John’s Blog

Well as anyone who reads this blog and/or follows me on Twitter knows, my wife recently gave birth to our son. It has been an amazing and life changing experiance so far. He was born almost three weeks ago. We spent the first week in the hospital (he had to be monitored), and have been home for just over two weeks now.

So far things have been going great, he is doing well, eating, gaining weight, growing, and is pretty advanced for his age as we are told be his pediatrician.

I have however been struggling with balancing out his need for us to be there for him 24/7, with my need or more accuratly obligation to spending at least some time online. So far since he was born, most of my online time has been limited to posting pictures of him for family and friends out of state to see, and answering only very important emails. I really haven’t been twittering much, or doing much else for that matter.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my son, love spending time with him, and taking care of him. But at the same time realize lately that I need to get back into a routine of getting the things I need done online. Too many emails are sitting in my inbox unanswered, and too many projects that do need my attention, not to mention I am still looking for work.

So what I am trying to do now is create some sort of balance. One that allows me to have the time to take care of things online that need my attention. As well as time to spend with and take care of my son. It’s coming along slowly and hopefully over the next few weeks I will be able to get a routine down that works for all of us.

I plan to post more here on the blog, as well as get back to twittering as often as I had been. It’s all a matter of finding the time.

I had lined up some contract work that was to start this week and run for a couple of months. Now it wasn’t exactly anything amazing, but it was something to keep the cash flowing in while I kept on the job hunt. Unfortunately, the work I had lined up fell through. So instead of returning to New Hampshire and starting a new project today, I am still up here in Maine. Yes, the last month of coming up to visit family and relax was nice, but I am itching to get back to work. The only issue is that the job market around here is horrible to say the least. I am really thinking it is time for us to get out of this area all together.

Well for now I am off to do another job search, then go grab a coffee and some breakfast. Oh, and by the way, if you had considered visiting Maine recently but didn’t. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed much. For the last month pretty much all it has done is rain.

I don’t think that I could ask for more beautiful spring weather, especially for New England. We have been having almost two weeks of temps hitting or above 70 here. Which I must say is very refreshing after the winter we had (record setting snowfall). I have been trying to get out and enjoy the weather as much as I can. Which brings me to something that has been bugging me. We have three dogs, and for the last year we have been taking them to the local dog park. For them it’s great, they have a very large fenced in area where they can run and play off leash. The park even stayed open over the winter months, and with all the snow. However, on April 1st they closed due to muddy conditions. Now I completely understood that. I went by about a week later to check, the park was still closed, but it was dry as a bone. So I sent an email to the board about it. The response I finally received was that they were doing “maintenance” on the park and it would not reopen until the first weekend in May. The funny part about that, is that it is also when membership fees are due. Coincidence? I think not. I have spoken to many other members of the park that are just as upset that I am that with this great weather finally here, they are choosing to lock us out until May. But in truth, there really isn’t much we can do. They are the only game in town. So for now, we just have to wait for them to reopen and continue taking the dogs for long walks in the evenings after dinner. And it’s not like I mind walking them, it’s great exercise for both us and the dogs. But it is not as good for them as getting to run and play without the restraint of a leash.

On the subject of dogs, I have to give credit to out local SPCA. Over the weekend we took our dogs to their annual rabies clinic. Not for their shots, our vet had already taken care of that. They were offering something new this year. Micro chipping through Home Again. Many people don’t see the point in this service, however we do. Two of our three dogs came from rescue organizations. They were pulled from animal shelters where they would have been killed. The Home Again micro chip is implanted just under the dogs skin, and these days almost all vets and shelters have the scanner. When an animal is brought in it is scanned. If a chip is found they can attain the owner information from the service. This helps to not only identify lost dogs and return them to their owners, but also combat dog theft. The clinic they were offering was doing the implant for a greatly reduced price, only $35 per dog, about half what most vets charge. We got the clinic just before it opened and were almost the first ones in line. The whole process was done very quickly, from registration, payment, to actually seeing the vet doing the work. We were in and out in less than 20 minutes. Overall a very well run and efficient function, kudos to the SPCA.

Other than that, the hunt for a job drags on for me. I am approaching one month of being unemployed. Now granted the first two weeks I wasn’t really actively seeking another job, since I thought I was only temporarily laid off. I found out otherwise later (see earlier posts). So, since then I have been deep in the hunt for another job, and honestly, it’s not going well. This is the first time I have been out of work in as long as I can remember. Now I know that I am not going to land my dream job in a day. But the reality is that I am facing a horrid job market, especially in this area. I have lowered my standards on what type of work I do, for the sake of getting the income flow going again. However, the one thing I cannot lower too far is the salary I can accept. I know what I need to pay the bills I have, and unfortunately most of the employers in this area are paying well below that. I have had many phone interviews, and even one in person last week. All that interview netted me was a response along the lines of “We feel that you are too over qualified for this position and wouldn’t be happy here. We are looking for someone who will be a long term employee and with your experiance and background we feel you wouldn’t be a good fit in this position. But we will keep your resume on file should a management position come available”. All i could say in response was that while I did agree with them, you have to start somewhere and I would be more than happy to start out in that position until such time as a management position became available. They however did not feel the same way. Honestly at this point I starting to get discouraged, and more than a little stir crazy from not working. I mean since I have been working since I was 12, almost all of that time at least full time or better. So sitting here twiddling my thumbs is not exactly a good thing.

Well, hopefully things will turn around soon. If not, I may have to look at relocating, and that is something that I know will not be agreeable to the wife.