake, what can be even more damaging is a cover letter that's too short.
Bruce Hurwitz, President of Hurwitz Strategic Staffing, Ltd., a New York-based staffing firm recalls a cover letter he received a few months ago for an entry-level IT sales position. It read simply, "Here's my resume. Call me. [Phone number]."
"I cracked up," Hurwitz says. "This person had only just graduated with a Bachelor's degree. It was ridiculous."
A good cover letter should be somewhere between 200 to 250 words, Hurwitz says, and should answer the question of why a recruiter should look at the resume. "The key is to highlight one success," Hurwitz says. "For example, 'I successfully increased sales 500% over two years, resulting in increased, sustained revenue of $25 million.' Once I read that, I look at the resume."


2. Criticism of a Prospective Employer
Thumbtack.com, a San Francisco-based site that connects customers with small business services, asked potential employees to submit in their cover letters feedback about their website. One candidate, a contender for an entry-level position in April, didn't pull any punches.
"The engineering of your site looks lazy and ineffective," the applicant wrote, proceeding to describe the color scheme of the site as "disconcerting to my eyes."
Needless to say, he was not considered for the position, though not before the hiring manager got in some laughs around the water cooler at his expense.
"We forwarded the cover letter to our managers sort of as a joke," says Sander Daniels, co-founder of the site. "It was the most caustic feedback we received. But we responded kindly to him -- we didn't suggest any improvements to him in approaching other employers. We don't see it as our role to counsel failed candidates."
Daniels observed that while many strong candidates turn in well-written cover letters, some have let the demand for engineers get to their heads, as Silicon Valley romances them with six-figure salaries and other job perks.
"Maybe they think they can get away with it -- but in our company, culture is a very important factor." Daniels says. "Even if Facebook's best engineer came to us, we wouldn't hire him if he was a jerk."


3. Personal Stories
While employers are sometimes interested in personal stories, especially if they give some idea about work ethic, it's best to save these stories for the interview, says Lindsay Olson of New York-based Paradigm Staffing, who specializes in recruiting communications and marketing professionals.
"I think my favorite of all time was the salesperson who poetically told me about how he decided to run a marathon, climbed to reach glaciers to have a taste of pure water, ran at heights of 5,000 meters in Peru, and biked down the world's most dangerous road and survived (over 300,000 have not)," says Olson, of a candidate who was applying for a business development position at a recruiting firm in June last year. "All this in his opening paragraph."
If you are asked in an interview about your hobbies and adventures, be prepared with a strong answer, says Olson. "What a [job candidate] likes to do outside of work might show how they are in their job," she says. "As a hiring manager, what you don't like to hear is, 'I just like to sit around at home and read books all day.'"


4. Awkward Language
Rachel Levy, director of marketing at Just Military Loans, a Wilmington, Del.-based personal loan service for military personnel, got a letter last week from a candidate who seemed to be expressing lukewarm interest in an IT analyst position.
"My name is xxx. I am pretty interested in the IT analyst position at Just Military Loans," the letter began.
Levy says she sees many applications, especially for IT jobs, to have grammatical and other language flaws. "What I've noticed is that there are a lot of people applying to these jobs, for whom English is a second language," Levy says. "So the connotations of certain words and phrases may not be clear to them. Which is fine, but they should get someone to help word their intentions correctly."
In this case, Levy thinks the applicant meant "very" instead of "pretty," but she'll never know because that applicant didn't get an interview.


5. Someone Else's Words
Frank Risalvato, a recruiting officer for Inter-Regional Executive Search Inc., is deluged with cover letters from different candidates that all obviously use the same template from the same career coaches.
"Some of these [cover letters] we see are very obviously not written by the individual," says Risalvato. "We get 15 to 20 of these a month, and it sounds disingenuous and insincere, seeing these cover letters from Seattle one week, Chicago another, and it's all the same style."
Some career experts also warn against the tired stand-by opening lines in a cover letter. "Opening a letter with a passive and clichéd statement such as 'Enclosed please find my resume highlighting my experience and skills that would help your company to grow and succeed,'" is a no-no, says Ann Baehr, certified professional resume writer and president of New York-based Best Resumes. "It's best to use something catchy and more specific such as, "If your company could benefit from the expertise of a hard-charging sales producer with a flawless record of success for closing tier-one Fortune 500 prospects in the healthcare technology market and capturing millions of dollars in revenue, please take a moment to review the attached resume."
If you're uncomfortable with that approach, make your cover letter unique to you with insights about the company you're applying to, advises Darrell Gurney, Los Angeles-based founder of career coaching site Careerguy.com and author of Backdoor Job Search: Never Apply For A Job Again!.
"Put in a note saying something like, 'I've been following your company's progress in the last year and in February and I noticed your company was mentioned in the Journal of such and such,'" Gurney says. "That's the amazing thing about the Internet. You can spend 15 minutes online and look like you've been following them for a year."
Gurney reminds applicants to do their full research on the company if they do get called in for an interview after.


