The Zen of Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's been said that nirvana can be found by eatting a hot chocolate chip cookie. How much better will it be if the chips are dark chocolate from Ghiradelli? I'll find out and post a photo of the cookies here soon. Sorry smellovision or smellnet hasn't been invented yet... so I can't add in the lovely warm toasty chocolatey smell of the cookies when I take them out of the oven. WAIT!!! That's not nirvana that's an orgasm. Silly me... confusing the ultimate reality with, WAIT!!! Maybe that IS the ultimate reality. ;-)

This Post Brought To You by Bizarro

I would like you to read this blog and the comments. http://bizarrocomic.blogspot.com/2009/02/sad-stereotypes.html
I made a comment on it today as I truely believe I do owe my life to prescription medications. Without them, I might be dead. Why? Because I have bipolar disorder. Drugs help me to function. Therapy helps me to function. My friends and dear husband help me to function, but I couldn't handle life without the drugs. What Dan said in his post today is true. Naysayers should have to walk a mile in our mocassins as they do not know what true depression is, if they have never been clinically depressed.

I have Accepted the Offer!

I just sent off my email to my new supervisor and his manager for the position entitled Programmer Analyst / Project Manager. It's rather vague, but it's actually a SAP Configuration Analyst job. I know that will be GREEK to my readers so here's some definitions.

SAP = a company in Germany that has celebrity spokesperson in ads in the U.S. They have a system which is an enterprise application suite.

Enterprise application suite = everything from financials to sales and distribution to purchasing systems. That's about as simple as I can get it.

Financials is the General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Capital Assets.

Sales supports the functions needed to sell products and services and also to ship products to the customers and/or distributors.

Purchasing supports the functions needed to purchase items or services from vendors (other companies).

Contemplating Employment

I have a JOB OFFER! I picked up the letter on Friday. I have to have my FINGERPRINTS taken by the Dallas police... a new experience for me (unlike my sister). They will be doing a background check and maybe a credit check. Can my overabundance of debt prevent me from getting a job??? I hope not...

Contemplating commuting. We did a dry run yesterday on DART Light Rail from Plano to the Dallas downtown stop that I would be taking. It look 45 minutes. Add another 20 minutes to walk from the train stop to the office. That's over 1 hour each way. I will have to get up EARLY! And we all know how bright and cheerful I am in the morning. Add to that having 1 working vehicle... so Chuck will have to get up EARLY too and drive me to the train station. FUN!!!

Somehow, it doesn't seem so bad. Unemployment vs. Inconvenience... I'll take the later. I will learn to get up earlier, go to bed earlier and enjoy having myself chauffeured by DART down to my office. I'll load up my iPod with tunes and bring along a book or magazine to read. Talk about having two hours to relax! It will be so much fun.... oh well, maybe not fun, but I'll try to enjoy those 2 hours. And remember I really did have a cushy job... I guess Diane was RIGHT!

The Interview

Which one? The one I just went on yesterday (Friday 2/13).

The funniest thing about it was the question my sister asked me the day before... "Why did you schedule it on Friday the 13th?" Answer: they scheduled it and invited me to come down at 4 p.m. on Friday. I didn't even think of the date because I was so happy to have the 1st interview of my now almost 3 week job search (since 1/28). Not, "Are you interested in the job being offered?" or "Congratulations and good luck." or "How did you get an interview so fast?". What can I say? My sister and I often don't seem to have sprung from the same gene pool. If she was a stranger, we would never have known each other because we are SO DIFFERENT. Like night and day. Like good kid and bad kid. Like ADD and normal. Like black and tan. Like Miller and Guinness. Like her and me. Yet we did share the same parents. I checked once by asking my mom if I was adopted, after we had gone to see "Annie", the musical live with my sister. She assured me that we were all related and she had given birth to both of us. I always felt like the odd one out at family gatherings and reunions. I was the "smart" one. I was the "book reader" with her head always in a book when not eating or watching TV.

