Another day starts and another idea for a post begins to unfold. I just posted to a hub and while the title was really good, the information was lacking. A few quips about a couple of "known" fields and some US Employment data. Not a great read. So I decided to try and one-up as only a retired person can. Being retired I sit and think about the what ifs of my career and the what ifs of a different career.

So many options are available to people thses days in terms of careers, just piocking one is daunting . The old adage that if you love what you do it won't feel like work, is somewhat true unitl you find that your opportunity cost grows out of proportion.

I decided that I would not focus on the money aspects of this article, rather on the careers that are growing due to supply and demand. If you can sing, dance or act - this hub is not for you, please leave - for the regular Hubbers, read on.

The Top Ten Career Picks

1. Solar Energy Engineers - Another growing field. What gets me is that when people consider traditional career paths they put blinders on to the world around them. So it is true for this career. Energy use being what it is, one can only imagine how many more people are having solar panels installed in their homes and businesses. For every person laying out large sums of cash for oil or electricity to heat and power their comfort is another group of people living off the free energy captured from the sun. Now, for those people who are installing these systems, they are in high demand. When i the last time someone told you they were a Solar Panel Installer. Better yet, what about the designers of this technology - now there's a career!

2. Windmill Farmer - true, this does exist. Basically a Windmill Farmer is one who has a plot of land he sells to a company installing windmills for power use. I used that title to simply get your attention. But, have you ever considered designing or installing these giants of the sky? Windmill engineer is another growing field that is not a fad but a growing concern as is "Solar Energy". So for those of you that love to build and don't mind tall places, then this is certainly for you. Think about the view alone. You'll be in a large field overlooking some of the nicest places in America or the world. This job will more than likely have your travelling the globe doing installations and service.

3. Nursing - this field will forever be in great demand and no demand is greater than in Canada. A truly rewarding field (at times), it is respectable and often admired. Now, why did I day Canada? Due to monetary reasons a lot of good nurses were leaving Canada to earn more money in the US. This is starting to change and the tide is starting to turn. So, if you are a young nurse this is a great opportunity to live in one of the most wonderful countries on the planet while still enjoying being close to friends and families back in the colonies. For the nurse who is just sick of te system, or are retired, the nursing field in Canada is a breath of fresh air. I recently had a friend move back and she claims she should have done it years ago -and she missed the Poutine.

4. Professional Poker Player - Now, before you stone me for writing this, lets think about this logically. More millionaires are made in this game than any other, and they are people like you and me. I play poker, Texas Hold 'em, and I can play very well. Do I have the cash to just plop down to enter a major tourney ($10,000 US), sometimes, but would I, no. The wife would have my head. This game is extremely simple to understand, the real "game" is in your opponents, everyone gets the same 2 cards. This game is gaining more fans and players every year. Now, not everyone will be millionaires but there are plenty of 21 year olds who are making a solid $60,000 by playing -and most have only been playing for a couple of years. There are tournaments everywhere now. Some small , some large the money is still there and with the money comes the notoriety. If you can pick up some good hands and some good tournaments, there is a good possibility of getting a sponsor. A sponsor will be the company or individual who makes you wear their shirt or takes a cut of your winnings.

5. PPC/Adsense Generator - laugh if you must, but there are those people out there that make a decent living of this. It is not only good copy and links and such - the key is volume. How to get volume in a short span of time? Hire those in 3rd world countries who will post to 500 blogs for $9. Or to those that will log in and post your tags in 100 social sites for $12. I use rentacoder.com to post these ads, and unlike mturk - there is more money to be made off of this site than most think. If you need a landing page and don't know how to make one, and you need it in less than a day, and maybe for $25 then rentacoder is for you. I use this service for everything mentioned above plus I have a team of coders I use for logos, websites and other associated programming. Generating real revenue does not come quick, but patience is often rewarded. I suggest dabbling in this while you still have your "real" job. When you have built up enough currency, ditch the job and work a solid 8 hours on the net.

6. SEO Master - does this go hand in hand with the above field - sort of, maybe, depends on what you are working on. If you are assisting others in building their social appearance then you are an SEO engineer. If you are doing it for your AdSense only, then you are still and SEO engineer, but need to spread yourself around a little bit. This field is growing and the "true" number of these professionals is not as great as it is made out to be. The true number is rather low to medium of true professionals. If you can get a site to the front page (I didn't say #1 position) of most search engines within 2 weeks - you have honed your craft and are serving your clients well. I wouldn't say the real money comes from the initial sale of working on a clients image, but in the residual from the maintenance.You see, the sites must be maintained in order to keep above the fold - that is your job and will be paid by these clients rather well, every month. Having 12 clients or so will suffice, you can then expand by hiring a person offshore to manage some of them at a very reasonable rate.

7. Anything to do with the Justice System - With 1 out of every 145 people in prison and more than ever going, this field will do nothing but be around forever (until they legalize marijuana). The US is the prison capital of the world and disgusts me to think about all the people who went in for non-violent drug crimes only to stay for a few more years because of what the system did to their thought process. I won't go into it here - check out my other hubs. Back to the career. A prison guard might not make much but who does when they first start a job. I hear complaints all the time that some of these guys only make so much - that's true for new guards. But the veterans aren't doing too badly. Besides, if you feel you aren't making enough money at one place, go somewhere else. But, the prison system has a huge turnaround and more people are being incarcerated at alarming rates. Lets face it; not enough cells, guards, medical staff, mental health staff, commissioners who care - it seems the only ones making out in all this is defense attorneys - I'm going to end this here or you'll just get me started...

8. Crime Scene Investigator - if you can stomach the gore that usually comes with this field and are somewhat anal retentive - this is certainly for you. Not too many people stick their hand up in kindergarten and speak about how fulfilling a career in CSI would be - no, I think it was a fireman that was my wish. You know, everyone loves firefighters and hates cops (my cop dad said that a few times). The pay is not often that great but you will be involved in some fantastic cases.

9. Stone Mason - you would think this field has gone the way of the 8-track; not so. Stone masons make an extraordinary amount of money and rightfully so. Learning this craft will take a number of years and you will need to live in the region that has quarries and of course the buildings that were made from said quarries. This field can also have a start as a landscaper working in paving stone and progress from there. The sky is the limit. There are a number of fields which still require masons: fixer masons repair, memorial masons make headstones, and then best of all, carving|banker masons. Thanks to pneumatic tools the work has become faster to produce yet some still use the common mallet and chisel.

10. Mobile Phone Programmers - programmers are a dime a dozen you say? Used to be and still does dependant upon the expertise of the coder. With the onslaught of mobile phones and their capabilities will come new programming challenges to push 1's and 0' faster through the "tubes" at blinding speeds, all while capturing the usage information of the subscriber. I said this 6 years ago when I got my first nextel phone, someone will design a way for porn to stream across these phones and amke a million doing it. Some of you might gasp n horror at the mere thought of pornographic images flashed across your I-phone, then there are those that just can't wait and will stand in lione for days to get one. I-phone that is. Lets face it, without the porn industry we wouldn't have cool stuff on the net in this short length of time. All of those really great apps (video for one) would not have existed without a "porngrammer" writing some of the slickest code. So, I feel that learning how to code mobi sites even will garner you a pretty lucrative salary and you may have the chance to entertain millions of people in the process.