6. Irrelevant Experience
As noteworthy as an impressive Girl Scout cookies sales record may be, it's not worth trumpeting that experience when trying to break into a field like software sales. Rich DeMatteo, co-founder of Philadelphia-based Social Media Marketing firm Bad Rhino, remembers a candidate who did just that when he was working as a corporate recruiter at a software company.
"I was recruiting for a software sales position and one candidate was sure she was qualified because of her success selling Girl Scout cookies when she was a young girl," DeMatteo says. "I think she was young and didn't realize how important it is to state the right experience. Younger applicants tend to reach for skills, and try to find them anywhere in their life."
Some candidates take it even further, acknowledging they have no relevant skills, but pushing to be hired anyway.
"I read one for an IT analyst position that says, 'Although my qualifications do not exactly match your needs, the close proximity to my home is a big bonus for me,'" Levy of Just Military Loans recalls. "You have a lot of underqualified people just out of college just throwing resumes at the wall, and hoping something sticks."
DeMatteo suggests trying to focus on specifc sales figures or experience in relevant projects. "A lot of sales, for instance, is numbers-based. Stick to that."


7. Arrogance
It's one thing to promote yourself favorably in a cover letter, but watch that it doesn't degenerate into overt bragging.
This is especially true when it comes to ambiguous skills, says Jennifer Fremont-Smith, CEO of Smarterer, a Boston-based tech startup aimed at helping IT applicants improve their resumes.
"People claim to have things like, 'superior Internet skills.' What does that even mean?" says Fremont-Smith. "I saw an application from a Web developer about a month ago where he described himself as a 'rockstar in design tools,' and an 'expert in developer tools.' That kind of inflated language doesn't really tell your employer much about your skills."
Fremont-Smith recommends carefully personalizing your cover letter to the employer and listing the most relevant of skills for the job you want, and why you want it. "The cover letter is the place to tell your story about why it is that you're the right person for the company," she says. "It's about really crafting a narrative that answers the question of why the employer should talk to you."


8. Wrong Company Name/Wrong Cover Letter
Talk about mistakes that are easy to avoid.
"The biggest mistake I see on a regular basis is that candidates either misspell the name of the company or get the name wrong," says Gary Hewing of Houston-based Bert Martinez Communications LLC. "If it's a small misspelling like 'Burt' instead of 'Bert', I'd be willing to overlook that. But the big, unforgivable mistake is when someone copies and pastes a cover letter without the name or address to the correct company. That, to me, is someone who's lazy and not paying attention."
Hewing says sometimes it's hard to tell if a cover letter was meant for a particular job, even if the candidate got the company name and position right, if they talk about disconnected experience without explaining themselves.
"We're a sales organization, but at least twice a month, we'll get a cover letter with someone talking about their banking background instead of sales," says Hewing. "It's a complete disconnect to the job description and it doesn't even explain if the candidate is seeking a career change. It tells me that they're just not paying attention."


9. Cultural Preferences
Job hunting is often compared to dating: It's about finding the right match; and success hinges on staying cool under pressure and masking anxieties to appear confident instead of desperate. But a few candidates take the dating analogy too far, subjecting hiring managers to long lists of personal likes and dislikes in cover letters.
"This one guy wrote the first part of his cover letter talking about his interests like it was an ad for an online dating site," Olson of Paradigm Staffing says, about an applicant trying for a PR job. "He likes all types of music, but 'never got into country.'"
While potentially charming to a possible mate, those tidbits are not helpful in a cover letter.


10. Jokes
Breaking the ice with humor isn't necessarily a bad idea, but jokes in cover letters are usually a turn-off for busy employers, say recruiters. It might be better to save them for the interview, if they are to be used at all. Olson recalled a candidate for a communications executive position who rubbed an employer the wrong way with an off-color joke.
"She decided in her interview, for some reason, to compare kids to Nazis," says Olson. "She thought she was being funny, but the interviewer happened to be Jewish and didn't think she was very funny."
Recruiters agree that it's best to stick with tried-and-true unfunny, but effective conventional pitches about your education and work experience.
"The thing with trying to be chummy and funny is that you lose credibility," says Gurney of Careerguy.com. "It looks desperate. And the worst thing you can do in job-seeking is looking desperate or needy."


