List of St. Louis Jobs by Hourly Pay

This is a non-exhaustive list that I will regulary update.

Walmart / Sams Club – $11/hr min, Walmart Deli – $11.50/hr
Costco – $15/hr
Aldi – $13/hr
Target – $13/hr
Hobby Lobby – $10/hr pt, $15/hr ft

ClubReady – $15/hr, call center
St. Marys Hospital – $11/hr min
Mercy Hospital – $11/hr
St. Louis County Library
St. Louis Public Library – ($10 – $12)/hr to start
Post Office

QT – $10/hr

Amazon Warehouse NOT recommended,
High Speed, High Injury. Check youtube.
Have Vending machines for painkillers!

Changed Diet

The previous diet I blogged about, I now think is not very good, nor sustainable. In the meantime, I have had some family issues keeping me busy. Have more coming..

Avoiding Sugar

Note: This article talks of my personal experience, and it is not medical, or dietary advice.

I have been about 20 lbs over my normal weight (from my time in fast food), so I recently decided that I should change my diet to include hardly any sugar. I have seen different diets like Keto,Paleo, Carnivore, etc.. , and there are people that seem to be doing well on these.

Almost every snack I see is loaded with sugar in some form, even some Jerky snacks!

I figured that I would just try a Meat & Vegetable diet, with a few misc side dishes, Hardly any bread, or grain products. But no fruit for at least awhile.

I can substitute Pepperoni sticks for pizza, (still a good amount of calories) , and I don’t feel deprived of my pizza. Or if I just need to chew and eat something, go for a whole bag of soft greens, like romaine, that way I get minimal calories, and lots of phytonutrients.

I found that I still seem to need a tiny amount of carbs, ( 1 slice of bread a day), but I feel pretty good. But since this is a low carb diet I think it helps to get more sleep (8 hrs instead of 6 hrs). That truly makes a difference. Many articles agree that more sleep can help you loose weight.

For now, Just drink Coffee, Tea, Water, Carbonated Water. I could even flavor my water with a dash of Apple Cider Vinegar for some taste. Even in Ancient Rome and Greece, people drank a drink made from Water, some Vinegar.

My breakfast may consist of things like: eggs, bacon, cheese, Lettuce, Nuts, etc… , along with my Coffee.

Problems: I can eat a bag of Romaine lettuce, but my gums get sore at this time, from all the fiber that get stuck between my teeth. So, I use a Water Pik water flosser, which really helps. It removes the fibers from between my teeth, and feels refreshing to me.

I can also “soften” my Romaine lettuce leaves by making a ‘romaine leaf, and Colby cheese’ sandwhich. That feels alot better on my gums!

It has only been a few days, but I do feel pretty good on this, and would like to continue this and see how I do on (nearly zero) sugar.

My experience with Natural Nootropic mind enhancers.

Note: the following is my experiences, and anything you do is at your own risk.

Nootropics are substances which enhance cognition in some way. Often the term nootropic is used to mean a drug, like the family of racetam drugs. But I am referring in this case to herbs, vitamins and such.

I avoided the racetams and other drugs, partly because of the reports by some people of severe cognitive side effects. So, natural must be the way to go.

Below I describe my experience with several of them:

Caffeine & L-Theanine:

The classic nootropic beginners stack, with it being a pretty safe stack. The L-theanine is good for when I have anxiety, (like when I go to the dentist), and it is said to take the edge off and balance the effect of caffeine. In my case, it does seem to do that.

Vinpocetine:

A semi-natural extract of the periwinkle plant, Vinpocetine is one of my favorite nootropics, with it being very inexpensive, and helps my brain get going. It feels pretty effective. Note: some bottles say to check with a doctor, and don’t use if you have a family history of cataracts.

DMAE:

I am not sure how well this worked for me. But it is cheap, and I did seem to have some effect. I took DMAE bitartarate from my health foods store.

Rosemary & Vitamin C:

A interesting nootropic stack I came up with myself, and have not seen it anywhere else. It does seem to help with cognition.

Tyrosine:

An amino acid, Tyrosine supplementation has been shown to help with motivation, and dealing with stress. It is used in the body to produce dopamine, an important neurotransmitter. It is pretty good for my motivation, but I have to kind of watch out that I not get too impatient, and temper.

B Vitamins:

Yes, B Vitamins! They help give energy, and if you are low in them, it can make cognition harder, both in terms of energy, and memory. B Vitamins, especially B12 have been very helpful to my cognition. I take the methlycobalamin form of B12, since it is said to be better than the cyanocobalamin form of B12.

ALCAR:

Also more commonly known as Acetyl-L-Carnitine, this is another one of my favorites, as I can feel it helping me.

My Year Of training myself to be ambidextrous

I wanted to ambidextrous, or at least be able to write with either hand, after all it can be useful if my right hand got hurt and I was not able to use it for awhile.

