Day #145 2/25/14

A New Approach...
"Send me your acct #. I am a Nigerian Prince forced out by rebel forces. I have $20,000,000 American dollars in my pants and will send it to you. Please save me and my family. We like America, especially the NFL. "

I've asked a few bloggers about the success of monetizing their blogs.  The best advice came from The Lazy Farmer who indicated that no one reads his blog and he probably messed up the monetization.  He's pretty insightful with a welder and a 3 lb hammer.  Often we need to determine how to use the tools with which we have skill to solve our problems.  As a recently unemployed C-level executive I have few skills other than talking, doing strategic planning and "making tough decisions."  Thinking differently I realize that I have a lot of tools and ideas, all of which I could apply to blog monetization:

• A microphone.  I could speak extemporaneously for a long, long time.
• A few markers or cans of spray paint and a blank wall (or Visio 2010) so I could put a process map together.
• One of my many chainsaws (or an excuse to buy another).
• Inkscape.
• Humor.  Preferably with some really pruney (sp? prunnie? pruny?) people.
• Just making stuff up.  My father's father had a great sense of dry humor and I think he just made up stories that he enjoyed.  I like that.  

"Send me your Blogger user name and password.  I am a Nigerian Prince forced out by rebel forces.  I used to have $20,000,000 in my pants which I accumulated while helping monetize blogs.  If I monetize a few more, my family and I, who live in a shipping container, will pay off the Somali pirates and move to America where we can the life of great Americans like the Democrats, Republicans and the NFL."

Practical Issues...
2/24/14  More snow removal.  Fortunately my neighbor had the 7' drifts.  I topped out at 4'.  The newer snowblower is making some weird noise.  I'll thaw it out and see if that solves the noise issues.  Once again the -5F reminded me of my decision to purchase the blower w/o heated handles.

2/23/14  Digging out of a 27-year backlog of paperwork.  Found two un-cashed checks, one from 2008 and one from 2007.  The companies were pleasant about re-issuing them. Getting ready for taxes.

Watched the "Bachelor" with my wife.  I need to have a South American accent.  My wife asked me when I was going to be on the bachelor.  My response was that I lacked a South American accent and that I'd be better on  a TV show where I either 1) killed bad people or 2) drove people crazy.  It was unnerving that she agreed with that assessment.

Networking...
Dialogues scheduled for this week. 

Day #142 2/22/14 That went fast

Extended Excuse
After about three weeks of a head cold, sinus issue, coughing, drugs, fever, fatigue, etc., I believe that I am almost recovered.  The three week illness is my excuse for missing about twenty-five daily posts.  As a former executive it's well within my abilities to let a three week excuse cover twenty-five days.

Midwest Weather
Earlier this week I spent two days removing roof snow and ice and blowing snow.  Upon completion we received another 12" of precipitation, first as rain, then freezing rain, followed by wet snow, dry snow and three days of winds.  Areas south of here had seven-foot drifts.  Our 'up north' place had comparable weather and I'm headed out SUN or MON to do battle with that mess.

Job Pursuit
The large commercial construction gig is a moot point.  They're looking outside the industry for their new IT person.  There is another consolidated firm that is implementing an Oracle ERP solution and I have good connections there so will pursuit a contract option.

Networking
There were several conversations about a collaborative online forum for construction industry IT executives but this fell apart during my three-week absence.  This week I'll reconvene that group.

#118 Lost Time

1/29/2014 unrecoverable lost day
1/30/2014 unrecoverable lost day
1/31/2014 unrecoverable lost day
2/1/2014   unrecoverable lost day
2/2/2014   unrecoverable lost day
2/3/2014   unrecoverable lost day
2/4/2014   unrecoverable lost day

Excuses

• small business demands
• ill spouse
• ill me
• Helping Putin get ready for the Olympics
• Propane shortage
• PR for Governor Christy
• Never-ending snowfall
• Twitter compulsion

Networking

Two days ago I had lunch with my former (long-term) boss and company owner at Matt's Bar in South Minneapolis.  They're famous for the Juicy Lucy burger which contains about a pound of hot, melted, oozing and squirting cheese.  Normally a shower and clear clothes are required post-dining.  I don't have a job so wore jeans and a black shirt and left looking no worse than on arrival.