PS: IMPORTANT TO ALL BUSINESSMAN

Ten Things Women Do Better Than Men





This came from an article on Cosmopolitan's Website about a recent study that proves women are better than men at certain things. I just had to share this.



1. We evolve hotter.

A recent study revealed that women are getting better looking through evolution; meanwhile, men are staying the same. After following more than 2,000 people through four decades of life, the study showed that attractive women had 16 percent more children than average-looking chicks and that beautiful people are 36 percent more likely to have a daughter as their firstborn. All those gorgeous daughters mean more beautiful women than in past generations.




2. We survive car accidents more often.

This is sad but true: Men are 77 percent more likely to die in a car accident than women, according to a study done by Carnegie Mellon University. Our boyfriends should be thanking us when we nag them to "Wear your seatbelt!"



3. We're better at seeking comfort.

A mind survey of 2,000 people revealed that women are far more likely than men to talk through their problems. Fifty-three percent of women talk to their friends about what's stressing them out, as opposed to 29 percent of men.



4. We're more recession-proof.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80 percent of those who have lost their jobs since December 2007 have been men. Ouch. This could be because male-dominated fields have been hit the hardest, like manufacturing and finance. That really sucks...but hey, maybe it's time more men became nurses and educators.



5. We graduate college more often.

We already know that female enrollment is higher than male, but the Department of Education's statistics reveal that men are also less likely than women to graduate and get their bachelor's degrees. Men are also more likely to take longer than five years to complete their degree.


6. We eat healthier.
A survey of more than 14,000 people, conducted by the University of Minnesota, showed that women choose far healthier foods than men. While men are more likely to chow down on frozen pizza and red meat, women are piling fruits and veggies onto their plates. It all sounds pretty obvious, but we get so much grief for our chocolate addictions that we just had to point this one out!

7. We have stronger immune systems.
No wonder men act like such babies when they have a sniffle — women really do have stronger immune systems than men! If there are little battles going on in our bodies, women have a secret weapon: estrogen. A study done by McGill University indicated that estrogen gives women an edge when it comes to fighting off infections. That's because estrogen confronts a certain enzyme that often hinders the body's first line of defense against bacteria and viruses.

8. We live longer.
Among the world's population of those who are over 100 years old, 85 percent are women, according to the New England Centenarian Study. In general, women continue to live five to 10 years longer than men as well.


9. We're better managers, especially in this economy.
This one is a little controversial, but a slew of experts are confident that women make greater bosses because they are better listeners, mentors, problem solvers, and multitaskers than their male counterparts. In a recent Daily News article, management expert Jay Forte said, "It's a very service-oriented economy [right now], so you need employees to be motivated. Women are better connectors than men and more astute about knowing how to activate passion in their employees."

10. We invest better.
A study of 100,000 portfolios showed that women's investment returns outperform men's, 18 percent to 11 percent. This could be because women are typically more cautious with their investment decisions and think longer term.

P/S: OOOOh i see ;D

Trust Yourself - We are perfect as we are



The Tao Te Ching: To achieve greatness we need do nothing. We are perfect as we are.
We are as God made us, and God doesn't make mistakes.
We are made perfectly for the tasks we are to perform on this Earth and that is to love God with all our heart, all our mind, all our strength. Not for God's sake, but for our own.

The Tao Te Ching: Think Small. Stay low.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Stay low --- like the ocean --- where all great rivers must flow into you.
Jesus spoke 500 years later. He said, "The meek shall inherit the Earth."

Lao Tzu, or "old man," regarded as the most learned man on the planet, wrote this 500 years B.C. His contemporaries were other self-realized beings like Buddha, Confusius in the East and Plato, Socrates, Euripedes in the West.

King Solomon of the Old Testament does not refute this. In fact, in his writings, King Solomon celebrates love of self and love of other. Pages are dedicated to this through his verse.

Jesus quotes Lao Tzu almost word for word in His sermons on the mount. The Tao Te Ching is the 2nd - most translated book in the world after the Bible.

"A Course in Miracles" --- another spiritual text says, "At the last judgment, God will tell us how He really feels about us, and finally... we will know how magnificent we are..."