Now That It's Over

It's time to get back to basics. I'm talking food, water, shelter, JOB here. And so thus begins the great job search yet again! I'm well aware that it won't be easy: jobless rates in the country today are as bad as ever at 6.5%, and the economy only looks to be declining further in the coming weeks. It's pretty much time to hunker down and try to wait out the storm more than actively searching for employment, but search I shall. Otherwise, now that election '08 is finally over, I'm sort of bored. There's no more polling data to look up, very few "too-close-to-call" races left to adjudicate, and people in general seem to be pretty well done with talking politics or baseball (my favorite subjects!). My birthday is actually right around the corner, on Nov. 29th, right after Thanksgiving, which only means that both days will get combined into one celebration. Kind of like having a Dec. 25th birthday; a bit lackluster. On the plus, Phoenix has gotten much, much cooler in recent days, with highs in the mid-70s to upper-80s, and it's actually quite nice. Now all we need are some trees and grass here and it would be nice. Maybe a lake. I am going to try to head out to Circuit City today, as they are liquidating everything in their stores out here in Mesa, going out of business. Maybe I can find a decent laptop for relatively cheap? That would be nice. Updates to follow!

Big Block of Cheese Day

"Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of the White House, had a two-ton block of cheese. It was there for any and all who were hungry...." - Leo McGarry of "The West Wing" Well, what can I say? It's another long lazy Sunday night following a long lazy Sunday of helping my parents clean the house, watching Tiger Woods tie Rocco Mediate in the US Open Championship on the 18th hole in typical dramatic Tiger Woods fashion, and watching President Josiah Bartlett battle the press and Congress over his MS scandal. Happy Father's Day to any and all who may read this blog. The past few days, I've been working hard to get job interviews; my newest one is this Tuesday where I will be meeting a guy about a job at the Tempe Marketplace. Kinda cool since I've never been there (it was constructed and opened while I was at NAU). So I might have good news come Wednesday or thereabouts. We shall see. I also (this is how exciting my week has been, that this made it to my blog) got a new set of bookshelves, put them together, and finally got all my books organized on them this weekend. I have a lot of good books that I have yet to read: Dinesh D'Souza's "The Enemy At Home," Todd Buchholz's "New Ideas From Dead CEOs," Nonie Darwish's "Now They Call Me Infidel," and William Clark's "The Judge," among many others. Mostly these are books I got at YAF conferences or were old books thrown out by professors that I was able to obtain, but I am excited to read them nonetheless. I also got five Tom Clancey novels from Half Price Books for only $6 (all hardback, too!), so I'm going to read those just as soon as I am finished with the newest James Rollins book, which is amazing! I didn't even know he had written a new one until I went to Wal-Mart and saw it in paperback. He is my second favorite author behind Matt Reilly, so it turned out to be a fantastic impulse buy for me. Otherwise, I'm disappointed my D-Backs are sucking it up against the Kansas City Royals this weekend, something which shouldn't be happening 'cuz KC sucks. I also finally have wireless internet for my laptop, so I can do a lot more online and hopefully keep up the blog better when I do find a job. Updates to follow later this week on the job hunt and various other activities! Also, a big THANK YOU to Jim Ogsbury and his awesome campaign staff! You guys know what it is for.

The Job Hunt

Well, it's that time of life now. I'll be graduating college in May of this year, and I need a job when I get out into the "real world." I have been sending my resume out to a wide variety of places, and have received three callbacks so far.

One from a job placement service in Washington, DC, which places college graduates and others who want political-based jobs into positions in DC and other places along the East coast. Another from the campaign for Representative Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA) for a three-to-four month job as a campaign staffer until after the primary in June, which I couldn't really follow up on because I won't be graduating until May, so the whole one-month thing didn't work so well. And the third I had a job "interview" - more like a meet-and-greet, really - with Coleman, Dahm & Associates in Phoenix on Friday. I was meeting with Matt, who is the brother of Greg, Congressman Rick Renzi's campaign manager in 2006, and who has been helping put me in touch with a couple places which might be interested in me.

Overall, I liked Coleman Dahm for its relaxed atmosphere and for the variety of things they're doing right now. A big portion of the office was dedicated to McCain stuff - buttons, direct mail, etc - when I was there, but they've also been working with legislative stuff, corporate clients, and the campaign of Jim Ogsbury for CD-5. That's Matt's big project. While there, I got to talk with Matt and Bert for a bit about myself and about their offices, and I really liked what I saw. It would be a great place for me to learn more about different communications-based stuff that I didn't learn already through the College Republicans, like direct mail, and somewhere I can develop the stuff I have already had practice with to make myself better.

It's also close-to-home so I could have someplace to get on my feet before going outside Arizona like I would like to do. I'm going to keep in touch over there while I keep my other options open and keep scheduling interviews, and who knows, come May I might be working in Phoenix again.

Also on Friday, I saw that Coleman Dahm is in the same office complex as my friend Michelle's place of work, Gordon C. James Public Relations, so I decided to walk over there and say hello. Fortunately she was in, and it sounds like she's been doing very well. It was nice to see her again, if only briefly (she was busy).

Otherwise, today's been all about being on call. As an RA, I'm required to work part of my Spring Break being available in the building for at least two days. I elected to swap a day with someone else so she could leave for her vacation and so I could have one less on-call shift later in the semester. So I've been in the building from 7pm Sunday night and I'll get off at 7pm tonight. 72 full hours. With no one else here because they're all gone for break. But nonetheless, the free time let me catch up on some work, watch a bunch of episodes of "24", and do a puzzle (I love puzzles - they're relaxing).

I also bought a laptop computer off my friend so I could have something to do work on outside the building. It should greatly come in handy once I reload the ethernet hardware onto it, and put Microsoft Office back onto it. My friend wiped the hard drive clean (of all his old files), and it took some of the programs with it. I think I have some of the install discs at home, but we'll see. The computer is a Gateway Solo 5300, so not a bad piece of equipment, with Windows XP installed. It came with all the cords, and ethernet port card, a wireless card, a USB external port, a DVD-ROM drive and interchangeable floppy drive, and a nice laptop bag. I paid $80 for it, so not a bad deal for an older laptop I can use for word processing and basic internet - not to mention DVDs from time-to-time. The only downside is that I need to reinstall the ethernet and wireless drivers, and the battery doesn't carry a charge very well. But not bad, really.

For tomorrow, the plan is to drive to Mesa to see a Spring Training game between the Rockies and Cubs with some friends, and then chill out for the remainder of Spring Break. Good times, indeed!