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What do you do for a living?
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3431
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: What do you do for a living? (in reply to metalhead)
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I've been retired since the end of 2009. I had a 43-year career as an engineer, scientist and manager in the defense business.
During the first 25 years of it I became one of the go-to guys to defeat the Soviet strategic missile defenses. Toward the end of that phase I had a consulting business, then I was part of a small employee-owned R&D firm. My clients were engineering vice presidents of big companies, or Assistant Secretaries, Subsecretaries, etc. of Defense, or equivalent foreign officials.
When the Cold War ended I moved as a civilian contractor to the Army's most high tech base in the Central Pacific. I switched from figuring out how to defeat radars and other sensors to operating, maintaning and modernizing some of the planet's most pwerful, precise and complex radars, eventually managing about 250 people.
Before settling down and getting married at age 28 I majored in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Texas. I was in Grad School and taught Mathematics there when I was 19.
After the University I was in the U.S. Army (Combat Engineers) for less than two years
I was recruited to work for an Agency of the U.S. Government in Central America. We were supposed to be rooting out Cuban cadres who were converting villagers to communism. After a couple of years I concluded there weren't any Cubans there: it was just a continuation of the 4 1/2 century war of the white people against the Indians.
This and a couple of other events radicalized me, so I lived as an outlaw for a few years in the '60s before I fell in love, got married, and more or less rejoined the mainstream at age 28.
RNJ
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Date Jan. 24 2024 21:29:11
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3459
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: What do you do for a living? (in reply to metalhead)
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My entire professional life has been concerned with foreign affairs and national security. Aside from university, I spent several years in the US Air Force with an intelligence element intercepting Soviet communications. After leaving the Air Force, I spent a career as a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service and Department of State, spending about two-thirds of the time in American Embassies overseas and one-third back in Washington at the State department and the Defense Department at the Pentagon.
My first assignment in the U.S. Foreign Service was at our Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria during the height of the Cold War, with subsequent overseas assignments in Maritime Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines) and a couple of assignments in Latin America. After retiring from the Foreign Service, I have done temporary duty consulting gigs with the State Department and the Defense Department that have taken me all over, both domestically and overseas.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 25 2024 2:17:59
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silddx
Posts: 570
Joined: May 8 2012
From: London
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RE: What do you do for a living? (in reply to metalhead)
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Fascinating to read what you people do for a living.
I'm a Fire, Health and Safety Adviser for a London University. I love my work, and I work in a wonderful little Health and Safety team. It involves providing a lot of legal and strategic advice to senior leadership and staff, technical advice, problem solving, developing and delivering training for staff and students, fire safety compliance auditing, risk assessment and analysis, lots of reporting and analysis, liaison with insurers, external auditors, and the fire and rescue service, developing programmes to ensure continual improvement in safety compliance, the list goes on ...
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Date Jan. 27 2024 13:28:01
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Ricardo
Posts: 14832
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: What do you do for a living? (in reply to metalhead)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: metalhead
you must be doing a hell lot of gigs to have 50% income come from gigs since I've heard most people say gigs make very few bucks. Most say it comes from teaching. and after the pandemic ended, the dancing scene never picked up again?
No you miss read that. Nearly 100% of my income was from gigs. I teach more for fun and do make some money there that amounts to maybe gas money or something. I used to get gigs from and for Dancers before the pandemic. Things were already starting to wind down right before the pandemic, so I was already doing more Rumba at the time. I was at certain times in the last 20 years, performing 5 or 6 days a week regularly, with a fairly steady income, trying to split it between venues because when one gig goes down, I can’t afford to lose it all at once. Meanwhile, school shows and special events/projects will be extra (I have had 3 gigs in one day sometimes) income. I would get my minimum fee to take off from a gig (usually triple my weekly pay or more, but often got more) and get a sub. Professional dancers were constantly active and getting projects going and we would negotiate through a heirarchy of professionals getting the best available people for whatever job. Often students were around to help with subbing etc. There were several people around who could do Rumba singing and guitar so, those gigs were as frequent as the flamenco gigs, so I felt about a 50/50 balance between the two projects. In 2018 for example, I had two big contracts back to back, where not only did I make big bucks, but I could afford to finally pay my people what they deserved for a gig. One was a Rumba/jazz fusion type show and the other was a flamenco guitar concert where I introduced the dancers at various times. Very different repertoire but that is how I basically viewed my pro career. I would also apply and receive artistic grants for my pieces. (2-6k type awards).
In 2019 when my regular singer suddenly (and disrespectfully IMO) quit on me, I started singing myself. I gave him a 1099 for 18k that year (for the previous year’s work)….that was only gigs I paid HIM for, there were many he got paid separate (just to give you an idea) and he also did his own projects without me, and I had used other singers too. Since the pandemic I have only done a few flamenco projects, so it is now feeling more like my income is 80% rumba group or solo gigs. The social distancing situation allowed me to do Rumba stuff pretty easy, but the dancing network did not recover. Many of the pro dancers have gotten day jobs, my wife included.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Jan. 28 2024 16:48:17
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Manitas de Lata
Posts: 656
Joined: Oct. 9 2018
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RE: What do you do for a living? (in reply to metalhead)
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im taking another degree , and im a father too.. i stopped my dailly workout (home gym) 3 months ago.. therefore i started training again, also did jiu jitsu and rug.y
some weeks i arrive early to work , so i play half hour.
my lunch is quick so i pratice at least half hour
the time for watching tv etc its allways with a guitar , at least more 2 hours a day
some weekends many hours
still sounds like **** :)
1 month with this playing routine and helped a lot ! Many many years playing just very few times...due to some frustration and other interests .
So you have to know yourself first...
I have two main issues... im not gifted , im a "fast" learner , so i can desmotivate when i can achieve some things fast, and in this case i have very very good taste in music (many genres) so i was allways trying to playing huge stuff that wasnt apropriate to my level....
So , what did i do to stop this... stop thinkin on that... and just have fun...if you have more fun youll play more... and you progress more, if i like Oasis so lets play some Oasis , if i like pink floyd lets try some etc..
I managed that , and i gave another try to flamenco (something that i wanted since i listen to Paco at 199? ) , a serious try this time.
Think this way , when you start pratice you feell like **** , cause you need to warm up.... if you play for example half hour during the day its more easier to study later for an hour or two, and each day cames easier.
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Date Jan. 28 2024 20:02:17
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