From the crackberry

Trying to keep up with the modern world, I have finally gotten a Blackberry. I actually really like it - I keep finding new and better ways to use it - and one of these is the ability to update this from it. Pretty cool if you ask me - and being able to now update this from almost anywhere should mean that I'll do it more often (I actually do have ideas to write about - just never when I'm sitting at the computer. Or at least you can hope :-)

Not much to say

Yep, pretty boring. Still working at trying to get a job, and even that is slowing down lately. This time of year, and with the economy in the dumper, there just isn't a lot out there. I spend most every morning responding to leads, get a few interviews (with recruiters usually) for the week, and just keep going. The unemployment has started to kick in, so that eases the tension by a tiny bit, though there doesn't look like much to be thankful for next week, and Christmas isn't looking very merry.

I did have one funny thought today. I was filling in an on-line application for a real employer (who wants and interview, so I'm waiting to see when), and they wanted a list of all employers for the past 20 years! Wow! I know them, but I haven't kept the addresses or managers or any of that. I was at Reynolds for 17 years after all.

What was funny though, was as I went through them, I realized that ALL of the place that I used to work at before Reynolds have gone out of business. This is only 4 companies, but still. None of them are still there.

It gives me an evil little thought and bit of comfort to think that the same will befall the fifth place I've worked - without me they will be no more. MWAA-HAA-HAA-HAA-HAA!

Vote Early and Vote Often!!!

Well maybe just the once per election.

Yep, today is huge around here. If for no other reason than we can FINALLY be done with all the fricking political ads - ARRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!! I am so sick of them. And the phone calls. Ugh!!!!

Here, we have several big issues:
Payday lenders - they are trying to push a law that basically eliminates this industry (cutting the annual interest rate so low that they can't afford the business). I'm against government intervention where it doesn't belong - and this is a huge case where it doesn't belong. The first job of government is to protect the citizens FROM THE GOVERNMENT. The second job is to protect cititzens from each other. It is not the job to protect people from themselves - EVER. People should have the choice to use these if they need to. Period. No on 4.

Casino - hot button for a lot of people because 'gambling is bad'. What gets me most about this one is that nearly everybody spending money on both sides of the issue is from outside of Ohio - the casinos in Indiana don't want it taking their business, and the owner of the proposed casino is not from Ohio. Me, I see jobs, property and income taxes coming into the state, even if there aren't any additional extra 'casino' taxes - which I don't see going away like people are afraid of because of a single worse case scenario. So Yes on 5.

Our mayor is being recalled - and I fully support that. He engineered the recall of the previous mayor and several of the city council - and is just don't like him at all. I think he deserves to be thrown out of office - and in fact I'd then love to have the old mayor run again and get back in office. Then maybe we will stop looking like a bunch of idiots to the rest of the state. So recall Johnson (which takes a 'NO' vote).

For president - well both scare me. I don't actively support either one. I don't trust Obama, and I fear that McCain is just more of the same that has done so poorly the last 8 years. I do wish for an actual candidate I could support (I liked Guilliani myself!).

However the key thing is that if you don't vote, then you have not right to complain about ANYTHING! So vote to keep your right to bitch! And as bad as either candidate seems, we get to do it all over again in only four more years!

So starts the second full week

Two interviews last week, two more already set for this week. It has been so long, I don't remember trying to find a job being such a full time job as it has been.

At least I seem to be over the shock finally - i.e. I actualy feel like eating again, which isn't necessarily a good thing, since I don't have a place to work out any more.

Applications, resumes' and recruiters - oh my

And so it begins.

Sending out applications and resumes'. I already had a recruiter call me about a job in Columbus - an hour and a half drive to Dublin but the job actually sounds pretty good, and as it is a contracting position it wouldn't last forever.

I wish I could make my stomach settle down though. I feel like I'm about to puke constantly. For probably the first time ever (aside from when I'm sick, which is rare) I am not hungry. I had to force myself to eat something earlier, because I was feeling lightheaded. (But I guess beer and peanuts for dinner the night before will do that to you the next morning).

I know I will get through this, and things will be so much better on the other side. It feels so much like my divorce when I think about it. And I repeated the same stupid pattern of trying to make a bad situation work, instead of getting out when I should have. Yes, it is a pattern in my life.

