As many of you know, I have been seeking employment for quite some time now.  I will be dropping off the face of the planet for a while to focus on that goal.  Please don't be offended if I don't comment on your posts or reply to messages in the near future.

Thanks. 

Having finished said Fat Tire, I am realizing just how long it has been since I last ate anything.  So I guess it's time to write about my fabulous day.

Getting the Elder Son out of the house was hilarious, seeing as it took him longer than 30 minutes to get dressed.  That's one of the wonderful things about ADHD -- it makes it hard for him to focus on anything before his meds kick in (let's not talk about how much it kills me to have to medicate my kid so heavily every day just so he can function properly).

Once I got home from dropping him off at school, I spent some time checking my gmail account, which I hadn't looked at since before Memorial Day Weekend.  Oh, the wonders that awaited me!  Fortunately, there weren't any new job offers or cash opportunities with time limits, but I figure that since I shave my head I would have been safe had there been anything that would have otherwise caused me to pull out my hair (it's not for nothing that I got a "CAUTION: Shakes Fist at Sky" ribbon at the con; really, I do spin, just on the inside).

After the Wife and Younger Son woke up, he and I played for a while and I did some more email and job searching.  The Wife and I had breakfast while watching last week's Dr. Who (hooray, TIVO!), and then it was time to put the Younger Son down for his nap.  After reading him a couple stories, I left him with his mother in the bedroom, and took off to do some errands.

My errands consisted of going to my ex-boss' house to pick up some paperwork related to the arbitration for which I get to fly to Palm Desert next week.  Nobody was at the house, so I left a note for her brother-in-law ("He'll be at the house all day.") to call me when he got in.  Then I drove to our county EDD to get some job search help from their veteran's benefits coordinator.  That took a couple hours, and then I got a call from the brother-in-law saying he was back.  I picked up the paperwork, then found out that the same county building also housed the office where one applies for food stamps (yeah, the fact that we're at the point of needing to even consider it literally makes me nauseous).  Unfortunately I got there too late for the 90-minute application process, so will have to go back another day.

As it turns out, the Younger Son had not actually slept when the Wife put him down for the nap earlier in the day (he just spread toothpaste all over the bathroom and bedroom while she slept), so when I got home late in the afternoon, she had finally gotten him down and was again asleep herself.  While I waited for them to wake up, I cleaned our gutter (which gathers dirt and trash, and grows algae thanks to a weird runoff spout right next to our house).  While I was doing this, the neighbor's kids informed me that they will be moving out this coming Saturday.  Yes, the hillbillies are finally leaving!  Let's hope they take the rusty cars and dog poop with them.

Anyway, that's about it.  I feel like crap, and have decided to have a couple beers tonight instead of my usual method of stress-release, going to the gym.  Fat Tire down, Guinness to go.

This netted me about 150,000 more people (that's a 50% increase with a single addition).  I'm still waiting for Barack Obama to accept me, and Hillary Clinton doesn't have a LinkedIn profile.

And as if that weren't awesome enough, here's the targeted advertising gmail put above that message:

 l

My job search has not been going well.  Sending resumes out on and off over the past 14 months has resulted in zero interviews, and 5 months' worth of networking attempts have fared no better.  So I recently decided to try another method suggested in Richard Nelson Bolles' "What Color is Your Parachute?"  I ordered the yellow page directories for Alameda County and Central Contra Costa County (I already have the one for East Contra Costa), and am reading through each of their subject headers, bookmarking types of businesses that I'm interested in.

Do you have any idea how tedious and time consuming that is?

After you've got them bookmarked, you evaluate whether you have the skills and characteristics necessary for the type of business, choose individual companies you might want to work for, and then find out the name and contact info for the person at each company who is responsible for hiring.  Then you research the company itself, tailor your resume accordingly, and then walk in uninvited to sell yourself as the thing the company is missing.

Now if I can only get through all three phone books.

In the meantime, the place I resigned from is giving me some contract work related to some arbitration, and may need to fly me out to Palm Desert for a couple days.  Whoopee.  The last time I was there, in March of 2005, it was over 100 degrees.

Finally, the Wife gave me an exercise in positive thinking, that unfortunately smacks of the behavior encouraged by the insurance company for which I almost became an independent salesperson in 2004.  Whenever anyone asks me how I'm doing, I am to smile cheerfully and reply, "I'm great! How are you?" -- or something similar.  It's supposed to get me practice and into a good headspace for when I eventually do get an interview.  (Despite the surly appearance of my description of this task, I do think it will help if I can manage it.) 

So how are you?