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Hello, Anybody...

Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:31 pm
by LoyalTubist
Many of you old timers remember me for putting up some quizzes in the past. Well, that knowledge got me all kinds of freelance magazine work, mostly celebrity obituaries and fill in articles for magazines you take away for free but pay authors fairly. I'm more or less at a lull right now, not because of a lack of work (that never happens in this business) but because of a family emergency in the Phoenix area. Right now I'm staying at a hotel in Surprise (my 33rd day). I won't go into all the details but it's a tough situation.

I was hoping to see some of the other old timers here.

Right now, if I were home I'd be in Needles. I love the quiet. (i grew up in a railroading family so the trains don't bother me.) I can actually stand 120 degree heat. But don't believe that jive about dry heat being more comfortable than humidity. Anything over 115 is a blast furnace, wet or dry.

Where I am now in Surprise is across the street from the Banner Del Webb Medical Center in Sun City West, which is the focus of why I'm here. It's usually very quiet but Saturday night there were a lot of helicopters bringing patients to the hospital.

Anyway, I came here thinking my mother was going to die and now I realize she will end up the same way my grandmother was (her mother) and it was at exactly the same age she is now. Grandma hung on for 16 years. She died in 2010 at the age of 93.

Anyway, some of you probably wonder what happened to me for all these years... In 2006 I took a job as Associate Professor of Western Communication at Long An University in a rural area in Vietnam, about 35 miles west of Saigon (only Communists call it Ho Chi Minh City). I wanted to stay there at first but I realized it was going to be a problem with the language and all. I had a two year contract which I did not renew.

A university in the Cagayan Valley of the Philippines (up in the far north) offered me a contract in a similar position but it was not good. I wasn't even in the area for two weeks. A friend I knew in Cavite province (south of Manila) offered me a job in a real estate office. It was a very odd job, I thought. They found out my graduate degree in tuba is from a theological seminary. So it was my job to lead prayers in the office. Odd, but I had a job and I got to eat OK. I did that until just before Christmas 2008 when a friend called for me in Mindanao. She found out I had a life insurance license and for three months I tried to sell life insurance. This was in Cagayan de Oro , on the northern coast of Mindanao (nowhere near the Cagayan Valley). After that I contracted through some of the trade schools and language schools for a time before I ended up with my own small business which was attached to a large teaching hospital in Cagayan de Oro. I served as a liaison officer for Western patients. I began writing for magazines at this time too.

I left the Philippines in 2011 and moved to Guam where I attempted to go back to music teaching but one administrator didn't like my attitude about making performance ensembles mandatory for every student in a school (I was against the idea.) So I dove into writing from that time.

I've been back for a while now and with my mother's recovery (if there will be one, Grandma didn't recover) being so slow I've put all my work on hold. I did a couple of pieces today but they probably won't go up for months.

Anyway, I hope to hear from anyone who remembers me.

Bill

Re: Hello, Anybody...

Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2016 9:02 am
by supermutant
Hi, from my time sitting where you are sitting in your circumstance, I can offer that there is a public golf course just south of the original Sun city that rents clubs inexpensively and will gladly partner you up with some locals that offer some fantastic stories. It made my time more enjoyable. Peace

Re: Hello, Anybody...

Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2016 10:11 am
by LoyalTubist
I don't golf and even if I did I'm not in the mood. I'm in the hospital 8-14 hours a day seven days a week. Thanks anyway.

Re: Hello, Anybody...

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:41 pm
by LoyalTubist
Old news but Mom died in February. I suffered a heart attack and am now in recovery. I feel great. The heart attack was only a few days after Mom's death but I was told it had nothing to do with me. I had a horrible case of pneumonia and my work had me out where I was awake for 39 straight hours. You can't do that when you are almost 60.