I feel, I guess panicked is the best word. Overwhelmed. Like I don't knwo what to do, where to turn, anything. I'm so far out of my comfort zone that I wonder if it exists at all any more.

I did get my unemployment application in, and several job applications in. I will do some more this afternoon, though I'm already finding that I want to be careful and not send out duplicates because I see the same job on multiple sites.

And I wonder - could I get a security clearance? What are the 'real' requirements (I doubt they are public you know). How badly would my divorce affect it (or my gay ex-father-in-law with the columbian life-partner who lives in Hong Kong?) (Speaking of which, I got yet another call from someone looking for my ex the other day - and she had listed me on something - ignoring the fact that we have been divorced for what - 9 and a half years now?

Ok, enough procrastination - time to get back at it.

And it is done

Today was the last day of work for me, and not voluntarily.

It all boils down to the politics, and probably that I made too much.

I'm more in shock than anything else.

What grates me the most is the misguided sense of loyalty I have felt toward that place. Including the time as a contractor I was there 19 years.

The biggest mistake was feeling that I could make it work, and not getting out on my own terms. (Yeah, I'm a dumbass that way - I did the same thing in my first marriage).

Eventually, once I get to the other side of all of this, it will be a lot better. Getting to the other side however, is not something I'm looking forward to.

Why isn't "good" good enough anymore?

I see this in the stock market still, but in a lot of smaller businesses as well. What ever happened to being able to produce a good product that is successful and accept that success? Why is there a constant need not for good results, but for great results? You can't report earnings - no, you have to report RECORD earnings continually, over and over again.

What has happened to common sense? Why can't people realize that the model of CONSTANT growth at high rates is not sustanable? If you have a living organism, and there is constant record growth - it is called CANCER, and if it keeps up it overwhelms and kills the organism.

In the past month, the DOW has taken a dump - but with my untrained eye I can't help but wonder if it isn't really a correction. Like the housing and tech markets - how overinflated was and is everything. (Speaking of which, how come oil prices have dropped by 50% in the past month, but gas prices have only gone down 25%? Oh yeah - to keep the huge profits and CANCEROUS growth going on in the oil companies.) How long does anyone think this could have gone on bfore reality set in?

I don't believe you can keep focussing on short term gains at the expense of long term investment. Reasonable profits yes. Controlled growth - of course. Reckless abandon - doesn't last.

I don't want to go through another depression, or even the current recession, but I do feel that something fundamental has to change. The unmitigated greed of the past 20 years has got to end, and sanity and rational thought have to return.

Of course the people who did get rich just walked away, leaving the taxpayers to deal with it - and the rich aren't the taxpayers - it is the dumb shmoes who work for a living and have bought reasonably priced houses to LIVE IN and have been paying their mortgages that have to pay for it. When do I get some relief?

The good old days

Why is it that we tend to enhance or glamorize our memories? Things in the past always seem so much better – but is it because they truly were back then and we have changed so that it doesn’t seem so good, or do we only have hindsight via rose colored glasses?

Last week I officially got older, or at least had to admit it, including the new drivers license and car registration. One present I got was an iTunes gift card from my oldest son. I used the card to buy an album (the original Chess soundtrack) that I loved back in college – and listening to it this morning – it is ok, but not nearly as good as I remember (and in fact there were only two songs I directly remembered before listening to them again). And It makes me think of the movie ‘Student Bodies’ back in the early 80’s – I remembered all these funny things about it, and when I finally managed to find it on tv – it really sucked EXCEPT for the few scenes that I remembered – the entire rest of the movie was really, really bad. (No comments about me and liking bad movies – that is something else entirely). Of course now it is out on DVD - I'll have to look for it in the $5.00 rack because the stuff at the beginning is funny, if the last hour isn't.

But back to the point - why do we only seem to remember the good things and not the bad. Or more to the point, why do we (or at least why do I) want to try to recapture these good memories, only to be disappointed time and again because what I remember has no bearing on the whole?

Another year older and deeper in debt

Yep, time once again to host the annual celebration of the fact that I haven't died yet.

Happy old fart day to me!

My big movie debut

kind of. At work each year we have Carefest - which is basically our United Way donation drive (we actually have our own private charitable foundation that is funded by our donations, which does the donation to United Way as well as many other smaller ones itself). Last year to promote it they did posters of famous album covers, with employees put in as the musicians. This year it is dvd covers.

Yes, that is me as the Human Torch!