The summation.

Twelve posts this month. It is better than some of the other blogs I read, and I'm glad I've able to keep this thing going for the past six months. I know I should write every day, but I don't.

Been watching old movies in an attempt to re-start my exercise habits. The average old movie is just over an hour, and that is a perfect length of time for exercise. Also, older movies don't demand constant attention so you can let your mind wander while you ride the exercise bike. I've been watching Val Lewton films---really liked I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and THE CAT PEOPLE, but gave up on CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE. Probably will check out some of the Universal Horror films over the next week, I've seen the "major" ones but haven't seen all the sequels. They were on our local TV station late night horror show when I was a kid, but the movie came on late Friday night and it was way too late for an elementary schooler to stay up. Didn't see most of them until I hit adulthood.

A bet.

Dear Imaginary Reader,

I bet I don't get a job interview next month. Just a feeling. Things seem to already be slowing down, and I'm starting to have to apply to jobs where I know I don't meet the qualifications. Guess it's going to be an early winter. I suppose I will make a token attempt to re-apply to some of the firms I've applied to over the last year and a half. Not sure if I will, actually. I guess if there is absolutely nothing else to apply to.

As usual, my only real hope is with the Federal Agency Everyone Hates. I'm thinking my chances may be a little better since I'm applying outside my current city [Detroit of the West.] It turns out the Agency has a lot of facilities here and they have a lot of internal candidates so that may explain my lack of success.

Looking forward to not worrying about it this weekend. Another month down the drain.

A quick read....

Ended up checking out a book yesterday called THOSE WHO HIT THE HARDEST about the Pittsburgh Steelers/Dallas Cowboys rivalry during the 1970s. It's a mixed success, but hard to put down. The authors should probably admit a Burgh bias, it is about 80% about the Steelers. They attempt to tie in the rise and fall of the steelworkers union with the story of the Steelers, but it doesn't mesh and the labor stuff seems like something that was inserted from another book. Still an interesting story.

It is funny to think of how little the players made back then, the salaries changed during this period but even then superstar draft picks could only command a few hundred grand over the life of their contracts.

I am a sort-of football fan, the game makes for great storytelling and I love to read books about the various personalities. I seldom watch an entire game, and prefer college to pro football [another interesting tidbit---until the late Sixties, college football was overwhelmingly more popular than the pro game, the time period chronicled in this book was more or less the point where the tide turned] but even then I follow the game more as a story that unfolds each week--I'll watch the highlights on ESPN but generally only tune in for some of the bowl games in January. I have teams I dislike, and have a nominal allegiance to teams where I've attended school or from my home state, but in the end I'm more interested in the drama of it. For example, I am hoping the most popular team in my home state doesn't make it to the national championship game this year because they tend to get dominated in big bowl games [heh heh, any savvy college FB fans will probably have narrowed it down to two possible schools!] and I always want the best matchup possible.

Anyway, I ended up reading the whole book this morning. Not as good as the Bear Bryant bio I read last month, but worth a read mainly just for the story of the Steelers. Another great football book is WHEN PRIDE STILL MATTERED about Vince Lombardi, and my overall favorite which I mentioned several months back is A CIVIL WAR by John Feinstein, about the Army/Navy football rivalry.

A change of plans...

I decided to go ahead and apply for the job posting that is way out of my area. If by some chance I do get the job I can decide what to do at that point, it would also be a good way to get away from this area, something which my wife and I really want to do.
So I do have two job opportunities pending. If I did need to choose between them I would probably choose the one out of the area...more pay and it's a chance to relocate.

It will be interesting...I've never applied to other offices in this state, only the one in my city and also one out of state. Maybe the odds will be better.

Forgot to mention

Finished FREEDOM over the weekend. I liked it overall, not sure if it was good as THE CORRECTIONS but it was easier to get into. The two novels were similar in a lot of ways, they each had characters getting involved in shady schemes engineered by the wealthy.

I am reading a book of his essays called HOW TO BE ALONE and discovered he wrote a great article about my former employer the Federal Agency Known for Workplace Violence.

Finished the Harry Hole book last week, I wish more of the novels were available here in the US. I think some have been translated and published in the UK, it looks like I will actually have to spend money if I want to read any more beyond the three I have read. I'm checking out some other mysteries from that region.