I was the one that finally went to a 4 year university after many generations of my family not ever attending. I am the odd duck in the Zoeller family. But finally the next generation of cousins have all exhibited the intelligence to go to college and graduate and get good jobs mostly. I always send at least $25 for a gift because I really am proud of the kids of my cousins that are getting the bachelors and masters degrees. I have distant cousins that have PhD's in science and one that was an Astronaut for the US and commanded the space shuttle and went to the MIR station (John Blaha). But that was another branch of the Zoeller family... my Dad and his father and back several generations did not go to college because of the cost or the opportunity lost when they were in World War II. My Dad had to drop out of high school after 10th grade to get a job to help his large family of nine kids and parents. He was the 3rd oldest: Harley Francis, Joseph (Joe) Albert, George Albert, Fredrick Louis, Molly Teresa, Edward (Ned), Henry and Alice Mae were all of the children of my father's parents Mary Bauche and Albert Zoeller. The first 6 lived through the great depression. All the men served in World War II except Henry who became a career man in the Coast Guard and Harley who joined the Army before WWII and went to India, but was there during WWII. The rest were Navy men and looked very handsome in the uniforms (from the old photos I inherited from my Dad). I'll write a book someday about the Zoeller family and it's service during WWII as German-American immigrants' descendants.
Any way... enough family history, back to The Interview.

It was my first job interview in TWENTY ONE years. I interviewed for my last job in 12/88 with Thelma Peacock (may she rest in piece). Thelma was pure East Texas twang, tough as nails like Miss Ann, and a died in the wool Longhorn graduate with an accounting degree. I'll write the story of Thelma and me later as it was interesting during my long association with her, but not working with her after the 1st year at the "xyz" corporation ( which shall not be named here). She was tough but fair and hired me in a Chicago minute. About three days after my November interview on the day before Thanksgiving in 1988, the head hunter in Dallas called me in San Antonio where I was living and said, they want you. The salary was comparable to what I made in my prior job for Comp-Data Communications and they were going to pay moving expenses including packing me up to move 300 miles north to Plano TX!!! Two weeks later in December, I started my career at xyz Corp after 8 years in the 80s in a very difficult job market not unlike today but I was twenty years younger and still a lower paid programmer/analyst.

It was a twenty year and two months span of time at my last company. Most of my working life so far. It's difficult to understand the layoff but many many many good people either were laid off or were highly suggested to take early retirement in their early 50s. Some of the people like my friend Sandy were jumping with joy about the offered retirement program as she had been talking about retiring for at least 4 years and planned to leave in 2009 before her daughter graduated from high school in Richardson and goes onto a private university (with an equestrian program). I'll write more about the expectations of the children in Plano and around here of my friends... To put it mildly I would have though their families were rich when I was a kid. I never dreamed of a high school like the quality and diversity of courses available in the locals school district in Plano and other area districts in the northern 'burbs of Dallas.

The INTERVIEW... stop digressing Jodie!!! OK!

It went well. I can't post their name here and never will but a hint is that it involves an area governmental entity job doing similar things that I did in my last job but in a more challenging environment and with more interesting job requirements for what I'll be working on (SAP). Most of the interweb knows nothing about SAP... just pretend it's Microsoft Office that you do know. It's a system that takes care of just about everything a business needs in the way of "enterprise" or company wide systems just like Microsoft Office does for you PC. Sometimes you need Word, sometimes Powerpoint or Excel or Outlook for Email. There are different modules in SAP for accounting, sales, purchasing, etc. Trust me that's the simplest analogy I can make without making Chuck's eyes glaze over with confusion. Because he tells me often that he doesn't have a clue what I do with computers, but just that I'm really good and they like to pay me very well... well not that well, but enough to own a house in Plano and two cars and a cat and maybe a dog when we are employed again. Chuck is a disabled "semi-retired" newspaper writer / editor. He's old school and was poor most of his working life as a journalist working in community news. A story for another day of how we met!

The interview.... my 1st in 21 years. It went very well. It helped that the woman who screened me at the job fair and gave me a 15 minute pre-interview was not an HR recruiter, she is the manager of the department and was in the hour and fifteen minute interview yesterday. E and I had bonded pretty well in 15 minutes. THANK YOU Toastmasters for my improved communications skills. So I was less nervous about talking with her again. The 2nd person interviewing me was new to me, a manager under her named T. Then the hiring manager that I would be reporting to is D. D and I knew each other! He worked as a contractor at the company that I have just left in January. We knew each other semi-OK and he respected my talents and knew that I know my stuff! That just gave me a KNEE in the door that I already had a foot in from the pre-interview. E had said on Tuesday that my resume and what I had told her fit the job they had very well. Like it was almost made for me... well she didn't say that but she was very encouraging on Tuesday. When she finally set the interview for Friday afternoon on Thursday I was so relieved as she had promised to schedule it after the fair on Tuesday and then email and said Wednesday. I was getting nervous.

The questions that they asked me were mostly technical in nature about SAP and what I had previous experience with in my 10 years working with SAP at my last job. I think I answered most of the questions very well because they were smiling and shaking their heads. At the end, I asked if they felt that I was a strong candidate for the position and they ALL DID! Woo Hoo!

