You know what's funny? When a company looking for a managing editor misspells its own email address. Take a look...the email address is different in two places...That makes me laugh. It's like, yeah, you need an editor badly, and that's obvious, but hmmmm, clearly you care about this job posting barely enough to get it just right. Too funny.

Well, I'm off to do laundry at my parents' house and eat dinner there. No word on the job search. I'm holding off on the night-shift jobs, because my heart's not in going back to working nights right now. Of course, ask me again in a couple weeks and we'll see. :)

I did get my unemployment notice. It's measly, but I could live on it so long as I get another part-time gig and make the maximum I'm allowed. But I'll be then grossing per week what I netted per week at PFW. I'm not having taxes taken out now with the thought being that I'll have a real job by the time that's needed, next year at this time. Plus, I need every little bit right now. So we shall see. I have to talk to PFW and see how much they're planning on giving me and for how much work. I also need to find out how much vacation pay I'm getting, so I can plan accordingly in my budget. With my tax refund, I can stay afloat a lot longer than I'd thought, but come mid-May or so, if I spent NO money on ANYTHING, meaning I don't even eat, then I start to really get in trouble--that's on unemployment alone, without a part-time gig.

But we'll see how it goes...

Scary how similarly me and Mrs. E think... After I put the last post up, I remembered the library's entire catalog is online. So I went and searched for "Writer's Market," the name of the catalog thingie. Their last edition, apparently, is 1999. But then I found out that it has an online version for $2.99/month. I'm debating if that's worth it...probably. :)

So I didn't go to the library or former work...instead, I took Kazak on a long, long walk, because he deserves it and it's a pretty nice day. No big deal on the walk...just walking, peeing, pooping, sniffing. Only one of those done by me.

Now I'm gonna relax for a little while, maybe play some video games and do some job work. And we'll see from there.

I guess there's a benefit to being unemployed, kinda. I've eaten cereal for "breakfast" (granted, at 11am) the last three days or so. To me, that's healthy eating, because it's what I grew up doing, and I was much healthier then. Plus, I missed eating cereal. I love cereal.

No one will care, but let me talk about it anyway. The SimCity 4 Rush Hour expansion pack is quite possibly the greatest thing in the world. Because it fits ME perfectly. Part of the "strategy" of the basic game is to build your city, but you have to take your time...you can't throw up all kinds of stuff or you'll go over budget. But without the expansion pack, you'd have to sit there and stare at the city and not do anything. I could never do that. That's not "playing" the game to me. But this expansion pack allows you to run "Grand Theft Auto" type missions in your city--good guys and bad guys. And you earn money and mayor ratings points (or lose them) if you succeed or fail. That's good, because it gives me something to do when I don't have the cash to build and need to build some capital. Whatever.

Debating what to do today...could go to the library to look up some things. Could go to the former employer's and get some things done there. Could just stay home, relax, do some research and whatnot. Probably I will go to the Harold Washington Library though and see if they have a catalog with magazine listings I can take out (assuming my crusty old library card, which I've had since I was single-digits old, still works. It should. It did before. We'll see. Gotta walk the dog first.

Ah yes...when it rains, it pours.

I went to the unemployment office today, and that went well, until I emerged to find my car missing. Towed. The parking lot, apparently, has restrictions on where you can park for what business. It's a strip mall. I've never seen a strip mall that prevented customers from parking in its own lot...but apparently, the poor employees get parking spots too. Whatever...I'm pretty pissed that it wasn't clear where I could park and even more pissed that I let my guard down and "didn't care." Usually, if there's a shadow of a doubt, I won't park in a spot. So, anyway, that cost me having to owe Gina $125 because I don't have anywhere near that kind of money.

So I've been pretty grumpy all evening since then. I played SimCity 4 to take my mind off things, and that worked. So it looks like I'll be doing a lot of that for a while now, when I'm not job searching. Don't know how much I'm getting in unemployment, so I don't even know how much I can make in part-time work. Still don't know how much vacation time I'm getting paid for. Don't know what I need to do to continue AFLAC. Haven't heard from any potential employers. Don't want to send stuff to night-shift jobs just yet, but wondering if there's anything else worth "waiting" for. I can't defer my car loan and I have to wait to get unemployment before I can defer my student loan. Fortunately, I was able to reschedule an upcoming eye-doctor appointment to before I'm taken off insurance. So that's good. It'll be covered. Phew!

Big City Swing, where we take swing lessons, has an open dance on Tuesday nights, and I just got back from that with Gina. I was in a crappy-esque mood and didn't really want to go, but I'm glad we did. We met our new friends from the first two classes, a couple who lives across the street. The guy works for Chipotle, like as a regional manager or something like that. Don't know what the woman does. Anyway, we did far better than we thought we would, although she danced much better as a follow for other guys than I did as a lead for one other woman. But, honestly, she wasn't really following my leads so well--I'm a strong leader (meaning, I pull and push pretty hard), so it's not hard to tell where I want you to go, typically. But I'm not refined in direction yet, I guess. Whatever. It was a great time and well worth my $4 donation. Tomorrow, we start our third course...should be good.

