Holidays are hiring!

* Child care: Between all those adult holiday parties and the time “Santa” needs to shop, the demand for child care during the holidays spikes like punch at a high school prom. Day-care centers and pre-schools also need extra help, especially since some open up on Saturdays to create extra holiday revenue, according to Ron Thomas, a director at Buck Consultants, an HR consultancy firm.

* Shipping and fulfillment: Companies such as FedEx and UPS ramp up operations during the holidays — and they need live bodies (not everything can be done by machine) to make it happen. Online retailers like Amazon also need additional staff in their fulfillment centers to package holiday orders. Just beware that these gigs can be physically strenuous and require quite a bit of heavy lifting.

Jonathan Baskin

TIS THE SEASON : Rebecca Cenni, CEO of Atrium staffing, says “Retail jobs are just a piece of the employment pie this holiday season ...All of my sectors are incredibly busy.”

* Web design: Almost every retailer has a Web site, and those Web sites have to be designed and updated for the holidays, “There’s a huge uptick in demand this time of year,” says Rebecca Cenni, CEO of Atrium staffing. And the jobs pay well. Depending on a Web designer or front-end developer’s expertise, pay runs from $18 to $65 an hour.

* University proctors: The holidays dovetail somewhat inconveniently with final exams. In order to keep the future leaders of America from degenerating into those cheating eggheads at Harvard, colleges are on the hunt for folks to supervise the December battery of tests, says Cenni.

* Registered nurse: In order to keep the holidays as tragedy-free as possible, event organizers often hire RNs for their parties, and hospitals, clinics and home health care agencies also tend to increase staff during this time. “If you have defined education and skills in the health care industry, there are opportunities out there,” says Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti, an expert on education, technology and the workforce.

* Advertising agencies: The flood of ads that come with the season can stretch the limits of even the largest agencies. Cenni notes that temp copywriters, art directors and presentation designers are all in demand.

* Costume and set designers: “For every character that’s out there acting, somebody has to make that costume,” says Wilen-Daugenti. “You have the Thanksgiving parade. You have all these celebrations... You don’t realize it takes a lot of people to make these things come together.”

* Clerical work: “Companies have everyone taking their vacation,” Cenni says. “They need temps — receptionists, administrative clerical coverage and executive assistants to fill in.”

* Photographers: For photographers, the holiday season is like a six-week wedding. Events need roving photographers, while mall Santas need would-be Annie Leibovitzes to create the illusion that Little Johnny wasn’t squirming like a hooked worm on their laps.

* Event workers: It’s the party season, which means hotels, convention centers and special event locations need plenty of bodies to supplement their staffs. “They need every kind of help to support thousands of people,” says Wilen-Daugenti. “Everything from drivers to limo personnel to event planners to caterers to people to organize and guide (partygoers) from point A to point B.”

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Wrong turn, then shock and horror at MIA

What began as a day of prayer and fellowship turned into a surreal scene of stunned, bloodied passengers and twisted metal.

There was the sickening sound of crunching metal early Saturday as a busload of Jehovah’s Witnesses was low-bridged by a concrete overpass at Miami International Airport, peeling back the top of the vehicle “like a can of sardines.”

Airport workers running to the scene found shocked passengers thrown into the aisle or trapped in their seats by the wreckage.

Riders in the front rows were crushed — two of them killed, others seriously injured.

The driver of the bus, 47-year-old Ramon Ferreiro, took a wrong turn off LeJeune Road, entering the airport by mistake, then rolled past multiple yellow signs warning tall vehicles. He drove on, approaching an overpass whose sign said “8ft-6in”. The driver either didn’t see it, couldn’t read it, or realized it too late.

The bus stood 11 feet tall.

“The last thing he should have done is to keep going,” said Greg Chin, airport spokesman. “That goes against all logic.”

Ferreiro, whose driver’s seat was lower than those of the passengers, was not injured.

One passenger, 86-year-old Miami resident Serfin Castillo, was killed on impact, and all 31 others were taken by ambulance to local hospitals. Thirteen ended up at Jackson Memorial’s Ryder Trauma Center, where one of them, 56-year-old Francisco Urana of Miami, died shortly after arriving.

Three remained in critical condition Saturday night, and three had been released.