No chickens hatching before the eggs though. I've seen the egg but I've got to be patient and wait until they decide next week who they are hiring. I have no idea how many people that they have interviewed for the position. But knowing the hiring manager can not hurt AT ALL. He knows my reputation for good work at xyz corp. and that I was well respected by both the company and his consulting / contracting company that did most of the level 3 technical support work there for SAP. I happen to have worked as a virtual team member with the mostly consulting group and had been on call, done production support, done troubleshooting, configuration, batch job setup, troubleshooting and generally know what I need to know for the release of SAP that we had. They have the newer one, but I've been to a few workshops for the new GL, so it should be OK. Just a small learning curve about the system. A bigger one to find out the business processes at the new place and get acclimated but I've been there and done that several times previously.

So interweb.... start praying, chanting, thinking wonderful thoughts, kneeling, rubbing Buddha's belly, star watching, meditating or whatever you do and do it for me.... Think positive thoughts that Jodie will get a job offer next week and start work in March. That would be the best of all possible worlds. Better than getting my old job back. Way better! Because then we can afford to go on vacation this year. I asked for two weeks off without pay in the summer to take our planned vacation and E said yes at the pre-interview. SO I can get paid my severance for several more months, use the 6K educational benefits, continue to network and help others find a job and take a paid vacation that is paid for by my time bank payout and my severance pay (not all of it!!!). Most of the severance is designated to pay off debts or to go in savings so that we have a nest egg for future unemployment. The career services that we're being provided had a 2 day workshop on job searching. Job changing every 3-4 years is now the norm. Staying somewhere for 20 years is an anomaly. Most people will have 3 careers and 15 jobs in their working life now.

For my next career after I get a good paying job and pay off our debts and then find myself looking for a new job........ I want to be a teacher. In high school, I was the historian of the career club called Future Teachers of America. That was my goal, to teach math and science, until the HS counsellor talked me into looking into Engineering because of my grades and SAT scores in Math & Science. She thought that would be better than teaching. The jobs paid 2 or 3 times as much even starting out in the 80s. So I went to Trinity to major in engineering. I hated my engineering classes and the professors weren't especially supportive of the concept of female engineers. I like my FORTRAN and APL classes for engineering best. I like my Chemistry class the least but I still liked it. Calculus II was not fun and I made a C. Remember I was a straight A student in high school and graduated as 4th in my large class from Edison HS in San Antonio. So not liking a math class? Not, but hating my grade Yes! I made As in the computer classes freshman year. So I went to my counsellor and said I wanted to move into Computer Science. Sophomore year I took the make it or break it class called Assembly Language. I aced it! That sealed the deal and I declared Computing & Information Science as my major during that year and got a better advisor. Dr. Howland was the chairman of the department and several of us had crushes on this man about 20 years old than us. He was our department hottie until Dr. Pitts came along with his body builder body and good looks. Oh well... sorry Dr. H. Most of my old profs have retired now but Dr. H was still there at my 25th college reunion. One of my BFFs Mary Ann and I attended the department reunion. I think we were the oldest graduates at their open house with good appetizers and wine! They are moving up in the world. Now computer science majors can specialize in VR or Gaming or other modern areas of CS. We had a micro computer lab that consisted of one Apple IIe, a Teseract or something like that used Pascal as it's language, a Tectronics green cathode ray tube graphics monitor/computer for advanced graphics work and an other other 6800 based machine. A big PC lab, not! It was before the introduction of the IBM PC in the mid-80s. It was still the computer dark ages compared to now. I started with punching cards for my FORTRAN class. By my sophomore year, they upgraded to a VM mainframe environment with an interactive computer lab setup that we called the "Computer Room". It was filled with students at all hours of the day and night working on homework programming assignments and my friend Marsha smoking her little brown cigarettes that were forbidden in the room. Oh, you radical you!!! She was a little more advanced than me as she was one year older and graduated in 1981. We're still friends.

My boyfriend was one year behind me and was a champion geek winning a video game contest at a local bar when video games came in big standalone type units with color screens that you still see at Dave & Busters. We thought Space Invaders in monochrome on an Apple II was advanced graphics and gaming on a PC back in college. He had a very early serial number Apple II. I'll bet he still has it. He was an Apple groupie before most people had ever hear of Apple. I wish I had bought stock with my meager earnings as a college grad. I would be wealthy and retired by now if I had done that. Oh well! I've always know that they were a cool company... with that rainbow logo apple of the 80's who could doubt it. That was before the rainbow became gay symbol and other groups stopped using a rainbow for a symbol (like my sorority stopped several years back and changed its colors and symbol... that's just WRONG... we picked a rainbow as a symbol of our different backgrounds becoming one in ZX!) Any way, I hung around with a herd of geeks and we liked it that way. I did have groups like Alpha Phi Omega (national co-ed service fraternity) and Zeta Chi (sorority that I helped found) to be near normal people that weren't thinking about computer code 24x7. More about college later... and especially APO and volunteerism.