Maybe I'll go to the library tomorrow and check out some job-searching books. I know of one catalog I need to get--hopefully the library has it. It lists like every magazine everywhere with contact info. That would be awesome to get ahold of.

Otherwise, we'll see. Now to play SimCity 4 again for awhile, then head to bed.

While Mother Nature was apparently wreaking early havoc upon Chicagoland in the form of thunderstorms, I was wandering through Fox Valley Mall with Gina, as she decided now would be a good time to revamp my summer wardrobe, since summer is coming. A good idea, to be sure.

This in conjunction with us heading to Performance Bicycle Shop across from the mall. It is where I bought my bike and where I'd tell anyone to get a bike. The cheapest are typically $219 or so, but the value is so much more. You could pay that at Sportmart or K-mart and you'd get a piece of crap (trust me, I worked at K-mart, in sporting goods--I know how crappy those bikes were). But at Performance, you get a good, solid bike (I bought mine in 1995, just before school, and it's survived and survived quite well since--even though I didn't ride it much the last couple of years) and great service--plus lifetime free adjustments to the bike. That's good. And, if it needs repair, you can take it there, and they know the bike inside out and upside down. Basically, you get what you pay for. And that's key.

So Gina wants a bike, and I'd like one too, since mine current bike is a mountain bike, not a road or hybrid, making it more work to ride on the roads and bike paths and such. We're probably not gonna get matching, spot-on bikes. However, we'll probably get the same model, just different colors (oh, and she'll have the women's frame). That reminds me...the difficult part with Gina is that she's so short, she barely fits any adult-sized bikes. So we'll have to see. :) There's no rush, especially since I don't have a job.

That's my big plans tomorrow--gonna try to hit the unemployment office. I hope it won't be crowded. Also going to call loan folks and see about deferment of loans and what that does to me. And I have to write out my bills for the month.

Busy, busy, busy, even with no job. :)

Tomorrow is a new day. Or something. I have the day off, so that's all that matters.

I spent the evening dodging between watching the Oscars (I'm glad Billy Crystal is back, and Robin Williams remains the funniest man alive, for the most part) and cleaning my room. I moved five boxes into storage. That's great. I hooked up my TV and set up the "entertainment center" in my room now. So that's good to go.

Tomorrow, I'm not sure what Gina and I will be doing...separately OR together, for that matter. Unemployment office will be paid a visit on tuesday. Otherwise, I'll hope to hear from Potential Employer 1 soon. And Potential Employer 2...the one for which I'd laugh.

Have to prepare some packets to send out though on Tuesday...not that there's much super preparation. So yeah...we'll see how it goes.

Good night all...

This may have been the longest I've gone without blogging. Interesting. Or not.

I'd give you a recap, but I can't remember a lot right now...for whatever reason.

In no particular order, I know these things happened:
--I got a letter from Potential Employer 1 saying they received my stuff and if I didn't hear from them within two weeks, to assume they went another direction. OK.
--I went and saw "Intolerable Cruelty" at Brew&View, which was pretty damned good, though a couple people told me the movie wasn't that good. I thought, actually, it was subtlely hilarious in that subtlely hilarious Cohen Bros. way.
--Gina and I went to the softball batting cages today to swing the bats for the first time this year (softball actually gets revved up soon...). She was all worried about hitting the "heavy" 16-inch softball, but she should have NO problems whatsoever. Granted, batting cage balls are loaded, but she was getting some great swings on the pitches. She'll be just fine and probably will take opponents by surprise, given her small-ness. They'll move in, and I think she has enough power to knock it over their heads and past the outfielders--but we'll see. Cubs fans thought Gary Scott would be an All-Star thirdbasemen, and where is he now?
--My room is a goddamned mess--the messiest it's ever been.
--Butch bought a 27-inch TV for $75 and we got digital cable (although I'm unemployed) in all three rooms. Part of why my room is a mess and a half.
--I went to Gameworks in Schaumburg yesterday and found the game that I can master...it's called Slide Match or something like that...it's basically hand-eye coordination. I won 900 tickets on about $12 worth of tries. So I got Gina a stuffed teddy bear that I gave to her when she showed up (later than me), because I wasn't about to buy 900 tickets worth of ShockTarts!, though that would have been fun (and a helluva lot of ShockTarts!).
--I applied to a job that, if I get it, I will laugh for five days straight. It's perfect, but I believe it's one of those B.S. job entries, like "Stuff envelopes in your spare time for $80,000!!!!" but they don't tell you that you have to buy all the envelopes and whatnot. So we'll see. But if it's not a misleading job, then, boy...I'll laugh for five straight days.
--I decided that I'm 90 percent sure I'm not leaving Chicagoland, even if it means working at K-mart or something like that.

So anyway...the nice thing about being unemployed is that I have tomorrow, Casimir Pulaski Day (Go Polacks!), off to "celebrate my heritage." That means I'll sleep in and then Gina (who has the day off) and I will find something to do...the only bad thing is that it might rain. But we'll see how it goes.

OK...off to clean.