Shop and funding update

The week has been spent burning brush from the big brush pile.  The task needs done desperately partly because there is more yet to clear--hopefully over this Winter--the big bonus is I have been able to slip some of the burnable junk from the old building into the burns each day.

Current state of clearing (check video for original state)

 

I managed to route 100 Holiday lights over the rafters so I now have a semi-dim party atmosphere in the building--the camera really brightens the scene up on its own--how does that go? "Gives us the nice bright colors, gives us the greens of summer..." (Kodachrome by Paul Simon)  The big upsides here is they are bright enough, water resistant--they're meant for outdoor after all--and, for the old incandescents, cheap--which means I didn't have to spend any of the donated monies yet.

Speaking of donated money at this point funding is holding at $325.00 or 2.7% of what I need to actually get the shop up and started.  This accounts for construction wood, new roof from the walls up, insulation, wood stove so it has heat, interior drywall, and wiring.  it also accounts for a large roll off dumpster and a skid steer loader to haul off what I can not burn or put in the normal trash collection.  I have a huge advantage in being able to do this work myself which is why I can do it so cost effectively.

At this point my biggest concerns are getting enough money up to get going, and getting the YouTube channel up and profitable before the inevitable move out of my spouse comes to pass.  YouTube requires 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of total view time across a channel before they will share ad revenue with a creator.  I have no sponsors yet for the same reason.  At the time of writing this I have 8 subscribers and 2.3 hours of view time.

The testing of the new intro and outtro clips seems well accepted and I will be incorporating the suggestions into the next set.  I'm trying to get the videos set for a Friday release but time is an issue since I have to film them, edit them, splice them, tie it all up, and upload, all on my own.

So for now that should bring things up to date.  Don't forget to hit the subscribe button both here and on my channel.

Donations can be made at https//:www.MauraAlwyen.com/help-support-maura

Thank you,

Maura

Personal notes and a request for help.

Like a large portion of the population 2020 & 2021 has been more than rough but slightly less than devastating for me.

My son's two jobs shut down early in 2020 as they were both forward facing and heavily customer interactive and he had to move back home.  It took most of a year for him to find a new steady job but he is now an apprentice mortician--no end of work in that field.

 

My daughter's college was shut down most of last year so her job prospects got delayed, but by the end of this year she will be a fully certified welder--can't off shore all of that.

 

Need I say the old roof went spectacularly?

The new roof is much more solid.

The roof failed in the Spring of 2020 and I found out when the bathroom floor suddenly became very soggy from water finding its way down the inside of a wall.  So my daughter and I with some help from my son--he still had odd jobs--removed six layers of shingles and replaced them with a steel roof--roofing was donated but hey, it all matches!

 

During roofing and bathroom remodeling my spouse lost their job as the company they worked for began to implode and much like that company so did our 30 year marriage.  Their new job requires they relocate by roughly the end of this year--I won't be going along.  Yes as some in my twitter feed already know I am getting a divorce.

 

I have some big issues at this point.

• I am currently 51 years old.
• I have arthritis--amount of debilitation depends on the weather.
  
• I have diabetes--diet controlled but it is still there.
• As many of you from twitter know I am somewhere on the trans gender spectrum, I identify as a woman but can pull off a decent male performance when I need too--like all trans women being a guy is an act.
• I was an Assistant Building Superintendent for 25 years.  My duties qualify me for what they now call a Facilities Manager, but I have no business degree and everyone wants an expensive piece of paper saying I can do what I say I can.
• I "retired" three years ago to raise my grand-daughter (aka Buttercup) so I need an income, but no one is hiring--I am applying as a dude with my dead name so it isn't the trans part causing the issues.
• The three year gap in my resume also nails me the same way it does many women who leave the labor field to raise children.
  

 

So, no job, no job prospects, and a house that needs loads of cosmetic work, so what do I do?  I come to you dear reader.  I know you can make a living doing YouTube videos, I have the skills and knowledge to use in them, what I am lacking is a shop.  The challenge by my estimates--as a professional--is that it will cost about $20,000 to overhaul an old building here on site and equip it to do the work.  The upside is I can do the work myself with some help from friends and family.

The old building.  When I bought the place two years ago you couldn't see it.

Now do to the current costs of building materials the bulk of that money is actually going into the structure of the building.  Like everyone else I have daily living expenses too, electric & gas, water & sewer, phone, internet, etc, that I need to cover until I am making money off the channel plus the initial goods and power needed to supply the channel with content, so an additional $30,000 on top of the $20k for the building would be nice to hold me out a year--probably a bit less could do it but a few bills change as things split up and the loss of discounts on some--no multi phone, no multi car on insurance--add up fast.

 

What kind of video content do I plan to put up? 