THIS my longest blog entry EVER. Thanks for reading until the end!!!

The Church of BBQ

The Church of BBQ
by Jodie Zoeller
Originally written in 1997, revised for a speech given to Toastmasters.
=====================================================
Competent Communicator Project 6: Vocal Variety, 2/12/2009, DFW Tech Talk Toastmasters
International Speech Contest, 2/19/2009, DFW Tech Talk Toastmasters
International Speech Contest, 3/4/2009, Word Wranglers Toasters
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Where are you closest to God?

I believe my Daddy was closest to God while sitting in the woods at our lake cabin and cooking BBQ. Not that it was a formal type of worship, he just meditated in the woods while drinking a cold one and cooking his BBQ. He taught me to both enjoy and respect nature and being out in the natural world.

We had a ritual of sorts, here’s how it went in the ‘60s… On Friday evening after he came home from work, we would pack up the car and head out. Stopping by Stella’s hamburger shack for a bag of burgers, dill pickles and fries… this was before the advent of fast food, at least in San Antonio. Stella cooked her burgers the old-fashioned way and we waited patiently for the delicious burgers to be put in tissue paper for our trip to Medina Lake. After a half an hour or so, we would stop in Helotes Texas for a loaf of fresh baked bread to take along and sometimes a new miniature oil lamp for my collection. We processed down the twisty roads to Lakehills Texas in the hill country near Medina Lake, Bandera County Texas.

On our arrival, Daddy would have to check the cabin for invaders like wasps, scorpions and other critters. After he gave us the all clear, Mom and I would get out of our car or van and help unload bags of food, coolers with perishables, clothes and big old metal Army cans full of water. Yes, this was a rural cabin with no running water or modern plumbing. Our bathroom was down the path and called an Outhouse. It came complete with spiders and wasps, along with air freshener and toilet paper. The cabin was a former World War II surplus Quonset hut, converted by my Dad into a rural camping cabin. It did have electricity, so there was an old refrigerator, fans and a big water cooler to help cool us down in the hot South Texas summers. The cabin had one overhead light and a couple of lamps. For heat and cooking, we used bottled butane for small two burner stove. The cabin had been purchased in the early 50s after my parents’ marriage in 1952. Dad bought three 25 foot wide lots for a total of $75 plus $25 for the Quonset hut. His friend, Joe, was a bricklayer, so together they made a brick BBQ pit with chimney to vent the wood smoke. The BBQ pit lasted over 50 years, but recently someone vandalized it which when I visited there reduced me to tears! :(

At that cabin in the woods, I learned about respect for nature, the beauty of the natural world and how God is there all around us. There were MANY stars overhead at night and we could see the Milky Way sometimes without a telescope. Trees surrounded us, mostly cedar and live oaks. In the spring, many flowers bloomed, even though the rocky soil was hard and impenetrable. Every where on my walks I found flowers, flowering butterfly bushes complete with beautiful butterflies, flower cactus plants with tall stalks of blooms and wildlife – rabbits, deer, skunks, lizards and of course my favorites the wasps and Daddy long leg spiders. Did I say that there were flowers? Well there were yellow ones, white ones, palest pink ones, purple verbena and many more. And it was possible to garden a bit in the rocky soil, one year my Dad and I planted some left over pinto beans and tried to come back often enough to see them grow and water the plants. Eventually the deer ate the plants, but it was fun while it lasted… we had a small garden at home in the backyard, so I was never deprived of the garden learning experience.

We spent time up at the lake cabin, talking and hearing family stories, having great food that was made with love and spending time together without schedules or urgent places to be. The food is a wonderful memory – BBQ brisket, sausages and chickens, corn, potatoes and onions all cooked in my Dad’s BBQ pit. Mom used the butane stove to cook a big pot of pinto beans with onions and some salt pork or ham hocks. For breakfast, Daddy would make biscuits using a covered omelet pan, the best ones ever. And lots of eggs and bacon or sausage from the old iron skillets. The food is one of my best memories of that place and time.