Luis Jimenez, 72, got a few stitches on his lip and hurt his hand. He said the group left the Sweetwater Kingdom Hall about 7 a.m., bound for West Palm Beach.

“I was sitting in the back when it happened,” Jimenez said. “We were on our way to an assembly and lost a brother today. I’m very sad.”

Delvis Lazo, 15, a neighbor and member of the same congregation, described Castillo as a “nice, old man.” He often saw Castillo at religious gatherings, and their families have known each other for more than 15 years.

The last time Lazo saw him was about two months ago, as he prepped for a talk before his congregation.

“He gave me a thumbs up, told me that everything was going to be all right,” he said.

The bus, one of three traveling to the Spanish-language general assembly on Saturday, had been contracted by the congregation, which has fewer than 150 members.

According to public records, the bus belongs to Miami Bus Service Corporation, a Miami company owned by Mayling and Alberto Hernandez that offers regularly scheduled service between South Florida and Gainesville, often used by University of Florida students. At the home address listed for the company and the owners, Mayling Hernandez told The Miami Herald that passenger safety is her primary concern.

“At this time I’m worried about the driver and the families of the victims. I’m praying for them,” she said. “My job is to worry about the safety of the passengers who are our clients. What we do requires a lot of responsibility. I didn’t know the passengers but that doesn’t mean I’m not suffering.”

Neighbor Armando Bacigalupi described the owners as “caring people” and said he had seen buses park briefly in front of the house.

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6 Futuristic Fireplaces to Keep You Warm This Winter

Who would have guessed — the futuristic-looking luxury fireplace industry is booming. Surprisingly, if you can dream it, it can be built. But, most of the time, it’ll cost you.

It seems we’re no longer just content to view the crackling Yule Log on our TVs. These fireplaces even move past the traditional stone and brick models commonly seen today. They run on gas and have controllers to turn them on or off. Some can even be operated from smartphone apps.

[More from Mashable: For Sale: Space Shuttle Xing Sign]

Check out the gallery and tell us which one is most appealing to you.

Uni Flame

The Uni Flame indoor or outdoor fireplace comes from modern home goods company Radius.

[More from Mashable: Portland Toymakers Create Ten-Legged Bamboo Companion [VIDEO]]

Click here to view this gallery.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, dszc

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Bachelorette Ashley Hebert and JP Rosenbaum are Married

Ashley Hebert is a bachelorette no more!

The 28-year-old dentist and her construction manager fiancé J.P. Rosenbaum, 35, walked down the aisle on Saturday in Pasadena, California, reports People Magazine.

The ceremony, officiated by Bachelor and Bachelorette host Chris Harrison, was attended by familiar faces from the series including Ali Fedotowsky, Emily Maynard, and Jason and Molly Mesnick.

Video: 'Bachelorette' Ashley Hebert and Fiance J.P.'s Passionate PDA

Ashley and J.P.'s exchanging of vows will be televised December 16 on a two-hour special on ABC.

The season seven sweeties will be the second Bachelorette couple ever to televise their walk down the aisle, following in the footsteps of Trista and Ryan Sutter, who married in December 2003.

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SI man torched in cooking accident, neighbors put out flames: sources

A cooking accident turned a Staten Island man into a human torch who staggered in flames onto his front lawn, where horrified neighbors tried to extinguish him with blankets, sources said.

Louis Gloria, 60, was cooking in the kitchen of his Eltingville home at about 4:30 p.m. today when a grease fire erupted, engulfing his entire body, fire officials and neighbors said.

The desperate man first tried to douse the flames with water, but that only made the fire worse. In agony, he stumbled out of his Winchester Avenue home.

“He was burning alive,” said neighbor Edward Leavy Jr., 43. “It was a pretty horrific sight.”

Edward’s brother Matthew Leavy, 46, called 911 and then quickly ran over to aid the burning man, but the flames wouldn’t go down.

“The problem was you would try to smother the flames but it would just reignite, Leavy said. “His screams were just nightmarish. When the flame didn’t go down after two or three minutes, we all thought he was going to die.

Neighbors and relatives did their best to keep the flames under control until firefighters showed up on scene. Gloria was transported to Staten Island University Hospital in stable condition. His wife, who was home at the time, was also transported and is being treated for shock.

