Good Morning.

Today is my last day out of a job.

Back on February 17, my previous company decided they were better off without me and 'put me out to pasture', so to speak. It's been a long stretch, not made any easier by the current economic situation, but I never gave up.

I suppose I'm luckier than most; the industry I'm in is one of the very few growth industries in the United States (Health Insurance Claims/ Back Office) and I'm in an even narrower area of that business. (Electronic claims transactions.) Everyone has heard of "HIPAA", but I bet that there's not 2 among us that know about the other side of HIPAA....which pretty much created the EDI industry.

There's a finite number of people out there that really and truly know the ins and outs of the ANSI X-12 codesets for claims transmissions, and I do count myself among them. We'll always be able to find work; it's just a matter of finding the right place.

That said, I know many out here are 'in between jobs' or in less than ideal situations in their current jobs. You hardly need my advice, as some of you have been at this far longer than I have. All I can say is, never give up. Something is out there, and even though it may take weeks or months to find it, you can't get discouraged. During my downtime, I read somewhere that for every open position that's posted out there, companies receive an average of 200 applications. For EVERY position.

That's a lot of noise; these days if you even get a call for a phone screen, that's a major accomplishment. But you can't quit.

As for me, I took advantage of the downtime and did quite a few things around the house that needed doing. I got rid of some old furniture and re-arranged the living room and dining room. Even though I live in an apartment complex, the landlord isn't the brightest star, so I did a lot of yard work and minimal landscaping around my end of the building. (Which had the desired effect; the professional guys have been here recently.) We had a flood in the cellar back around April 1, which forced me to clean up down there and throw out a lot of junk. I've even dusted off my old workbench, re-connected an old stereo, and got back to building scale models again.

And I've done one other thing. Some months ago, I decided that I should probably try to crack into city government here in Waltham. On this past Tuesday, I walked down to city hall and pulled a nomination packet to run for School Committee. I've already had an interview; a reporter from the News Tribune called me from out of the blue yesterday, and we talked for about 20 minutes. (Probably more of a "candidates for office" piece than anything else.)

So.....It's quite a weekend of renewal. We're heading to the end of another succesful Scouting season (2 meeting left!)...Spring Soccer is well underway, and Javi has a game tomorrow...Sunday is First Communion, and we'll have family in friends in town to celebrate the Eucharist with Javier...and Monday, it's off to a brand-new job with all the hopes and dreams that entails.

There's a couple of things that kept me a little bit saner than I would have been during the last two months. The first is LL Bean store #132, right here in Burlington, MA. From the very first day I was out of work, they've gone out of their way to treat me with kindness and sympathy; I've been given new opportunities at the store and as many crumbs of hours as they can spare. (Remember, I am a holdover 'seasonal' employee from Christmas.) I have been impressed with the store team beyond all measure, to the point where I've recently penned a letter to the CEO Chris McCormick to thank the store management for everything they've done.

The second is right here on this server.

Yes, it's everyone on this blog. I don't know how we managed to take a handful of dispersed persons and build us a real online community, but we've done it, This could have turned out to be just me, Bob, and Raine in our little corner of the internets complaining about President Bush...But I think we've all been through enough and shared enough together that this blog is oh-so-much-more.

Like I said a ways back on that "25 things" that was cirlcling Facebook...."I'm glad that some people I know on the internet have turned into real friends."


:peace: