Actually, it comes in threes

Chad has an interview in Orange County Friday morning, too!

Good news comes in pairs

Andrea has an interview on Friday with the San Jose Mercury News. It's kind of a crap job (part-time, on call, hourly wages), but it is money and a foot in the door of a daily. Of course, if we both get the jobs we're applying for, we'll be working in different cities, earning wages that will make frequent trips difficult.

Hope...

Investor's Business Daily is flying me to Los Angeles this week to interview for a job compiling the newspaper's news summary page. This won't involve a lot of reporting, but it sounds like a good way to get into a daily newspaper -- national at that!

The hunt continues.

Now I'm applying for non-tech reporting positions, slowly running out of places to apply. Andrea hasn't heard back from the San Francisco, which is making her nervous. But she's applying at a bunch of different places.

Man, nothing kills a person's self-confidence like a layoff.

Fed Chief Now Blamed for Inflating Stock Bubble

Fed Chief Now Blamed for Inflating Stock Bubble

... the future may require reduced expectations for millions of Americans who staked their hope for their comfortable retirement on stocks. The average recovery time--the length of time it takes the market to return to its boom-time peak--during the big busts of the 20th century was 20 years. Those declines were 1906, 1929 and the late 1960s.

Hey, whatever happened to Bush's brilliant idea about investing Social Security funds into the stock market?

Business Journal death spiral

I apparently missed the best meeting of the year. Here's an excerpt from today's IM chat with Sarah:

spacylacy2002 (01:11:47 PM):I just read your cover letter and am typing up feedback. you missed a firework-ladden meeting today- I ran out in tears at one point- mullins was insane- tim's entire budget got shut down

spacylacy2002 (01:11:58 PM): shot down I meant

ken_brown_98 (01:12:53 PM): You're kidding.

spacylacy2002 (01:12:56 PM): no

ken_brown_98 (01:12:57 PM): What happened?

spacylacy2002 (01:13:09 PM): can you imagine ME crying? mullins said he never thought he'd see the day

ken_brown_98 (01:14:19 PM): Thyat's why I can't believe it myself.

spacylacy2002 (01:14:27 PM): It's been horrible here the last few days- you have no idea. I almost just quit this morning.

spacylacy2002 (01:14:56 PM): I'm going to have a meeting withcarole tomorrow am.

ken_brown_98 (01:15:01 PM): I wish someone had recorded the meeting.

spacylacy2002 (01:15:31 PM): I know- mullins started pressing her on why she laid you off in particular- it got really uncomfortable.

spacylacy2002 (01:15:55 PM): for some reason- sharon once again - was praising and defending all management- why does she doe that in meetings?

ken_brown_98 (01:16:30 PM): Maybe that's why she still has a job. Robert is going to get himself fired. So did Carole respond?

spacylacy2002 (01:17:50 PM): oh i'll fill you in on the whole thing tomorrow- she didn't really say much on that topic- but what really got me upset before the meeting was I walked in the door and she was like "kent wants only local breaking exclusive news on this budget and if it doesn't happen he's going to come out here and make it happen" I was like fine- we have a few empty seats.

ken_brown_98 (01:20:08 PM): Why didn't they tell everyone months ago? Even last week Carole was insisting that she was in charge and that the coverage wouldn't change. Even after we talked about the mixed signals we were getting?

spacylacy2002 (01:21:29 PM): I know- and this week my breaking news story was on five and my big picture industry story was on one- I was like "this doesn't make any sense!" and she kept trying to justify it then she admitted that I was right and she was getting mixed signals and she started to cry and said she's trying to fight for our staff but she doesn't think she can fight hard enough and that she didnt think she knew what news was anymore either- can you imagine?

ken_brown_98 (01:22:28 PM): Oh my gosh. That;'s bizzarre. It sounds like Kent was the one who didn't like my stuff.

ken_brown_98 (01:23:07 PM): That is the strangest meeting I've ever heard. I would have given anything to habve been there...

spacylacy2002 (01:23:09 PM): I don't know- she said she made the lay off decisions- but I got the impression that dick has been driving a lot of this stuff- and going through charlotte to do it

spacylacy2002 (01:23:33 PM): she said she isn't even getting the sales numbers anymore

ken_brown_98 (01:23:43 PM): Death spiral.

A Police State In Stars And Stripes

An interesting read in TOMPAINE.com about dirty bomb suspect Jose Padilla.

The other two nominal Americans nabbed thus far in the present conflict, John Walker Lindh and Yaser Esam Hambi, arguably forfeited their claim to citizenship by fighting on behalf of a foreign power. Each was captured by military forces in a combat zone.

Padilla, on the other hand, was born in Brooklyn, raised in Chicago and arrested by civilian authorities at O'Hare Airport. As we're all equal before the law, his legal status is the same as any other citizen's. If he can be forever detained by executive order without so much as a hearing before an independent magistrate, so can anybody else. When your liberty is insured solely by the goodwill and competence of those in charge, you live in a police state.

Unemployment: Day Three

Andrea, Geoff and I went back to work to pack up our personal belongings, which provided, in a sad way, closure. I wanted to cry when I unpinned from my cubicle wall a photograph Andrea had taken of me when we were in downown San Jose scouting out backdrops for our video project. It really seemed back then that we were making ourselves indespensible to the company, particularly to our publisher. From what I understand, he was the one who made the initial suggestions about who to cut.

It dawned on us afterwards that the four people affected most directly by the layoffs had frozen our spending, going so far as to start bringing our lunches, as if we unconciously knew, despite all other outward logic, that we were the ones getting the axe. Funny.

On todays agenda: I'm redoing my crappy cover letter and applying at TechTV, the Washington D.C. Business Journal, the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times. Andrea is putting together her portfolio, lookin for more leads and preparing for her interview tomorrow.

Unemployment: Day Two

I couldn't slepp at all last night, so I woke up around 6 a.m., hours before my usual wake up time -- on the one weekday I could justifiably sleep in. Andrea and I have turned her apartment into a job-seeker headquarters, where both of us have been applying for various jobs all day long.

Andrea's still sick, so she hasn't had a chance to hit the pavement in full force. Nonetheless, she has an interview this Thursday at the San Francicso Business Times. Our friend Geoff (also known as Sarah's boyfriend), who was laid off with us, is applying for the same position, and it sounds like both of them have a pretty good shot at it.

So far I've applied at Bloomberg, TheStreet.com, CBS Marketwatch, Ziff Davis' video game group, the Boston Business Journal and talked to my old editors at the Orange County Business Journal. I'm sure I'me forgetting a few. The OCBJ and I are seriously discussing my moving back to Southern California. I wanted to stay here in Silicon Valley, but unless I'm raking in the dough, there's absolutely nothing redeeming about the San Jose area. San Francisco, maybe, but that's still expensive. At least Orange County is a lifestyle upgrade. Unless Andrea gets the SF Times position, that's a really decent option. The first thing I would do is buy a season pass to Disneyland to numb the pain.

We also applied for unemployment benefits online, a nifty benefit to living in California. I don't think I could have taken standing in that joyless, stereotypical "unemployment line."

Coping with the 5 stages of grief and bereavement

I’m still processing this morning’s layoff. I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out why, out of all the reporters who could have been laid off, I was the one who got the axe. My colleagues seemed just as stunned as I was; according to Sarah, Robert Mullins marched into Carole’s office afterward and launched into a diatribe about how stupid it was for her to get rid of me.

It was pretty clear from the start that the editor and publisher didn’t care for tech news. It was something they vowed to do while the sector was hot, but they never did enjoy it or even understand it. When the sector fell, my work became dispensable. That’s especially true with the paper’s shift to small-business news. Now, they’ve completely dismantled the tech team they worked so hard to recruit.

Anyway, they say that every significant loss involves five steps of grief -- I think I’m still in denial. I just can’t get myself to feel much of anything about getting laid off. Well, maybe I’m a little angry already. If that’s the case, I’m already in stage II. I’m angry that I got recruited from a job I was perfectly happy with and in an area I loved to be abandoned in this high-priced rat-hole. I’m angry that I put so much effort into this job and tried so hard to make my tech coverage stand out, only to find out too late that they couldn’t care less.

It doesn’t matter that my former editors are complete morons. A layoff is a a form of rejection, and it’s hard getting rejected by anyone, let alone someone with such influence over your standard of living.

And of course, I’m worried. I’m afraid that in this economy, I won’t be able to find another job that pays as well -- if I find a job at all.

Unbelievable.

Andrea and I both got laid off.

Layoff news

Well, Carole has finally confirmed that layoffs are a real possibility in the editorial department. She said we'd have more specifics within the week. This is bad news, but at least we're getting some clarity.

Power crisis redux

I just got a wireless notification from the state of California that we're in a stage 2 power emergency. At stage 3, the power starts going off.

Who Wants This War? - And why don't we find out before we start one?

It looks like I'm not the only one a little unnerved by Bush's unilateral declaration of war.

Michael Kinsley writes:

The eerie non-debate we're having as vast preparations for battle are made before our eyes is a consequence of a long-running constitutional scandal: the withering away of the requirement of a congressional Declaration of War. Oh, the words are still there, of course, but presidents of both parties flagrantly ignore them—sometimes with fancy arguments that are remarkably unpersuasive, but mainly by now with shrugging indifference. The result is not just a power shift between the branches of government but a general smothering of debate about, or even interest in, the decision to go to war among citizens in general.

Interesting point.

No Quick Crucifix

Speaking of church and state, here's a Slate article outlining some of the downsides to school vouchers, at least from a mainstream Christian perspective.

Visual Studio .NET

One strange thing after installing: when another application crashes there's a new "debug" option. I guess Microsoft wants me to take some share of the blame.

The New Republic Online: Pledge Class

In light of the controvery surrounding the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals pledge of allegence ruling, here's an interesting counterpoint to the widespread outrage.

Just as the founders of this country rejected the idea of a king, so they rejected the idea of an official state religion. Here in the United States, religion is a personal matter, not subject to state control. And if most Americans would stop and think about it for a moment, they would agree that they prefer to keep things that way. Who really wants to have Congress writing prayers and weighing in on questions of faith?

The full article is worth considering.

Happy Independence Day!

With Andrea in Atlanta, I think I'm going to spend the next four days learning C# (the language, not the note), playing video games, catching up on reading and watching movies. If I'm feeling really ambitious, I might even look for an optical connector for my DVD player.

Everything except thinking about work.

S.F. bans urinating in public

Only in San Francisco would this be controversial.

Brazil Back on Top of Soccer World

After staying up until 6 a.m. with two screaming Brazilians, I still don't understand what the big deal is about soccer.