Most everywhere online at the time said that you either were born with it, or did not have it. But I think the brain is a bit more adaptable than that.

Starting out, I am what I’ve heard is called “weak hander”, meaning that it is not too hard for me to switch hands, unlike a “strong hander”.

For my year of training myself to be ambidextrous, I focused mainly on being able to write well with either hand. I got a notebook, and practiced writing the sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” since that has all the letters from A to Z. Even practiced it in cursive.

I believed that it would take awhile to develop the motor memory for my left hand to develop, and for the neural connections to form, thus giving me more dexterity than before.

Before long, I was writing much smaller, and better, with my left hand, but still not quite as well as the right, which has decades of experience writing.

Fast forward years later, and I can still write well with either hand. They still feel different, but that’s fine.

What almost drowning taught me

In 2018, I almost drowned. It was at a lake we would sometimes go fishing.

I came face to face with my mortality, forced awake to the reality of mortality, a reality we often try not to think about. A reality we try to push off as far to the future as we can.

It was a lesson to not take life for granted. To take care of the things in my life that matter. To not have regrets because of having things in ones life undone. For the only things we can take with us to the other side, is what we have done, what we are, and our experiences. And to have left behind a legacy, and not just a legacy, but ideas, inventions, etc.. that can outlive us and benefit the people still here, and those who will be here. To help humanity with their problems, and inspire them, and awaken them to realities never considered.

And to be with the ones you love, and to have a wonderful life while it is yet possible, before the sand runs out.

How to get your first job at the age of 30?

First prove yourself:
No one was willing to take a chance on me,
So, I found that I could prove myself by Volunteering.
In volunteering, I could prove myself without my “employer”
having to risk a cent.
I also asked for a letter of recommendation once I was there for awhile, and got a very nice letter of recommendation, due to my work ethic, and good attitude.


Also, helped that I was good to my supervisors, and don’t have any criminal records.

I downloaded and printed a generic employment application,
filled it out, except for a few items specific to the job being applied for. Made a bunch of copies, And went around the mall asking companies of they would accept a paper application, and if the answer was yes, I would fill out the last few lines on my generic paper application and hand it to them.
I then kept note of everyplace I applied, and when.


This way I managed to get 20 or more applications done in an hour.
Compare this to only getting 1-2 done in an hour with long online applications.

I assumed that I had maybe a 10-15% chance of being interviewed,
and a 1 -2% chance of being hired. So, I fiqured that I should
get hired before I reached the 100 applications sent mark. (I happened to be right, later I got hired with the 88th application).
I proceeded to apply at (almost) every place at the mall.

I also setup a spreadsheet/database of places I applied.
Containing rows that contained data about things like:
Name, When Applied, Interviewed?, How many times applied, etc…

I even applied right outside of the mall, and my first job was Wendy’s. It also helped that they needed help, And I was of the mindset to prove myself.

Good things come to those who hustle.

On Planning

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

You can’t expect good results if you try making a building without a blueprint.

You have to know what you want.

for how can one ask for what he wants, if he does not KNOW what he wants?

And if one does not know what he wants, how is he to even plan in order to get it?

If life told you that it would grant you what you want, just ask, what would you ask?

How is life supposed to answer your question, when you don’t know what to ask it?

And if a question is asked, if has to be specific enougth as to warrent a search for THAT specific thing, and not a closely related unacceptable thing.

If you are specific with life, life will be specific to you.

Purpose of Life?

Many people wonder about the meaning of life.

But I think it is better instead to ask, “what is the purpose of life?”.

There are millions of things that happened, over thousands of years, involving many, many people, to put you here where you are right now. If even just one thing went wrong in that long chain, this moment would not exist.

This means you ARE special, and implies a certain responsibility.

So, what could that purpose be?

To have a use, to help, and be helped, and to leave an impact, however big or small. To do what you can. Help out others who are down the time-chain (younger) from you. To make a positive connection with another human being, and positively impact him/her in some way.

Stated in another, though metaphoric way: To be the audience, and/or the star in your own show, even if everyone else has their own show in this stage called life.

If you have anything helpful to write, write it!

If you can an idea that is good, share it.

If you long to learn something, learn it!

If you are wasting time, see if there is something you can do about it! Anytime that you are not using, enjoying, learning etc.. is wasting your LIFE-TIME. It is your LIFE-TIME, and God gives us all a certain allotted LIFE-TIME, after which is ones evaluation, and determination.

My ‘belief’ System

I was thinking of the concept of ‘belief’ and the different things people believe, when a interesting thought came to me: Instead of just evaluating your beliefs based on what is true, (which is important though), evaluate them based on how they effect you.

So, here is the basic system I came up with:

  1. True and Constructive Belief: Good
  2. True and Destructive Belief: Action Needed
  3. False and Constructive Belief: Caution
  4. False and Destructive Belief: Discard