Just read an article relating to depression in ex-NFL players either because of short-lived careers which led to financial ruin or long-term injuries. It is something the NFL does not like to discuss, the same goes for the fans, but the reality of it all is to much to ignore. Junior Seau has become one of the biggest names in this when he committed suicide because he had developed a degenerative neurological condition during his time in the NFL. He was known as extremely outgoing and positive through his entire NFL career and upon retirement that changed fast.
Hopefully the NFL studies more into issues with brain damage from playing football and more extensive testing is done. While it is a great sport and the players love playing it, the injuries are getting worse as players get bigger and hit harder. A long NFL career could leave a player jobless and with life-altering injuries at the age of 32 or 33. That is far to young to be dealing with extreme depression because of the hard transition from the NFL life to a normal life. Fortunately it does seem as if the NFL has made more of an effort to understand and prevent some of these injuries in recent years.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Free Write
Hi everyone (especially football fans),
I wanna discuss a proposed change in the NFL rule book that would change current defensive pass interference rules. Currently there are two rulings, a 15 yard penalty and a spot of the foul. This proposed change would get rid of the spot of the foul ruling and make all pass interference calls 15 yards regardless of circumstance. This may help balance recent changes in years that have made it harder for a defender to play on the ball defense during pass plays. But with this could come some problems.
If a defender is beat and they know it on a deep 30+ yard pass what is to stop them from just leveling or tripping the receiver and having them only get half as many or less yards? My hope is that the players will have some level of sportsmanship and try to play the ball but this of course would not always be the case. Best case scenario they make this rule change but add a stipulation, if the defender is clearly taking out the receiver because they are beat the spot of the ball foul should remain. This may help prevent penalties in which defenders simply bump into a receiver and they get a 30 yard penalty call in their favor.
I wanna discuss a proposed change in the NFL rule book that would change current defensive pass interference rules. Currently there are two rulings, a 15 yard penalty and a spot of the foul. This proposed change would get rid of the spot of the foul ruling and make all pass interference calls 15 yards regardless of circumstance. This may help balance recent changes in years that have made it harder for a defender to play on the ball defense during pass plays. But with this could come some problems.
If a defender is beat and they know it on a deep 30+ yard pass what is to stop them from just leveling or tripping the receiver and having them only get half as many or less yards? My hope is that the players will have some level of sportsmanship and try to play the ball but this of course would not always be the case. Best case scenario they make this rule change but add a stipulation, if the defender is clearly taking out the receiver because they are beat the spot of the ball foul should remain. This may help prevent penalties in which defenders simply bump into a receiver and they get a 30 yard penalty call in their favor.
Free Write
Hi everyone,
Well this week I finally started a new job after leaving my old one at Four Peaks Brewery. It is been harder than I had hoped to find a more permanent job but this will do for now! Luckily for me it is close to home and I have a bunch of friends who work there or have worked there so adjusting was nice and easy. Fun for me because this is also my first time working in a restaurant. Also can't complain about the cheap beer I get for working there, always a plus!
Like I said before, I have been looking for a more permanent job within one of the city governments. Unfortunately a lot of these jobs require extensive experience and knowledge on specific topics. And the ones that would be more my level, are a totally unrelated field. Maybe it is time to start looking out of state for a new job. Hopefully this job market opens up some more! A lot of unpaid internships are always available of course.
Well this week I finally started a new job after leaving my old one at Four Peaks Brewery. It is been harder than I had hoped to find a more permanent job but this will do for now! Luckily for me it is close to home and I have a bunch of friends who work there or have worked there so adjusting was nice and easy. Fun for me because this is also my first time working in a restaurant. Also can't complain about the cheap beer I get for working there, always a plus!
Like I said before, I have been looking for a more permanent job within one of the city governments. Unfortunately a lot of these jobs require extensive experience and knowledge on specific topics. And the ones that would be more my level, are a totally unrelated field. Maybe it is time to start looking out of state for a new job. Hopefully this job market opens up some more! A lot of unpaid internships are always available of course.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
A Typical Day
My typical day begins anywhere from 9-9:30 a.m. (depending on when I make it there) and will run from 2 to up to 4pm depending on what the day brings. Currently I am doing Tuesday-Friday as they have Mondays off. Every morning starts off the same though, first 10 minutes or so is some light discussion to get the day started and before we get to into work. As I stated in the other blogs right now the main focus is setting up an inventory management system and getting as many items as I can online and up for sale! This alone takes up a good portion of the day as the furniture needs to be moved, cleaned, setup, and then put back away. This usually takes up a good portion of the day until lunch.