Getting into Jonathan Ames. I think I should try to be a funny writer. Maybe that would be easier for me.

Beyond pissed.

So I had heard it through the internet grapevine that the Federal Agency Everyone Hates was going to do another posting today for the job that I failed to get back in July. They hire twice a year, this posting would be for the Spring hire. The grapevine was correct, I checked this morning to find a new posting. As I read it, I noticed something was wrong.

My city was not listed on there. Neither was any city in a 200 mile radius of me. I have been applying to these things for over two years now, ever since I started at the Big Firm and figured out that I wasn't going to make it there. This has never happened before. The cities listed are all in a distant part of the state, or cities in other parts of the country. So I can forget all about that. There's supposed to be another posting for a different job in about a month, guess we'll see what happens with that. I will not have another shot at this particular job until April, and who knows, they may just do the same thing again. So much for all those agents they supposedly needed.

I am extremely disappointed right now. I know I'm in the running for another job with them, but I had hoped to have more than one iron in the fire. Oh well, at least I no longer have to be in a rush to get my CPA license reactivated.

In other news, I got turned down for the job I interviewed for earlier this month. I knew by now that I was no longer in consideration for it just due to the lack of response, but it's still never fun to learn for sure that yet again, I have been deemed not good enough.

A dry spell

I'm having a lot of trouble putting together enough things to apply to for this two week period. The job vacancies just don't seem to be there, but I will persevere.
Going to have to re-apply to some things that were reposted. Obviously I am not what they're looking for [even though I really would be a fit for some of them even according to their criteria] but at least it's something to put on the UE form.

I completed an assessment today for yet another job with the Federal Agency Everyone Hates. This job is a particularly unpopular one, which is saying something. Still has very tight competition. I don't particularly care one way or another about it, but it starts in January, and that is around the time that my unemployment will probably be ending for good.

I'm a little over a hundred pages into FREEDOM. Pretty good, actually easier for me to get into than THE CORRECTIONS, probably because it is from a single point of view and so there aren't a bunch of shifting narratives which can sometimes suck the energy out of a book.

Sweet freedom....

Picked up Jonathan Franzen's FREEDOM today, barely got started but it's good so far. I had a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. Starbucks....I never used to go there, now I go there at least once a week, more if I'm waiting around when travelling with my wife.
I try to cut costs in other ways in order to justify going there, like letting my car go without being washed for an extra week or two, getting one less gallon of gas, etc.
I'll be happy when I have a job again, assuming that ever happens, so I can indulge guilt free.

I also checked out the latest Jo Nesbo [the "o" in Nesbo should be some kind of weird Scandinavian "O" but I am not ASCII proficient enough to be able to use that.] He is a Norwegian mystery writer, known mainly for his series involving the alcoholic detective Harry Hole [okay, I know it sounds funny.] I prefer his stuff to the Stieg Larson books [GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, etc.,] I read the first one of those and also saw the first film and remain unimpressed.

I am caffeinated so I am hoping for a good rest of the day. Maybe I will hit Starbucks again this afternoon just in case I have a letdown.

I am irritated by the board of accountancy, apparently I have to finish a ton of CPE to get my license active again, I will have to look for some kind of low-cost option and will most likely have to spend an hour or two at the library each day in order to take the courses since we still have dial-up and will continue to have it for the near future. I really dropped the ball on that, but that is par for the course. Well, I guess I am mixing metaphors, never mind. "I really sliced the ball but that is par for the course..." doesn't make much sense. I hate golf. Could my failure to get established in public accounting be due to my hatred of and refusal to play golf? One wonders.

Book stuff....

I still read a lot, although many times it is a losing battle. I've given up on a few books lately [I did finish THE PASSAGE only to find it is book one of a trilogy.]
I tried to read THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET and gave up. Just had other books to move on to, couldn't be helped. I gave up on the Harry Truman biography that I'd checked out from the library only to wind up buying it at a thrift store. I do that a lot with books that I know I cannot read within a month. I have yet to revisit it. A lot of time I spend reading THE BEST AMERICAN SPORTS WRITING series, I have two copies from 2000 and 2001 that I bought in thrift stores. They don't require the same level of commitment of a novel.

