No change in profession.

Now I'm a plumber. Who knows what I'll be next week. Oh yeah, a flooring specialist.

As someone who has been out of work for a year and a half I found this very interesting. WTF? I know employers are free to hire whoever they want but to disqualify everyone who is currently unemployed makes no sense to me. Nearly everyone I know that is unemployed is unemployed involuntarily. As in through no fault of their own. My employer of 20 years made me Employee Of The Year for 2005 and persona non grata in spring of 2006. Nothing changed, I was still doing my job and doing it well. My theory is that my previous rate of pay increases and bonuses put me out of the acceptable pay range for a lout with no college education. I actually saw my new boss choke when she saw my pay rate during my last employee evaluation. Two months later I'm on my ass. I took me 9 months to get a job after that. That new job lasted 10 months before I moved on to what I thought was going to be a great job(if things get better I would go back to work for them in a heartbeat). The employer was going to open an office in KC and I would sell and run jobs from that office. Then came the great collapse of 2008 followed by the greater collapse of 2009. The new office never became. I then had no job again and it continues today. I/we have several ideas for self employment. All of them will require money we don't have at this time.

Jobs? Who's Got Jobs?
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I keep hearing the Guvm't saying things are getting better but we can expect the jobless situation to carry on for years. Great. I have been without work for 1 year and 5 months. I have applied for and sent in resumes for hundreds of jobs and have not received one single call, letter or email for an interview. I have received 3 or 4 emails of denials. Those have been in reference to jobs on the lower end of my work history. Custodians, janitors, lawn care, warehouse. All those jobs have been kind enough to send emails saying overqualified, not qualified, or position filled. All the rest? Nothing, nada. How can the government say things are getting better when more and more people are losing their jobs and more and more people are losing their unemployment benefits? Every month results in a net loss in jobs, but the powers that be insist on claiming that all is better. I say bullshit! How can sales improve when more people don't have an income? Am I being dense about this or am I missing something here? I don't think so. I have a great resume, an outstanding work history and lots of experience and have never had a problem getting a job. But in this high unemployment scenario my background, skills and experience don't count for squat. What everyone looks for now is a portion of the resume that includes a diploma from a college. So in this environment I think the burden is on me to provide an income, not rely on a corporation to provide an exchange of labor for dollars. I have several ideas but they all require an immediate injection funds in one quantity or another and in this economy I am hesitant to start any sort of business. So I continue on, working at what ever I can get, doing whatever I can do and deciding on what direction to take in these difficult times.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
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I'm sitting here contemplating this latest round of snow. We receive another 5 inches today. More shoveling, only this time for two houses and 1 apartment. Hooray for global warming! How can any one believe in global warming? It gets warmer, it gets cooler. That's the way it is and that's the way it has always been. Forever.

House Plan 4
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Good news! We don't need a new roof, we just needed to repair the roof the inept previous owner put on. Seriously, it has a new Timberline roof, someone just wasn't skilled at roofing. So my brother and I were on the roof in 35 degree weather with a 10-15 mph breeze blowin' and the sky threatening rain or snow. Most repairs are done, at least the ones that can be done in winter weather. Spring weather will allow some other repairs. Any way, that was a load off my mind.

CPAC Results
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The Conservative Political Action Conference has held it's annual meeting this past week. They had an impressive list of speakers this year. Ann Coulter was on hand to offer her sharp, caustic wit, Judge Andrew Napolitano was there as was Mitt Romney. CPAC does a straw poll of all potential conservative Presidential Candidates. This year Ron Paul won the poll with 33 percent of the vote. Mitt came in second at 20 some odd percent. Since the last presidential election cycle, the one in which Dr. Paul was mostly ignored, he has become the go to guy for all things political by the news groups that dismissed him during the election. A person (professional asshat), from the Fox News network made the closing speech at this years meeting. I wonder what he thinks of the straw poll results as he thinks that Ron Paul is a kook and anyone that supports him is a member of the tin foil hat club.

The new poor?
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I read today that there is a new class of Americans that may be called the new poor. These folks, myself included, are the chronically unemployed. I personally have been out of work for over a year and thankfully, I still have 1 or 2 unemployment claims or extensions left. But there are millions (2.7 million to be closer) of people that are facing the end of any unemployment benefits by the end of April. The article went on to say that it may be years before people like me can find a regular job. Years! I can find work but it is intermittent, sporadic and low paying at best. And it is work that I drum up myself, not in an office, at a jobsite or in a factory. I have been told I'm not qualified to do the things I have done for the last 10 years(maintenance and construction management) and I have been told I'm not qualified to be a custodian. So if I'm not qualified for anything in between what do I do? Anything I can find that will pay me, preferably in cash. There are millions of people that are in the same position. Good, hard working folks that, at this time, have no real employment future. I want to personally thank past President George W. Bush for my job loss and Pseudo President Obama for continuing the unemployment cycle. It used to be said that a way to improve a failing economy was to go to war. Well, we're on two battle fronts and that hasn't improve the economy any. Maybe it takes a real World War to make real job growth. Truthfully, as intermarried as the world economy is, I don't think things will ever get back on track. Look at the latest ripple, Toyota builds some crappy cars, so the stock market drops and anyone that sells to Toyota or supports them or is supported by them loses their market value and it just goes down the line to the smallest provider of the smallest vendor to the car maker. Purveyors of nuts, bolts, uniforms, paint, steel, tires, glass, fabric, wire and so on all see a drop in their business and their market value. The entire world is tied together like this so a hiccup on one side of the world causes a rash on the other side.