Conversation was about opportunities and challenges in the AEC industry and each of our pastimes (car racing and 'up north' activities).  Interestingly the front page article in the Tribune was about workers over 60 who really have little chance of finding employment.  The unemployment rate for people over 60 is the highest it's been in 25 years.  Jobs require diligence and networking.  Many are simply giving up of taking 'bridge' jobs to get them to Social Security.

Pursuit
I did communicate with the headhunter who has the exclusive listing for one of the two commercial construction firms that I would consider.  Each of the previous CIOs were from outside the industry, one coming from an oil refinery who had some success and some bad timing on major initiatives.  The second worked for a software firm and was responsible for customer support.  His tenure was much shorter at five years.  He was widely known in the IT construction world but marked with fewer successes.

While there was no encouragement to pursue this I do know a number of people at that organization and will probably work around the headhunter a bit.

Professional Skills & Growth

• wrote an outline of an article on e-discovery in the cloud/converged network world
• re-built a Windows PC and a Fedora Linux PC...this is not something that I would ever do but one has to understand the challenges of the people that do
• revisiting open-source options
• checked out a Warehouse District cloud storage company...might be a good option for a bridge job
• going to revisit the Google Apps company that ignored me

Day #117 1/28/2014 Actual Work

Networking:

1. Had followup conversation with another consultant regarding our networking project for IT professionals in the commercial construction industry.  We missed our meeting yesterday because my phone was without a charge at -20F and he was jackhammering the floor out of his house.
2. Reached out to only one of the two commercial construction firms in North America that I have any interest in working for.
3. Spoke with a former vendor/contractor regarding CIO positions in the metro area.

Small Business

1. Finalized the second large accounting issue on the table.
2. Worked on inventory and order fulfillment issues.
3. Putting framework around six-month strategy.

Real Estate Rennovation:

1. Bought a new trash can for demolition on closeout for $15.00 (regularly $29.00).
2. Bought shims for door installation.
3. Pulled out some old carpet
4. This a very exciting (not) project.

Reading, Writing & Media:

Unfortunately, I've been really busy, drinking too much caffeine and watching too much online stuff rather than reading.  On the upside of that I did appreciate the internet which allowed me to re-enjoy the Pete Seeger catalog today.  Somewhere in the unclear past I did see him in person at least twice.  As time passes It's 11:23 PM.  We're sitting in the family room.  Charlie Rose is on the TV.  I have my headphones on and am listening to The Best Radio You Have Never Heard and the TV and my wife.  Both of us have been typing for at least an hour.  I'm trying to remember the world before personal computers and the internet.  At 63 I remember life before television.  People used to talk and read books.

A Final Word on Careers:

I am one halfway through my sabbatical of working with LHH to find a new gig.  In two weeks I'll make a decision if I re-start that process in March or April.  All is good.

Day #115 1/26/2014 number sequence meltdown

Weather is Work...
One of the blogs I follow is written by a gentleman who I believe lives in Oregon.  This week he wrote about planting oats.  I believe the seeds are drilled into the ground which is all part of this no-till approach to farming.  The seed catalogs have been arriving at our home here in MN for a couple of weeks, right after Christmas.  It does give a bit of hope for spring and warmer weather.  Drilling seeds into the ground is what you would have to do here after you scraped and shoveled your way through a few feed of snow.  It's been a very cold winter, the coldest since 1997, which means the ground is frozen at least four or five feet.  That not like just hard, it's like a rock.  Fortunately we've had early snow which insulates the ground.  Were it not for that the ground would freeze down six to eight feet and make a mess of the rural (mine) septic systems.  Tomorrow morning it's going to be -15F with wind chills of -45F.