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Boat Show may block Miami’s 2016 Super Bowl bid

This winter, the biggest NFL match-up in South Florida might be Super Bowl versus Boat Show.

As South Florida readies a bid for the 2016 Super Bowl, it must contend with a major potential conflict on the tourism calendar. The National Football League may move the Super Bowl to Presidents’ Day weekend, already home to the five-day Miami International Boat Show since the 1940s.

It’s a significant enough conflict that, in the past, local tourism officials have declined to pursue a Super Bowl if it fell on boat show weekend. But this time around they may have no choice. For the first time, the NFL is requiring that potential host cities agree to a Presidents’ Day weekend Super Bowl if they want to pursue the big game at all, said two people who have seen the NFL request for Super Bowl bids.

The NFL “invited South Florida [to bid] knowing there was going to be an issue with Presidents’ Day weekend and the boat show,” said Nicki Grossman, Broward’s tourism director. “In the past, South Florida has not responded to a Super Bowl date that included Presidents’ Day weekend. This package is different.”

South Florida vies with New Orleans as the top Super Bowl host, with government and tourism leaders touting the game as both a boon to the economy and a publicity bonanza. But the notion of accommodating both Super Bowl and boat show — not to mention a major arts festival in Coconut Grove — strikes some top tourism officials as a bad idea.

“There is not sufficient hotel inventory available in Miami that weekend to host a Super Bowl,” said William Talbert, president of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We have taken a close look at that weekend, and it’s not physically possible in Miami to host Super Bowl during the Presidents’ Day weekend because of the boat show and the Coconut Grove Arts Festival. The hotel inventory is all being used for these two great events.”

His comments are at odds with the region’s top Super Bowl organizer and reflect the burden that the boat show may be to South Florida’s Super Bowl hopes for 2016 and 2017. The NFL invited Miami and San Francisco to bid for the 2016 Super Bowl by April 1, with the loser vying with Houston for the 2017 game. Talbert said the bid package states both decisions will be made in May.

For now, South Florida’s Super Bowl organizers face a largely hypothetical challenge, because the current NFL schedule has the Super Bowl occurring two weeks before Presidents’ Day weekend. The bid requirements for the ’16 and ’17 Super Bowls include three consecutive weekends as possibilities for the game, with the latest falling on the Presidents’ Day holiday.

Still, possible logistical hurdles may combine with political obstacles if the Miami Dolphins resume their push for a tax-funded renovation of Sun Life Stadium, the Super Bowl’s South Florida home.

Last year, the Dolphins proposed that Broward and Miami-Dade counties subsidize a $225 million renovation at Sun Life as a way to keep the region competitive for Super Bowls and other large events. The renovation includes a partial roof that would prevent the kind of drenching Super Bowl spectators suffered in 2007 when a rare February downpour hit Miami Gardens.

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Facebook Powerball frenzy: Purported winner offers to ‘share’ $1 million

His name is Nolan Daniels, and he’s just about to give some random dude or dudette $ 1 million. Or so he claims.

Purporting to be the second Powerball winner in Wednesday’s $ 588 million payout, Mr. Daniels posted a Facebook photo late Thursday of himself holding a ticket showing the winning numbers. The photo is the only one visible on Daniels’s account, which dates to 2008.

“Looks like I’m not going to work … EVER!!!” the smiling purported winner exclaimed. The numbers on his ticket – 5-23-16-22-29-Powerball 6 – correspond to the winning combination, but the ticket has not been publicly verified.

To make the Facebook announcement that much more bizarre, Daniels vowed to give $ 1 million of his winnings to a “random” person who “shares” his photo.

That set off a frenzy Friday as thousands of Facebook users got in on the action, with the photo being shared over 1,000 times a minute, with over 100,000 shares as of 3:30 p.m.

On his Facebook page, Daniels chastised skeptics and suggested, “Anyone who doubts the legitimacy of this photo will not be included in the 1 million dollar drawing.”

There were two winners in the drawing. The only winners confirmed so far are Cindy and Mark Hill of Dearborn, Mo., who decided to take a lump sum payment. Lottery authorities have not revealed the name of the other winner, who bought a ticket in Arizona. Earlier on Friday, some guessed that a video of a man celebrating in Maryland might show the winner.

The payout is the second largest in US history after three ticket buyers shared a $ 656 million jackpot in March. As the amount grew this week, tickets were selling at a rate of 130,000 a minute.

