Once Upon A Morning Dreary

I am trying really hard not to be morbid today as the weather so fits a morbid mood. It has been dreary in Dallas all day and tomorrow promises more of the same. It's not raining hard enough to bother you, just enough to yuck it up and gloomify everything. I know gloomify is not a real word but it works on this occasion. It is days like today which fail to inspire anything more than introspection and the requisite self doubt that accompanies it. So in an effort to lift the gloom I went surfing around the web and found very little to inspire me. So once again I delved into Uncle Gerry's Archive and found a few things to brighten the day.

I started my day early this morning being awakened by my nightmare at 4am. I haven't had a nightmare in many years so I figured it was a manifestation of my fears going into the hearing about my unemployment compensation, but it still took me a while to calm down and go back to sleep. I will not burden you with the details as they really don't matter. After sleeping a bit more I woke up to an IM from my good friend Ryan in Atlanta. It is always refreshing to talk to him in the mornings. We chatted until it was almost time for the hearing and Mikey woke up, so we said our goodbyes as we both had more important things to do ( I bet his was more fun!).

You can understand my trepidation going into the hearing if you imagine the monolith of the State sitting in judgement over the parties in question. Party A the corporate giant as Goliath with money, power and paper on their side and party B the lone David who has lost his slingshot standing in opposition feeling naked in a loincloth. I am sure the real David looked much better in a loin cloth than I do, but for the sake of illustration indulge me. Here is a little help in that direction:

Now the appointed time came and the teleconference began. I was hoping for a no show by Goliath as that would mean an automatic win for David, but alas twas not to be. It was like unto a court appearance but sorta different as it did not conform strictly to Robert's Rules. But it was still intimidating. Representing Goliath was my former boss' boss who tried to sound as if she did not personally know me or my level of performance. I did score a couple of points but then so did she. The hearing officer was cordial but formal and asked excellent questions. However I fear the power of paper that corporations use to screw their employee with will end up with the upper hand. I asked Goliath's representative why, knowing me and my work, there was not an alternative to summary execution in this case and all she could replay was the corporate line about protecting themselves. Which if you knew the corporation, they are definitely not in need of protection nor are they hurting in their bottom line (they make money hand over fist at the expense of the consumer). In the end, I don't feel it went very well for me. I could be wrong but I have to wait on the snail mail to inform me of the rendered decision. Does anything having to do with government ever happen quickly? I think not and the waiting is not going to be pretty.

It seems that Blogger is being kind of contrary tonight also as they integrate the functions of old and new blogger. They changed the login screen when I Blog This from Picasa2 with my photos. The first time I tried to Blog This I got the "we are unable to complete your request" message so I had to get out of it by going to the dashboard and exiting back into Picasa2 and try again. Thankfully it worked the second time or you guys might not have gotten your daily dose of stunning photography here.

I have been submitting resumes to every place that I could possibly discover in the past weeks, without much visible success, so last week I went to a local organization for seminar and the met on Thursday with their Employment Services Manager, a wonderful lady named Kimberly who graciously reworked my resume. We had a good time while she was doing it, she is also a graduate student in Social Work. We got off on a tangent when I answered her question about why I was having difficulty in finding employment. Of course there is the age factor whereby prospective hiring managers look at the cover and neglect to read the book among other things. We got to talking about Nichevo and I explained the title's meaning as translated from the Russian and in explaining that it was necessary to come out to her and she began to ask all sorts of questions as she is writing her thesis and wanted my input. All in all an enjoyable experience. I said all this to tell you that with the reworked resume and the leads she provided, I received a phone call this afternoon from an employer about my resume and did a preliminary interview on the phone. He then told me that he would contact me in the morning to set up a face to face after he talked to a few more people. I felt heartened by this as the mini interview went well and I think that I stated my case well and could possibly be on the track to some viable employment. Glory hallelujah there! Again this is tempered by the waiting game so patience is called for and patience I must have. They say patience is a virtue but I have never been known to be virtuous, at least not to myself. Self deprecating maybe.....

I got some great comments on yesterdays post and some encouraging email from friends and fans this afternoon to help my mood out, which it did. I also received the final certification on my Lone Star Card for food stamps so I am eligible until April when I have to re certify. I hope I am not still unemployed then. So all in all for the stress of the morning and the relief in the afternoon it was not such a bad day, just dreary weather wise.

As you guys know that have been around a while, I have produced some videos containing my photo collections over at You Tube. Well it seem some religious wing nut kept watching them and getting offended so they canceled my account. Never fear I have created a new account under a different name which the viewers of my last video will recognize, Senor Perro Susio. To those that do not habla Espanol, it translates as Dirty Dog. I will be re uploading my videos but they will be marked private so that only those wishing to view them can see them. In order to do this you must accept a friend invitation from me. If you would like to view the current and future videos, then drop me an email with your email and I will invite you to view my videos. I will not sell or trade or otherwise disburse your email address to any third party as that would violate your trust in me and my sense of morality. After all we all get to much junk email as it is and I do not want to be a party to any of that bs.

So I will leave you for the evening with some more of my usual eye candy to soothe the beast and look forward to a better day tomorrow. Thank you for all your support and until next time as always, Enjoy!