The most obvious is home remodeling videos.  Beginning with the shop.  The original house is 70+ years old and has been added onto twice, but it's last remodel--based on a date stamp under the kitchen counter--was about 1971!  I have wood paneling in random places as accent walls, the kitchen counter is harvest gold, the stove and ovens were avocado green but for safety reasons they had to go already, plus they were propane and house is natural gas--don't ask me how that even worked. 

Have I mentioned my kitchen floor is harvest gold and avocado green?

Suffice to say I have walls to remove because the house is choppy, a kitchen that needs replaced, flooring that is long past it's expiration date, a full bath that needs beautified--it has a pink tub and toilet--and adding a washer and dryer, oh and the electric needs updated too before I can start adding modern appliances.  So as you can see I have several seasons worth of "Remodeling with Maura" to film along with continuing the series "Cooking with Maura" That is already begun on my YouTube channel.  My goal is one or two videos a week and to make everything I possibly can for the house right here on site including the kitchen cabinets and maybe even the stainless steel kitchen sink--yep I can weld too.

 

So to wrap this up, I'm broke.  I'm desperate.  I need money.  I'm starting (literally) my own home business, but I need the assistance of strangers and some friends to pull this off.

 

My donations page is here I can currently take cash App, Venmo, and Crypto, more on the way as I set them up!

 

YouTube corresponding video for this post is here.

My go fund me has been deleted as their system dead names you.

it was untold mental anguish to even do this in the first place and then to see that just made matters worse.  I need the money to get on with my life but I do not need or want my dead name out there.

-Maura

So what mystical magical thing is Maura on about today? Blue collar employment and its viability. Since many of us regardless of where we are, are becoming familiar with items missing from store shelves so let’s begin with truck drivers.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) there were 1,951,600 actual drivers in the U.S. during 2020 and projected openings of 231,100 each year through 2030 with many openings being through drivers retiring or moving on to other careers. In 2020 the average pay was $47,130 or an equivalent of $22.66 an hour with some carriers advertising rates as high as 70 cents per mile (CPM) now if we assume 60 Miles per hour (MPH) at $0.70 that’s $42 an hour or $87,360 annually! Now let’s be realistic only Long Haul Truckers (LHT) are going to get that kind of pay and that truck is pretty much their home for weeks on end.

According to the Census Bureau bout 88% of truck drivers are self employed and about 10% of the force is female owned. All this for a job that requires no college and only minimal training that is frequently covered by your first employer in the field.

Heavy equipment operators, again we are using BLS numbers.

There were 457,200 operators in the U.S. during 2020 with projected openings of 51,500 a year from 2020 through 2030. Average pay is $49,100 or $23.61 an hour for a job that is either trained at a Union school or on the job and requires no college. According to Data USA 97.8% of the work force is male with an average age of about 43.

Now what do heavy equipment operators do? They operate cranes, track hoes, back hoes, asphalt pavers, heavy rollers, the really BIG dump trucks in quarries, basically if it moves dirt or rock, or dismembers old buildings it’s a heavy equipment operator running it.

Welding, again according to BLS pay is on average $44,190 per year or $21.25 an hour. As of 2020 there were 418,200 persons in the field with expected openings of 49,200 a year from 2020 through 2030. This job has two routes, take classes for certification(s) or get an associates degree in welding, both get you the same job but one lets you learn now and pay later. The advantage is many community colleges offer the classes so you are paying lower fees to learn and sometimes you can even get grants. According to Zippia 89.9% of the work force is male and about age 40.

Pipe-fitter, now let’s get the “Duh” portion out of the way; pipe fitters get this, fit pipe together! Be it mechanically, welded, brazed, or glued, they assemble pipe based upon design or replacement need. According to BLS data they earn an average of $56,330 a year or $27.80 an hour with projected job openings of 51,000 a year through 2030. This is an apprenticeship career path, there will be some schooling involved but that is usually handled at a Union level so again no college degree required.

There are other blue collar jobs out there such as butcher, baker, cook, landscaper, some pay really well, others pay the minimum an employer can get away with in the area they are located in—there’s a reason factories set up where they do, cost of land, and hourly cost of people.

Now based on just the list I have assembled we have annual job opening s of 382,800 that require little or no college. Some you could be working in a couple of weeks others a few months.

A simple search will show that people have been arguing against pushing college educations since at least 2015 and I know from experience with my own children (my son who is 30 is a mortician and my daughter who is 27 is a welder) and their friends were all pushed through school from an early age with the attitude of “that won’t get you into college” and “that’s not how it will be in college” not once did an advisor or teacher recommend trade school or talking to Unions or contractors, let me repeat that: not once.