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Weird but true

The ’70s really were pretty groovy.

Students at Cordon Porter HS in Indiana opened a time capsule from 1979 and found a bunch of items that would be frowned upon in the zero-tolerance 21st century — including an empty bottle of Jack Daniels and tickets to the Doobie Brothers.

***

This could be the future of crime fighting — do-it-yourself arrests.

A Pennsylvania man got drunk, stole a car and drove to a State Police barracks. where he walked into the lobby and told troopers what he had done, authorities said.

For good measure, he also allegedly admitted that he had no driver’s license.

***

Yule be panicked if you don’t look closely.

The Fire Department in Regina, Canada, was swamped with reports of a blaze at a football stadium after officials ran moving images of a burning yule log on a huge video screen outside the field.

From a distance, the video looked like real flames.

***

Officials at a Swedish nursing home were shocked when a 105-year-old female resident was sent a letter offering her a spot in a local preschool class.

The woman got a chance to hang out with toddlers because officials sent pre-school applications to everyone in the town who had been born in ’07 — but they never bothered to check if the individuals were born in 2007 or 1907.

***

Now everyone can look as handsome as Saddam Hussein.

Mustache transplants have become all the rage across the Middle East, as men desperate to look as macho as a desert dictator turn to medical means to find that hirsute look.

The “transplant” is done by taking hair from one part of the body and putting it on the upper lip.

What part does it come from? Do you really want to know?

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Boat Show may block Miami’s 2016 Super Bowl bid

This winter, the biggest NFL match-up in South Florida might be Super Bowl versus Boat Show.

As South Florida readies a bid for the 2016 Super Bowl, it must contend with a major potential conflict on the tourism calendar. The National Football League may move the Super Bowl to Presidents’ Day weekend, already home to the five-day Miami International Boat Show since the 1940s.

It’s a significant enough conflict that, in the past, local tourism officials have declined to pursue a Super Bowl if it fell on boat show weekend. But this time around they may have no choice. For the first time, the NFL is requiring that potential host cities agree to a Presidents’ Day weekend Super Bowl if they want to pursue the big game at all, said two people who have seen the NFL request for Super Bowl bids.

The NFL “invited South Florida [to bid] knowing there was going to be an issue with Presidents’ Day weekend and the boat show,” said Nicki Grossman, Broward’s tourism director. “In the past, South Florida has not responded to a Super Bowl date that included Presidents’ Day weekend. This package is different.”

South Florida vies with New Orleans as the top Super Bowl host, with government and tourism leaders touting the game as both a boon to the economy and a publicity bonanza. But the notion of accommodating both Super Bowl and boat show — not to mention a major arts festival in Coconut Grove — strikes some top tourism officials as a bad idea.

“There is not sufficient hotel inventory available in Miami that weekend to host a Super Bowl,” said William Talbert, president of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We have taken a close look at that weekend, and it’s not physically possible in Miami to host Super Bowl during the Presidents’ Day weekend because of the boat show and the Coconut Grove Arts Festival. The hotel inventory is all being used for these two great events.”

His comments are at odds with the region’s top Super Bowl organizer and reflect the burden that the boat show may be to South Florida’s Super Bowl hopes for 2016 and 2017. The NFL invited Miami and San Francisco to bid for the 2016 Super Bowl by April 1, with the loser vying with Houston for the 2017 game. Talbert said the bid package states both decisions will be made in May.

For now, South Florida’s Super Bowl organizers face a largely hypothetical challenge, because the current NFL schedule has the Super Bowl occurring two weeks before Presidents’ Day weekend. The bid requirements for the ’16 and ’17 Super Bowls include three consecutive weekends as possibilities for the game, with the latest falling on the Presidents’ Day holiday.

Still, possible logistical hurdles may combine with political obstacles if the Miami Dolphins resume their push for a tax-funded renovation of Sun Life Stadium, the Super Bowl’s South Florida home.

Last year, the Dolphins proposed that Broward and Miami-Dade counties subsidize a $225 million renovation at Sun Life as a way to keep the region competitive for Super Bowls and other large events. The renovation includes a partial roof that would prevent the kind of drenching Super Bowl spectators suffered in 2007 when a rare February downpour hit Miami Gardens.

Read More..