Snow has been arriving every few days and shoveling starting to be not only tedious, but a chore since the piles on each side of the driveway are about five feet high.  My snowblower is one-half as old as me.  I should be using it more to save me but given it's age I don't use it on the small stuff.  My plan is to never buy a replacement.  Given the inevitable failure I'm planning on simply walking (or snowshoeing) away and moving where I can plant oats in January.

Number Issues...
The last few days have been consumed with a couple of accounting issues.  One of our customers thought they owned us $10.  We thought it was about $1000. That one is done.  The second involves doing some recaps of income and profit/loss for the past few years and that should be done tomorrow.

Given the temperature forecast Monday will be a good day to hunker down inside and start pursuit of the 2013 income tax challenge.

This blog is about my quest for a new source of income and "worthwhile work" enjoyment.  It's been about one hundred and some days since the end of the 27-year gig.  The plan was to write a blog entry each day about that pursuit and I began numbering the posts to coincide with the number of days unemployed.  A relative said writing every day would be impossible.  Another said "why put yourself up against that?  I'm been unemployed for years and attempting to do something like that makes no sense."  Having missed a few days (like this week) and at least two other times the numbering sequence might be messed up.  It's unclear if I inadvertently started to number posts rather than days unemployed which would be the same if I'd missed no days.  It's probably not important but it probably is important to resolve this.  If I had a job I would not even waste a moment on such a stuff thought.

The X Files...
I found the "X Files" to be a most interesting TV series and David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were engaging and well-cast.  Under the umbrella of my Amazon Prime account and my Kindle Fire "Californication" presented itself starring David Duchovny as a once-hot novelist struggling to write and straighten out his alcoholic, promiscuous, directionless life.  It's extremely well cast, with good snippets of dialogue in most episodes and likely to be explicitly offensive to many in terms of language and nudity.  There has been something pretty funny and thought provoking in each episode...and a slight excuse for not writing and working.  

#110 1/21/14 MLK Day

A Facebook acquaintance of mine posted the attached photograph of Dr. King and then Vice President Nixon.  The commentary accompanying the photograph was about Dr. King and Vice President Nixon meeting to discuss how to overcome Democratic opposition to civil rights initiatives in 1957 and the thought that you would not hear about this meeting or association in today's liberal press.

I was going to let the Martin Luther King Day pass as I normally do with thoughts about the disenfranchised, the oppression of poverty and many lives lost and destroyed in the pursuit of civil rights and we might as well say human rights here in the U.S. and elsewhere.  The day was almost over.  Then I read Sarah Palin's Facebook post which started with sort of a "have a happy MLK day" like it was a free ice cream cone day and which ended with a suggestion to President Obama that "he stop playing the race card."

Without getting into a discussion of the successes and failures of the Obama administration I want to go first to Palin's comment.  "Nice white girl card."  Enough said.

Secondly I'm posting my comment on Facebook to the photograph and original comment:

Nixon had a fairly decent record on civil rights which was at the time of this photograph primarily about voter rights for blacks. Democratic opposition to civil rights changes were concerns over loss of the southern Democratic vote, which was obviously in the face of obstacles to registration a white vote. It's always about strategies to get the vote. It was then and it is now. Nixon bailed shortly after this photo on his support for King. Lyndon Johnson was the senate majority leader at the time and did lobby for a weaker version of the civil rights initiative. By the time of the 1960 Presidential election between Nixon and Kennedy Nixon had all but abandoned his communications with King. Politics at it's best by both parties. Now the southern Democratic vote (white) has totally shifted to being a southern Republican (white) vote.

King was arrested on a phony charge in 1960. Nixon ignored the whole situation in fear of losing Republican votes. Kennedy intervened on the arrest at the risk of losing the southern Democratic vote. Nixon won only 32% of the black vote, less than Eisenhower's 54% and Goldwater's 92% and lost the election by 112,000 votes. Politics at it's best. The big guys play the small guys.

