Construction Maison

photo courtesy of HAA Those interested in professional development within the industry can choose from many class offerings at HAA. On Monday I posted about the opportunities within the apartment industry and the job postings on the Houston Apartment Association ’s (HAA) website. There are many positions available through the HAA alone, so if you’re thinking about a career in this area, I’d jump over to that site and look around. According to HAA Executive Vice President , Jeff Hall, The Greater Houston apartment industry provides jobs to more than 35,000 professionals. He says specialized education is not necessary for many entry-level positions in the apartment industry , but many resources are available for jobseekers in Houston through HAA. Some of them include: 1. A Leasing 101 class offered through the Houston Apartment Association . Attendees will learn the basics of property management , fair housing compliance and about industry terminology . The class is $65 if pre-paid, ...

T he $8. 7 million Herman Student Life Complex tripled the size of the academic space available for Husker student -athletes by using the previous space known as the Hewit Center and the space previously occupied by the West Stadium Strength Complex . Nebraska Athletics is one of the few self- sustaining athletic programs in the country. In 2016-17, Nebraska was one of only two collegiate programs in the nation to attract nearly 1. 3 million fans across its seven major team sports through the doors of its world-class facilities. In 2016-17, Nebraska was the only Division I program to rank in the top 15 nationally in attendance in football and men's basketball. Overall, nine Husker sports ranked among the top 20 nationally in attendance in 2016-17. This incredible interest and support enables Nebraska Athletics to invest in the student-athlete experience, as well as the overall game-day experience. Nebraska is a leader in providing all the resources and support necessary f...

Photo by Andrea Yori | CC BY 2.0 In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington pursued its elusive enemies across the landscapes of Asia and Africa, thanks in part to a massive expansion of its intelligence infrastructure, particularly of the emerging technologies for digital surveillance , agile drones, and biometric identification. In 2010, almost a decade into this secret war with its voracious appetite for information, the Washington Post reported that the national security state had swelled into a “fourth branch” of the federal government — with 854,000 vetted officials, 263 security organizations , and over 3,000 intelligence units, issuing 50,000 special reports every year. Though stunning, these statistics only skimmed the visible surface of what had become history’s largest and most lethal clandestine apparatus . According to classified documents that Edward Snowden leaked in 2013, the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies alone had 107,035 employees and a combined “b...

The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club .  I'm sitting in the lobby of the Players Club, in Manhattan's Gramercy Park, waiting to meet my interview subject. She is a longtime celebrity assistant , a profession that is both hard to find and incredibly difficult to convince to talk to you about. I'm in the lobby because in order to walk past the entrance of the Players Club you have to be escorted by a member, and I'm waiting because her principal, which I will later learn is a fancy word that celebrity assistants use to describe their bosses, landed after a long flight with a laundry list of things he needed to talk about immediately.  It's during this time that my mind starts to wander to that classic and brutal  Brad Pitt movie.  The Players Club reminds me of Fight Club, if Fight Club took place in a Gothic revival mansion facing the only Manhattan park so exclusive that one needs a key to enter. And replace the barren cement walks with...

Do you remember the first friend you made? The first person I consciously remember calling my “friend” (and later, “best friend”) was someone I met in preschool. I was probably four years old. We had similar interests, and complementary personalities (he was the big picture idea guy , I was the detail-oriented do-er). As I’ve continued through life, my friendships have shifted . I’ve made new friends along the way, deepened my relationship with existing friend s, and fallen out of touch with others. When you look at it this way, it seems like friendship is something that just “happens. ” You can’t control it, it would seem, and maybe it’s better not to. After all, you can’t force friendship. Yet, what I’ve come to realize in the past couple years is that while you can’t force or manufacture friendship, you can   seek and cultivate it . It isn’t completely out of your control. In fact, since it’s such an important part of living a happy life, it’s something that you put on autopilot a...