After lunch and some more lively discussion it is back to work. The second half of my day consists of working on forms to setup the for-profit arm of the non-profit, but this includes tons of waiting for one form to fill out another form. So when I am not spending time on this I will move onto developing the inventory system into something that fits in with the work flow. Right now that means entering all relevant information of the nonprofit into the program and figuring out with features of the program and what reports I can generate that will actually be useful and not just another step. These tasks keep me quite busy all day long and before you know it it is time to head home.
After lunch and some more lively discussion it is back to work. The second half of my day consists of working on forms to setup the for-profit arm of the non-profit, but this includes tons of waiting for one form to fill out another form. So when I am not spending time on this I will move onto developing the inventory system into something that fits in with the work flow. Right now that means entering all relevant information of the nonprofit into the program and figuring out with features of the program and what reports I can generate that will actually be useful and not just another step. These tasks keep me quite busy all day long and before you know it it is time to head home.
Selling Furniture
Well a lot of this internship so far has consisted of getting the basics of the inventory system set up and listing tons of furniture for sale on eBay. I have come to find that invoice systems are extremely expensive, and that almost no matter your choice they are at least a few hundred minimum. Luckily I was able to find a free service called Inflow which limited amounts of data and reports, but they all fall into exactly what I need. I actually enjoy this type of work because at my last job (Petsmart) I did a bunch of inventory analysis and worked with a inventory system every day. Inventory systems are the backbone to almost any organization!
After talking to the owners awhile about selling things online and how that goes it is surprising that it is not as voluminous as I thought it would be. There is a lot of multi-thousand dollar furniture they are selling for less than 60% of original price yet it sits online for months. This makes it difficult in the warehouse as donations keep coming in at fast paces but the inventory is not going anywhere once it finds a spot. And it almost seems like a lot of the sales that do happen are people who live hours away! A lot of them want a drop off but this is not feasible with their financial situation. Hopefully there is something encourages people to buy from them more to get the inventory flowing!
After talking to the owners awhile about selling things online and how that goes it is surprising that it is not as voluminous as I thought it would be. There is a lot of multi-thousand dollar furniture they are selling for less than 60% of original price yet it sits online for months. This makes it difficult in the warehouse as donations keep coming in at fast paces but the inventory is not going anywhere once it finds a spot. And it almost seems like a lot of the sales that do happen are people who live hours away! A lot of them want a drop off but this is not feasible with their financial situation. Hopefully there is something encourages people to buy from them more to get the inventory flowing!
The Furniture
So I am actually a bit surprised by the types of furniture I have seen here. I figured you would see not cheap, but lower quality furniture in vast amounts. But in reality it is a good mix. On one end there are small wood tables worth maybe $5 or $10, and then there is a couch and coffee table set on the other worth $15,000. Some people seem to be quite generous with their donations! I have been told that their name is finally getting more recognized and word of mouth has made their amount of donations coming in skyrocket to years past. But unfortunately it is a lot of things like kitchen tables and sofas when their main need is mattresses, these seem to be the toughest to come by. The challenges are interesting for this organization, the generosity is there from the community but it is not always exactly what they need.
Only issue with receiving higher end furniture is that they cannot give this out to their clients because the value is to high and they will not accept it. This leaves them with furniture that cannot be moved easily out of their warehouse. But the solution to this is to sell it for a discounted rate on ebay! This helps a lot as the money from their clients is enough to keep them going but is not enough to stockpile some reserves. By selling the furniture online they are able to turn a small profit which goes towards the use of storage trailers, cleaning/refinishing supplies for their furniture, and the eventual purchase of a new box truck. Luckily there are no laws broken by doing this, otherwise I cannot imagine how smaller organizations like this could even exist. With limited funding from the government and third parties it makes sense why a lot of non-profits must turn a profit.
Only issue with receiving higher end furniture is that they cannot give this out to their clients because the value is to high and they will not accept it. This leaves them with furniture that cannot be moved easily out of their warehouse. But the solution to this is to sell it for a discounted rate on ebay! This helps a lot as the money from their clients is enough to keep them going but is not enough to stockpile some reserves. By selling the furniture online they are able to turn a small profit which goes towards the use of storage trailers, cleaning/refinishing supplies for their furniture, and the eventual purchase of a new box truck. Luckily there are no laws broken by doing this, otherwise I cannot imagine how smaller organizations like this could even exist. With limited funding from the government and third parties it makes sense why a lot of non-profits must turn a profit.