Are there lots of blue collar jobs out there? Yes, because not everyone can be a manager doctor, lawyer, or an engineer. Do they all pay great wages? Sadly no, but have you ever had to call a plumber on a holiday weekend? How about someone like me who is an HVAC technician? You need that blue collar person desperately enough and you’re going to pay whatever they ask weather it’s because your house is 45F/7C or because you have nowhere to poop.

We Are All Journalists Now

At this point it needs to be said: We are all journalists now. We all know we cannot trust the main media outlets to report the truth.

We the People of this world, in this era of internet accessibility from darn near everywhere, with our smart phones loaded with Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Discord servers, have the ability to report to the world in real time what we see, whether it is a bee collecting nectar or a cop expressing blood from a human.  We have immediate upload capability to Youtube, Rumble, Vimeo, Oddysee, so we can immediately upload the videos of those events, for the world as well — if we choose not to live stream as it happens.

We all know — or should know by now — that we can not trust the police “to serve and protect” the citizenry, but we sure as hell can expect them to follow orders from our elected politicians–with all the force they choose to use.

As journalists and chroniclers of our time, we need to keep our cameras focused upon all forms of law enforcement, and every politician at all times, and upload those videos regularly.  We need to teach our governments that the surveillance state goes both ways.  How did Governor Newsom get caught mask-less at an event in violation of his own mandate?  A citizen saw it and filmed it.  This is how we take back power from our bloated bureaucracies — one video at a time.

Will the governments retaliate?  Most likely.  Should that stop us?

“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.”
–Thomas Jefferson

Per Statista in 2019 there were 697,195 police officers in the United States (this article does not specify if that includes Federal officers.)  In comparison, the United States population for 2019 was 327,542,328 non-law enforcement citizens.  That means law enforcement is only 0.002% of the total population or 470 citizens to each police officer.  They can’t arrest 470 people videoing them at the same time.

Don’t be the person who says, “I don’t need to video this because look at all the other cameras here,” or “I don’t need to upload this because look at all the other cameras here.”  Assume that no one else will upload the event.  So what if 20 to 30 versions of the same event get posted?  That is 20 to 30 different vantage points, 20 to 30 different views that may end a brute’s career or exonerate an officer who was in the right.  We wouldn’t have known how George Floyd — among others — died, had no one videoed it or been brave enough to upload it.

Tips for budding video journalists:

• If possible, live stream the events so if your phone is confiscated the video is already up and live.
• Try to not curse during the recording if you have to explain details.  This allows local news to use the footage and not run afoul of the Federal Communications Commission.
• Stay silent — let the events speak for themselves.
• Save your comments for text in the description box, and let the video do the work.
• If things get too tense for your comfort don’t be afraid to bail–live to record another day.
• A picture is worth a thousand words and a video can be worth a life–maybe even your own.  Talking and/or trying to interact with the scene also brings attention to yourself.  Yes, we have the right, and some would say the duty, to record the police; but lets face a simple fact, law enforcement does not like it when we do.  So unless you like the taste of pepper spray, you’re best to video from a safe distance, stay quiet, and stay safe.

Writing is much the same as video for rules of safety.  Write things in your own words.  Live tweet as events happen.  Live post to Facebook, or wherever you post things.  It doesn’t matter if you passed English or not so long as the events get told!  Can you write in a foreign language?  Post in that language!  That increases the number of eyeballs that actually see the events through your eyes.

We all hear about events like the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and what is happening in Europe, and Australia right now. That information is getting out through ordinary people recording from their balconies, or in the midst of the action as it happens.

Do you intend to enter a protest as a participant or citizen journalist?  Along with your trusty smartphone you may want to invest in a bodycam as they are fairly affordable and could be useful to prove you didn’t start something if you get hauled before a judge later.  Let your lawyer handle that!  Speaking of lawyers, if you plan on going to the “action” consider finding one to represent you should things go wrong.  Having a lawyer’s card on you can in some cases keep you from being detained longer than need be.

The issues happening in the world right now with government over-reach and government over-reaction can be stopped without escalating things further if we act now, and if we expose things to the world as they happen. We can bring this peacefully to an end, but we all need to act, we all need to report. And when it comes time to elect our government officials, we all need to remember who has been there, and vote them out.  We didn’t get where we are today in an instant; we got here because of apathy and a duopoly of power convincing us that they were they only choice.  Use your social media to hold politicians accountable as well as law enforcement.  You remember an article about Sen. John Doe where he did something naughty from three years ago?  Share it.  Politicians do this to each other all the time, so why leave all the fun to them and their operatives?  We can do it too.  Politicians have turned public service into a life long career.  It is up to us to bring in new faces and new ideas and holding them accountable, preferably on video, is how we can do it.

“Politicians are like diapers, they need to be changed often, and for the same reasons.”
-Mark Twain