Thursday, December 16, 2010

December 16, 2010

I am still unemployed- indeed, I have not worked since November 22- the longest stretch of unemployment for me since the beginning of 2008 (the last time I lived in the Springs). I still make frequent calls to all the temp agencies I'm signed up for. And I've had at least 2 interviews this week, as well as a callback on one of last week's applications. However, I was in the bathroom when that call hit my answering machine, and I've tried 4 times to call the callback number back with no success. So much for Colorado Springs being a better job market than New York City- the unemployment rate here is up to 9.2% (well above the Colorado statewide average, although lower than Pueblo). The only good thing right now is that I am on unemployment due to a seasonal job ending 2 months earlier than it was supposed to. I've had a few short term assignments, including ad insertion for the Gazette, and a 2 day moving job at Fort Carson that ended with my left toe getting injured. While the toe stopped hurting the following day, it is still purple colored in spots- and after that incident, I'm not even bothering applying for labor positions that require constant lifting of 60-100 pound materials, since that's what fell on my toe. I'm getting older, and my physical strength isn't what it was a few years ago. But supposedly, Woodford and Walmart's remodeling crew will be calling up people again in January, so if none of these other job prospects pan out, I might be working at one of those old jobsites again. But either way, it beats $132 a week in unemployment or the $235 a week after taxes I was averaging at my messenger job in New York.



This has been one weird autumn. New York, the Midwest, and the southeast are seeing record cold and snow, yet Colorado Springs tied for its latest start to the snow season ever with a 2 inch snowfall that started on the evening of November 28. It hasn't snowed again until this morning, and as of 2PM MT, that snow is gone, and another storm is supposed to hit tonight with a possible 1 to 4 inch snow range. If it must snow, it's better this happens when I don't have to drive out in it.



I have had more time to work on my novel and on my side hobby of music mixing. I put the link to my SoundCloud site that features some of my mixing abilities on the right side of the page. The novel draft (at this point titled Purgatory on the Third Rail) is usually updated on my website. The link to it can be found here (novel link). It took a while to update the last draft because the computer that processed many of these blogs since July 2007 stopped working right after a major virus infection (probably caused by the Wikileaks cyberwars). I got a replacement computer Saturday night, which has a 1.7GHz processor and 250MB more RAM than the old computer. For some reason, the newer Dell computer, which was installed with Windows XP, has Windows 2000 Professional on it instead. That means that a lot of my backed up files from the old computer don't work on the Dell. And because it currently has Windows 2000 Professional, I can't upgrade it to my copy of Windows XP Home edition- it can only be upgraded to Windows XP Professional, which is presently out of my budget. Indeed, between shelling out $45 for the Dell, $70 for my most recent utility bill (which is double September's bill) and $15 for my most recent visit to Peak Vista health clinic, there isn't much leftover money to throw around.