Today's conservatives would paint the world simply, as we know, in black and white.  It makes a nice sound bite or visual bite to show Dr. King with Vice President Nixon (Republican).  In reality one of them was changing the world for all minorities while the other was positioning for a Presidential Election.  There's no question that John Kennedy's action in the 1960 election in regards to Dr. King was also about positioning for the same Presidential Election.  Either Nixon or Kennedy may have been doing what they thought was right to get to the Oval Office where they could do whatever right and better thing they thought should be done, just as Senator Lyndon Johnson was doing in the Senate with the civil rights card and as he would do during his Presidency.  The same games are played today with the addition of live, dynamic media, and as the more right-wing faction has their issues the left-wing liberals similarly have trouble picking any color other than not black and not white.  It's a mess.

We should all have the dream of Dr. King.    We live today in a diverse culture and barring unspeakable options that is our future. 

Finally I have to post my own Facebook comment of the day (intentionally short to flow to Twitter):  I am not sure that anyone who calls themselves either a Democrat or a Republican understands what it truly means to be an American.

If not just some of use, but all of us were set upon by dogs, beaten or sprayed with fire hoses and shot at by bad guys in the Middle East this democracy might get something done.

P.S.  This is a blog about not having a job and the trek to find one.  Even as a geezer white guy I'll  find a better one, more quickly and easier, with more pay than most minorities, some of whom will never find a job.

 

#109 1/19/2014 Sunday (workless)

As a kid Sundays were clearly about church, eating with family and constraining playing with the neighbor kids.  Certainly there was no shopping and even gas stations were closed.  I'm talking about the 1950s in southern Minnesota, Albert Lea to be direct.  Everyone seemed to go to church then, in a wide variety of denominations.  Our neighbors across the street went to a bar in Manchester, a town with nothing but a bar.  I can remember their kids saying "we go to the bar in Manchester" when I complained about going to church.  In recent times, although I've not kept track, but I may have frequented more bars than churches on Sunday.  Assuredly I've worked more Sundays than anything which is a major contrast with my youth.  Most of those working Sundays were for the 27-year gig.  I'm not doing that or anything like that again, that which is primarily in the pursuit of money or compensation.

Today everything is open except things like dentists and car dealers but I'm sure there must be a place somewhere where I could have had a dental cleaning and checkup if I wished.  Now we seem to work all the time and even the big holidays have stores and venues for shopping and buying frequently more open.  What if Amazon was closed on Sunday?  Or if you could only buy certain goods on Sunday?  It gave us a day or rest and reflection.  For a while I've been thinking about an electronic gizmo sabbatical.  Maybe I should stay away from computers one day a week or not carry my cell phone.  For two days, including today, I've not carried my cell phone, not because of making that sabbatical choice but because I took it out of my pocket while working at the computer.

Over the past two days I've probably put in 10-12 hours of heads done computer time, primarily on accounting and tax challenges.  The sabbatical choice could not include the computer because I just cannot write as quickly by hand any more and I want to keep writing and putting a few thoughts together.  That's what my work going forward will be.

Monday is Martin Luther King day.  It warrants reflection for disadvantaged and those the subject of all ranges of discrimination.  We're not the kind of country today that any of us wish to have.  I'm headed up north later in the day to work on snow removal, re-starting that renovation and to work on some craft/art projects.  Progress is being made there.  Most of our back yard oaks were recently removed.  In the process of that we needed to take down a nice sized black cherry.  Most of that will be carved into spoons and bowls.  It's nice carving and beautiful.  Over the years I've turned a lot of trees into firewood but turning even a small log into usable art is tremendously rewarding.  It's the kind of work that I want to do and it's the kind of work that would be acceptable and appropriate on Sundays, now and long ago.