The Internship
Well, like I stated in my earlier blog post I am interning at Bridging AZ Furniture Bank located in Mesa. What is a furniture bank you may ask? Well it is a place where people or stores donate their unneeded furniture to be cleaned up (or not hopefully) and redistributed at no or very little cost to this who are in need. Now, we live in a city of 5 million people, and this organization is one of only 2 furniture banks in the city of Phoenix, so the need is high and donations can never come fast enough. To make things even more challenging this non-profit is ran by a total of 3 people. 1 of who is considered a part-time employee! It is a husband and wife you do all the paperwork and director duties while they have one warehouse worker who takes care of picking and fulfilling orders that they received. He himself is in charge of 3 different locations with several thousand pieces of furniture, quite the task. Currently Bridging mainly works with Southwest Behavioral and handles the vast majority of their dealings with them.
Now on to my part in all of this. During my time here I will set up a inventory management system for them to help with the flow of inventory and to also get a more professional feel with slightly more personalized invoicing. Inventory management is crucial for an organization of 3 dealing with so much. I will also help with the creating of a for-profit arm that will take disabled veterans, give them a job learning how to repair and build furniture so costs can be cut down and so that these veterans can learn a new skill set and apply it elsewhere! This will be a daunting task as setting up a new business is not easy, especially when in relation to a non-profit organization. I will also handle small tasks like invoicing and whatever else needs to be done, there will be plenty to do!
Now on to my part in all of this. During my time here I will set up a inventory management system for them to help with the flow of inventory and to also get a more professional feel with slightly more personalized invoicing. Inventory management is crucial for an organization of 3 dealing with so much. I will also help with the creating of a for-profit arm that will take disabled veterans, give them a job learning how to repair and build furniture so costs can be cut down and so that these veterans can learn a new skill set and apply it elsewhere! This will be a daunting task as setting up a new business is not easy, especially when in relation to a non-profit organization. I will also handle small tasks like invoicing and whatever else needs to be done, there will be plenty to do!
Hello everyone,
My name is Mark Weikart and this is my last course before I graduate with a B.S. in Public Policy and Public Service with a focus on Nonprofit Leadership. As required for my major I have gone out and obtained a position with a small nonprofit located in Mesa. I will be interning at Bridging AZ Furniture Bank, a group who is focused on making sure their clients receive good quality furniture when moving into their new home and to ensure that no child in Phoenix goes to sleep on anything other than a mattress. This is an interesting position and since the organization is ran by only husband and wife it will make it more hands-on.
My three goals throughout the course of this internship are first off to learn a new skill set in the way of managing and maintaining a nonprofit organization. Since they have limited budgets and cannot take away as much as a for-profit employee the challenges become ever more complex. These skill will not only be applicable to the nonprofit world but to any other field. My second goal is to actually help make a positive change through setting up events to benefit those in need or improve on programs already in place enhance productivity. And my final goal from this internship will be to build new relationships with the people whop work their, some of their clients, and the larger organizations they provide their services to. This may help me find a job in the future or might open me to a different career path I may not have though of.
My name is Mark Weikart and this is my last course before I graduate with a B.S. in Public Policy and Public Service with a focus on Nonprofit Leadership. As required for my major I have gone out and obtained a position with a small nonprofit located in Mesa. I will be interning at Bridging AZ Furniture Bank, a group who is focused on making sure their clients receive good quality furniture when moving into their new home and to ensure that no child in Phoenix goes to sleep on anything other than a mattress. This is an interesting position and since the organization is ran by only husband and wife it will make it more hands-on.
My three goals throughout the course of this internship are first off to learn a new skill set in the way of managing and maintaining a nonprofit organization. Since they have limited budgets and cannot take away as much as a for-profit employee the challenges become ever more complex. These skill will not only be applicable to the nonprofit world but to any other field. My second goal is to actually help make a positive change through setting up events to benefit those in need or improve on programs already in place enhance productivity. And my final goal from this internship will be to build new relationships with the people whop work their, some of their clients, and the larger organizations they provide their services to. This may help me find a job in the future or might open me to a different career path I may not have though of.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)