Linda Lovelace for president?

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Something to aspire to

Now that the daytime high temps in Phoenix are topping 100 degrees, I'm trying this new thing, where I get up at 5:30 AM in order to get my runs or hikes in early. So far, it's working reasonably well (thanks, alarm-clock-feature-on-my-iPhone!), except I haven't quite figured out that I should go to bed earlier as well. As it is, I've discovered the pure pleasure of the afternoon nap. But, things will work out soon.

I'm probably stressing about this too much. Last week was the Arizona High School Regional Track & Field meets, with the State Meets this week. Temps are over 100 degrees, with nary a tree in sight. Doesn't see to faze the kids, though. They just run or jump or throw. It's the parents who are the weenies, several of them hanging out in the relative shade below the bleachers, until their daughters or sons run.

Hiking in Phoenix means climbing barren rock trails straight up the sides of one of our several mountains. Rattlesnakes and things that look like mini-Komodo Dragons are not uncommon (seriously, what are those things with the yellow tail, orange body, and black heads; and should I be concerned when they bare their fangs and charge at me?). As opposed to, say, Minnesota, where hiking means strolling along worn dirt paths in a serenely wooded area, where you might run into a curious skunk or rabbit or two.

Not knocking Minnesota hikes. I love walking through woods, along rivers, around lakes. Just that hiking in Arizona is much more of a combination cardio and strength workout.

Or, at least it is for me. After scrambling up a particular section, CamelPak securely fastened to my back, I confess I have to stop and catch my breath. Only to see one (or more) of Phoenix's beautiful people strolling past me, carrying Starbucks cups and wearing flip-flops, the hot women in their jog bras and tight abs, the shirtless bohunk dudes who still have their hair, with geometric tattoos on their chests (shorts hanging off their buttocks, natch). Often, they'll reach the top, retrace their steps, and then do it all over again. No wonder they're beautiful.

Doc Savage sighting!

Interesting photo and article on Newsarama.com today. Dare we hope for a new Doc Savage comic?

At the San Diego Comic Con 2008, uber-producer Michael Uslan announced that Warner Brothers is in development of a new Doc Savage movie (I'm not easily finding a YouTube video from San Diego, but here's one from the NYC convention earlier this year). Being just a week removed from the Uslan-produced "Dark Knight," Fan boys across the nation erupted in joy. "Arnold Schwarzenegger as Doc!" cried some, forgetting that this is not 1994. "No, we need Brendan Fraser!" countered others, forgetting that the Doc Savage we all know and love is in his late 20s / early 30s during his prime adventuring years.

Since then, of course, Uslan released the mediocre "The Spirit" to so-so critical acclaim and so-so box office. Fan boys suddenly remembered that for every "Batman Begins," Warner Brothers also released the movie so bad I solemnly swore to never again mention it by name (I had won a free pass to see this abomination, and still was upset that I paid for the gas to drive to the theater).

My expectations of a quality Doc Savage movie to erase the horrid 1975 attempt are muted. I have long held that Doc Savage works better as a comic book character than he would on the big screen.

Maybe, hopefully, DC Comics agrees?

But then, I learned that the Newsarama picture is actually cropped from this -- a mash-up of Doc Savage, The Spirit, Blackhawk, and I'm not sure who the lady with the black panther is supposed to be. So now, I'm not sure if the picture is actually a a comic book teaser, or simply a vanity painting by comic artist Brian Stelfreeze.

My earlier excitement is waning. I'll stop holding my breath, and go back to reading my pulp reprints.

What is Norm Coleman thinking?

If he had accepted defeat against Al Franken, even if he feels that 226 ballots were unfairly counted, he could have sat back, quietly began campaigning for a rematch in 2014, and most likely would have won in a landslide.

Now, he has basically committed political suicide. If he "wins" by convincing the State or US Supreme Courts to overturn the election results, as slim as they are, then he is basically thumbing his nose at the electoral process, the root of representative democracy.

Better to pull an Al Gore, strongly disagree but step aside, and in four or six years, have TV talk show hosts begging him to run.

Now, I think the damage is done. People will not forget this, especially if Democrats are smart enough to hire a PR firm in 2014. I say right now, win or lose in 2008, Norm Coleman loses huge in 2014.

It's not you, it's me

My Panda Express fortune cookie yesterday told me, “Be patient, and good things will come.”

Being unemployed is, no denying, a bit stressful, not knowing when (or if) you’ll ever have another paycheck, when (or if) you’ll ever again be a contributing member of society.

But, it’s not all bad. There are a few positives:

-- You get to grocery shop during the day, when the shelves are stocked. Mostly.

-- You get to read ahead for your book club(s).

-- You get to hear the music-box version of “Arkansas Traveler”, as the ice cream man drives slowly up and down the parking lot of your apartment complex before jumping to the complex next door. Every day. For what seems like hours (okay, this is more of a curse, especially when you are trying to make phone calls to prospective new employers, but it was fun humming along on Day 1).

But as anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech can attest, being unemployed practically begs for a time of introspection.

You’re first reaction is, “You’re right. It is you, and not me.”

But at some point, you have to ask yourself, “Well, maybe I do suck. Maybe I deserved to be cut. Maybe I need to think through, am I good enough to be doing what I’m doing?”

Those of you who know me, know that I have never been accused of being under-analytical. I think about things, a lot. I research things. I want to know how things work. I sometimes get bored watching movies on DVDs because I want to go straight to the Behind the Scenes and Director’s Commentary.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Me. Who am I? What am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want to do?

Turns out, on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator scale, I am best characterized as, “Introverted / Intuitive / Feeling / Judging.” My fellow INFJ brothers and sisters, including former President Jimmy Carter, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and TV’s Tom Sellick and Evangeline Lilly, comprise only 1% of the population, making us the most unique of the 16 personality types. We’re not going to take over the world through sheer numbers, but we may just take over the world by our passionate activism, our dogged adherence to our values, and our desire for orderly and efficient systems.

Well and good, I can definitely see these traits in me, but part of me wonders if the MBTI scores are somewhat like reading your horoscope. You cannot escape when you were born, so you are permanently identified with your astrological sign; the logical result is that you project your experiences onto whatever characteristics “define” your sign: “I’m a Crab, but I’m deathly allergic to shellfish. I loved ‘The Little Mermaid,’ though, so yeah, I get it!” (NOTE: I have not read my horoscope in over 30 years, so I have no idea which astrological sign is associated with liking sea food.)

Turns out, this healthy skepticism is a trait of INFJers.

According to the ‘net, good career choices for INFJ types include Writing (I promise to finish my screenplay soon; in the meantime, enjoy my blog!), Clergy (I really enjoyed teaching Sunday School and hope to do so again soon), and…

…Market Research Analyst. Which is what I have been doing, and come to think of it, am pretty good at.

So yes, when you say, “it’s not you, it’s me,” I agree.

The monsters are due in Phoenix

True confession time: I have never been a morning person. It is much easier for me to stay up late than to get up in the morning. Like Dagwood Bumstead, it takes me some effort to drag myself out of bed. I give myself a good couple of hours to take my shower and down a pot of coffee before I take off for work.

I love to run, for running’s sake. Some people run to lose weight, some people run to relieve stress, some just to get out of the house. As for me, while I experience all of these benefits, I just love to run, to break a sweat, to breath hard, to move from point A to point B under my own power.

This poses a problem, however, because I live in Phoenix where in the summers, the average temp climbs to above 100 degrees. Don’t let anyone fool you; while it is a “dry heat” (relatively speaking), anytime the temps get above 100 degrees, it’s pretty warm. Besides, during the Phoenix monsoon season, the humidity is not all that dry.

To combat the too-warm-to-run phenomenon, many runners get their miles in early in the morning, before going to work. But, as I’ve never been an early-morning person, you can see where the problem is.

One of the benefits of being unemployed is that while you spend most of your days trying to become employed, you are, essentially, a self-employed company of one, and as Boss, you can allow yourself a flex schedule.

I’m taking advantage of that. I’m putting in a lot of hours looking for work, but I am taking some time to do some of the things I really enjoy doing: running, hiking, and working on the screenplay I promised my friend Monet.

I try to maintain some discipline, so I have not turned my alarm clock off since I was laid off. It still rings every morning at the same time, and I still drag myself out of bed and down my first pot of coffee.

There are a number of popular hiking trails in Phoenix, and on Spring weekends, they are packed. So, being the logical thinker that I am, I figured I would go to the hiking trails during the week, when they would be less crowded.

This morning, I checked out Thunderbird Mountain in Glendale for the first time.

It is amazing how many people have the same idea at 9:00 in the morning of a work day. The lots were full, I had to cruise around a bit before I found a space. And the trails were like a parade.

