Seems I’ve been spending a lot more time than I thought I would over at the knitting blog and at ravelry. Wish I could say I was knitting as much. That’s the way it goes, even though I have at least two gifts to knit in a very short period.
So what else has been keeping me busy, you ask? Certainly work. Now that they’ve let me know that I’m not going to be continuing in my present position, I seem to be busier than ever.
Between working and looking for work, blogging will continue to be light for a while. See ya when I see ya.
Entirely. Watch the next Wave of the Future.
My knitting now has it’s own blog, Ms. Yarnaholic’s School for Wayward Skeins. Come say hi.
Thing is, Yarnaholic Confessions, my geocities site that Yahoo! is pulling the plug on, has been around since about 1999. This is seriously going to screw with my site’s Google juice. You cannot even begin to imagine how many sites have linked to it during the past 10 years. (sigh)
Reset your bookmarks folks!
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Last night’s celebration of Israel’s 61st Independence Day was very low key compared to last year’s outing in Tel Aviv. We survived a river of strollers and SpongeBob balloons to go to a public sing-a-long with fantastic accordion action (yes, here in Israel the accordion is still revered) and today we’re off to a BBQ with the family.
Meanwhile friends in the US are concerned over our imminent annihilation at the hands of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. To quote that most Israeli of sayings, “Yehiyeh b’seder!”
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Celebrating my 1000th tweet since posting my first one on August 1, 2008. (Obviously I’m not a power user like some people I know).
(via TweetStats and wordle.net)
I’m not going to try to compete with the many posts about getting the most out of Twitter, but I will list here a few of my favorites that helped me when I started out:
- Webware’s Newbie’s Guide to Twitter
- TheGuardians’ How to make the most of Twitter
- Digital Inspiration How to do interesting things with Twitter
And a recent find for the Twittercentric, ” TwiTip“.
Now if WordPress.com could only get the new Twitter widget to display status updates consistently! Though given the number of apps that are built around and hit up the Twitter api regularly, it’s a miracle that it works at all. So another 2 sites worth bookmarking, “Twitter Status” and “Twitter Help“.
Update! In the category of “Things I wish I’d known before I started using Twitter”, “Ten Things You Must Know Before Using Twitter“. (hat tip @jeffpulver RT @hilzfuld on, what else, Twitter!)
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When the Israeli hi-tech bubble burst in 2003 my husband was let go from his job of thirteen years. He and many of his coworkers were the casualties of a large hi-tech company adjusting to a leaner and harsher business model. Throughout the following period, many of my husband’s coworkers were picked up here and there by various small companies and start ups and even though he worked full-time assisting a start up in getting off the ground, the only income he earned was the experience gained. (For various bureaucratic reasons, the start-up never took off and consequently no pay for the time and effort he invested.)
By mid-2005 we were struggling with either continuing to wait it out in the hopes of him still finding a job here at home or taking his job hunt abroad. This was at a time when our middle child was in active duty in the army and the depressing specter of us becoming a split family was very real. Fortunately for us the decision didn’t need to be made because after several rounds of interviews my husband was hired by a firm in Jerusalem looking to make some operational changes. Amen.
Fast forward to 2008. After three years and little support from head management for implementing those changes he was hired to make, the job hunt is on again. Even though it was a factor in his earlier search, we again touch on that prickly subject of age. While age discrimination is illegal in Israel, anyone in the hi-tech industry knows that it’s “Logan’s Run”; i.e. if you are over 55 (and that’s being very generous), you simply do not exist.
This time around we certainly don’t have the luxury of waiting 2 or more years until he finds employment and not working is not an option, but what does one do when one has a life-time of experience and no one seriously considering you for employment because you’re over “a certain age”? We’ve toyed with the idea of hubby becoming a consultant in his field, but that road is fraught with its own problems. There’s also been discussion of getting together with some of his ex-hi-tech cohorts to brainstorm an idea for a start up. But for some reason these ideas are not getting the fuel they need to take off.
One of the toughest parts of having an unemployed spouse is seeing the daily toll on their ego and self-esteem between potential job openings and on-going interviews. In some cases, the selection process has run upwards of 3-5 months while companies narrow the field. I’ve always admired my husband, but right now he most definitely is my hero. We have well-meaning older friends who can’t seem to get that while we are consumed by the endless rounds of job searches and interviews, being unemployed is not the only thing in our lives nor do we want to talk about it every.single.time we meet. Penelope Trunk ran an excellent article on “How to Talk to a Friend who’s been laid off” on her blog “Brazen Careerist”, which should be required reading if you find yourself with friends in the same circumstance.
Meantime, we’re sitting tight and doing what we can to not be a part of the Israeli brain drain. Quite honestly, given the present economic situation worldwide, even that may not be an option. If you’re reading this and think you might be in a position to help keep us here and would like the link to my husband’s LinkedIn profile, just leave a note in the comments or via the contact form on my About page. Our humble thanks.
Update 4 April 2009: Welcome to those of you dropping in from Global Voices Online. To set the record straight, the subject of this post, my husband, is not the expat, I am. And since this past Thursday, I have joined the ranks of the over 50-year-old job seekers as well. This weekend I’ll be brushing up my own CV and LinkedIn profile. Links soon.
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