Just finished the third Larry McMurtry memoir, HOLLYWOOD. It's a good deal shorter than the prior two, but still has interesting stories about his screenwriting career, which he admits has more or less financed his bookseller and novelist careers which were covered in the prior two volumes. My favorite story is how they were expecting protesters galore at the Oscars when they were up for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, but were disappointed to see nothing but a lone figure with a sign that read "NO HOMOS ON THE RANGE."

I am gearing up for Jonathan Franzen's FREEDOM. Sounds right up my alley, and I really enjoyed THE CORRECTIONS, although it was one of those books that I finished only on the second attempt.

Reading Norwegian writer Per Petterson's I CURSE THE RIVER OF TIME. I love his books, but not for the usual reasons. I can rarely explain the plot behind any of his novels. He tends to have main solitary characters who spend most of the book thinking about the past, with most of the novel usually being a bunch of flashbacks. Usually the main character has experienced some kind of trauma, usually the loss of a family member or members. And many times the flashbacks involve World War Two, which apparently many older people in Norway feel highly conflicted about. This time the character is a bit younger so WWII isn't that big a part of it. The books always put a spell on me, and even though I can't usually remember much about what they are about, that makes it easier to re-read them.

Where was I....

Despite a ton of coffee, I'm extremely tired today.

The interview went pretty well, very casual and one-on-one. I *think* I will probably be invited back for a second interview. One good thing about it would be that it would allow a transition out of accounting, which doesn't appear to be working out for me. Also, the job is much better than I had thought, it is not "hardcore collections" as the interviewer put it, and it involves dealing with international customers so almost all of the communication is done via e-mail [my territory is far enough away to where they would be major time zone differences that make phone calls impractical.]

It is hard to avoid sounding like a stuck record, but I guess it's one of those things where I can't change my focus until the problem of my joblessness is either solved or given up on. I am too tired to think about it right now. I could barely function well enough to grocery shop this morning and I'm afraid I may have to go again later.

I am so depressed that I had an unemployment check I'd gotten a few weeks ago [my initial claim expired and I had to wait for a while to see if they had gotten anything mixed up] and I only now deposited it. And even that was difficult.

Should eat something I guess.

I know the drill....

Got a call today regarding one of my job applications, and I supposedly have an interview tomorrow. I'm waiting to get some kind of "e-mail invite" with more info, but have yet to receive it. I'll probably call later today if I don't receive it.

This is allegedly accounting but is more of a credit/collections type job. It will be a lot of phone work, but it won't be any worse than working for the Federal Agency Everyone Hates, and I was willing to do that.

I'm going in with a pretty nonchalant mindset, I will do my best, but be relaxed. I'm actually more interested in another job that I'm about to send the application for. Unfortunately I may need to cancel travel plans for next week with my wife until this all gets sorted out. The other job I'm more interested in involves work I would probably rather do, but it is a bit of a drive.

Just glad that I'm getting responses. I have a feeling that time is short as far as getting a job this year, if last winter is any indication. I've been let down too much before to get too hopeful. All I can do is control my own performance, and remember that I'm interviewing them as much as they are interviewing me. I do think that those horrible government interviews of the spring and summer are good preparation, it makes more casual, traditional interviews a lot easier to handle.

What would the Bear say?

Looks like I did not exactly set the blogosphere on fire last month. It was a busy month, as was July, although I guess it wasn't my all time low for posts.

Last month I had my monthly failed job interview. I'm not optimistic that I will even get an interview this month, I don't have much on the horizon. I guess the two interviews I had in July can make up for not having one this month. Last week I finally got a rejection letter for the county interview I had back in early July.

I don't talk about books as much as I used to. I'm finishing up a biography of Bear Bryant called THE LAST COACH. Believe it or not, I am a big fan of college football.
It's about the only sport I follow. I wonder what Bear Bryant would say to me. Probably to get off my ass and do something. Not sure what that something would be.

My problem is really that my "skill set" such as it is, is not really something that is in much demand. I'm always a "poor fit" at most jobs, and I'm starting to think maybe I should go back to the factory/unskilled type jobs I worked during my 20s. Of course, those opportunities are gone now.

I feel I'm an intelligent enough person, but that I can't ever seem to do anything with that intelligence. I don't know how much of it is the economy and how much of it is, well, me.