Who are these people? They’re not all retirees, many are actually quite young. Are they third-shifters, getting some exercise after their shifts before they go home? Are they independently wealthy and don’t need to work? Or is the economic situation worse than they’re telling us, and all of these people are out of work, like me?

Or, as Rod Sterling warned us, are they not human at all, and are actually the advance scouting team of space aliens sent to conquer earth? Did they misjudge where all the people would be during the work day? Maybe, my goal in life is to save the earth from the impending invasion!

I’ll keep an eye out, and will let you know.

Job Searching in today's economy -- my thoughts

As many of you are aware, my (former) company, like many companies in today’s economy, recently went through a reorganization that resulted in shedding 10 positions, including mine. So, along with 4-million-plus other American’s, I am now actively and aggressively looking for a new position, taking only occasional time outs to keep current on the Jon Stewart vs CNBC "Welcome to Brawl Street" brouhaha.

True to my nature, I’ve spent the past few days researching my options, reading as much as I can about the current economic and job-search climate, talking to friends, associates, and former colleagues about their experiences, and basically thinking through options. And while I am no expert, having been at this for only a couple of weeks, I have discovered, or considered, a few things:

1. No one owes us a job. Those of us looking for, and competing for, new positions are not going to be given a job because we “deserve” it, no matter how well we think we are qualified. There is simply too much competition for the few openings.

Even for those of us who currently have a job, we are owed only for the time that we have put in. History with the company, past performance, or even just getting along with everyone really don’t mean much in today’s economy.

This is not a gripe. It is reality. Sometimes we get a little lazy or a little complacent and we pay for it. Sometimes we do everything right, get to work early, stay late, produce, and still conditions are such that we can not be kept on.

Life is not fair, but it’s not meant to be. Life is about how we respond. Do we sit back and complain about our lot in life? Do we work to bring others down as we try to climb back up? Or, do we hold our heads up, roll up our sleeves, and get to work on our current situation? I choose the latter.

2. Responding to job postings (CareerBuilders, Monster, etc.) is akin to playing the lottery. It’s like throwing chum in shark-infested waters: every open position that is advertised generates hundreds of responses and resumes. Logically, no hirer is going to objectively evaluate every response that comes across; a company would have to hire extra help just to weed through resumes. More likely, a hirer will scan the first 10 – 20%, pick out a few that match what they are looking for, and invite them in for interviews, leaving the remaining 80%+ unread.

“That’s unfair!” scream some on Internet message boards. “There ought to be a law! I’m exactly qualified for that position!”

So, what? Refer back to Point 1. No one owes us a job.

It's not that these sites are useless. They do provide some good advice, some practical tips, salary ranges, and even a five-minute sense of accomplishment every time you do reply to an ad.

3. Internet message boards, on any topic, are largely a waste of time. On one thread I read (research, mind you), posters were trying to one-up each other: “I’ve sent 300 resumes since October, and haven’t had a single interview.” “Well, I’ve sent out 500 resumes, and have only had two interviews!” I don’t know who these people are, but I am willing to bet that they are sending 300 or 500 or however many resumes to Internet job posting sites (see Point 2).

4. I don’t know this to be true, but if I were a hirer, I would be very hesitant to advertise an opening on an Internet job-posting site. Who wants to read, hundreds of times, “I’m exceptionally well qualified,” or “I match your requirements exactly,” or, “Experienced marketing professional with seeks (fill in the blank)” (this was mine, by the way; I changed it because it bored even me).

5. My theory is, for those of us looking for a new job, we need to work at it. It’s going to be hard. The latest figure I saw was 4.4 Million out of work, and it’s growing every day. And let’s face it, unless we are Michael Jordon, Tom Petty, or the guy who beat the computer at computer chess, there is always someone more qualified than we are at whatever we do. But, there are also 2 Million unadvertised jobs (so I have read) that we’re not going to reach by posting a resume on HotJobs or by simply updating our Facebook page. We need to get out every day and beat the bushes and find the people who are hiring, who are exhausted from reading hundreds of resumes, and we need to get their attention.

How to do this?

I’ll let you know once I figure it out. Or, I’m open for suggestions.

Oh, I am looking for a new job. If anyone knows anyone who’s looking for a creative and performance-driven market research or public relations account executive, analyst, or manager, please let me know. You can find out more on my LinkedIn site.