Peace and quiet is another memory. Something not often found now, even when you go camping. Now people have DVD players in their vans, bring boom boxes camping and even TVs. Highways aren’t far enough from the campgrounds, so even a night there is some distant noise. That was NOT the case at our Medina Lake cabin. I remember the sound of silence………….. Our cabin was at the end of a very rocky rural street and not many people had houses or cabins near ours. Dad and Mom loved to escape the city life in San Antonio and dragged me along, so that I came to love that place and my memories will always be dear to me of the time we spent together there. At times we had a cabin full, with my parents, my grandparents, me and my sister after ’71… and lots of friends. My Dad never met someone that couldn’t be turned into a friend. :)

Our lake cabin was an oasis in the Texas hill country for peace and quiet reflection, lots of good BBQ and food, parents drinking a few cold ones and just living life at a slower pace. I remember Daddy meditating under the trees by the BBQ pit with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Mom would be in the cabin sitting in front of the water cooler trying to stay cool. I would be swinging on my board and rope swing in between. A little bit of paradise that I didn’t realize! BUT, it’s preserved forever in my heart!

Overcoming My Fear of Public Speaking

I've completed over three years in Toastmasters. I now belong to two clubs. One is my 1st club at TI that meets on Wednesdays at 11:30-12:30 each week... Word Wranglers Toastmasters. I joined a 2nd club in 2008 to complete my first 10 speeches quicker HAH, DFW Tech Talk Toastmasters.

I'm jumping OFF the pier with out a life jacket this month! I'm doing Speech 6 (Vocal Variety) on Thursday. Next week I'll compete in our DFW Tech Talk contest in Table Topics. The following week or so, I'll compete in the Word Wranglers contest for International Speech. What if I win? Another speech at the area contests. SCARY.

My topic is "The Church of BBQ". I'm doing it this week to practice for the contest as my speech number 6. It's all about my father, BBQ, religion, nature and me. It's my eulogy for my father written several years before he died in 1999, five years after a major stroke that took his limbs and brain but not his soul. May he REST IN PEACE! I love you DADDY!

Dogs Rule ... at least tonight and tomorrow night

The Westminster Dog Show is hot! So far the Hound group and Terrier group... now the Non-sporting dogs. More later.

The SCOTTY won the terrier group. The SCOTTISH DEER HOUND won the Hound group. The PULLI won... and can't remember the 4th.... will post the results later gater.

2/10 tuesday night

Well the dog that I didn't expect won best in show. The Brittany Spaniel age 10!!! I was so rooting for the Scotty. I LOVE TERRIERS. But I'll take an Irish Wolfhound rescue dog or a puppy terrier like cairn, westie, wired hair fox terrier, aussie terrier, basically any of them except another Jack Russell. I did my time with a wild dog... the young ones are SO high energy that they run circles around you. Even if you're 29 like I was... he was exhausting and so strong and strong willed... and puppy humped everything in sight until I had him neutered. He never forgave me.... but I'm a responsible pet owner that spent probably 5K in medical care on my Blarney JRT and another 1000 on Natchez our 12 yr old German Shepherd adoptee that lived to be 15. NEXT time, I'm buying pet health insurance. DOGS cost lots to keep, feed and keep healthy.

I want a scruffy mutt terrier, a westie, a cairn, a scotty, a wired hair fox terrier or a huge Irish Wolf Hound (couch potato dog). Chuck wants one of everything.... NOT. We will have to settle on one to adopt AFTER I get a new job. That's our goal and we're sticking to it. .... Unless there is a Irish WH to rescue at the North Texas Irish Festival. THEN all bets are off. I hope to have a new job SOON so that I can afford to adopt a puppy and a young dog too. LOVE 'EM. Watch out BeeGee (the cat) here come the DOGS.

Who let the dogs out..... uff uff, who let the dogs out.... uff, uff
(my fav rap song)

Ciao internet and good night!

Job Searching and Networking via Internet tools!

It's not easy work... Doing a job search takes time, energy, enthusiasm, attention to detail, follow through, follow-ups, note taking, research, communication skills, analysis, reading-reading-reading, connection making, networking and more. Luckily I've cultivated a very large network of friends, family, Toastmasters, co-workers, former bosses, college friends, high school friends etc. I think I can put together a network of 200+ people to help me with my quest for a new job and/or career.

THANK YOU internet!!! Thanks e-mail!!! Thanks to Linked In, Facebook, blogging, web pages that are free from my ISP and more. INTERNET I would like to kiss you today. Also a big round of applause for Microsoft Word, Excel and Internet Explorer. Tools like Yahoo e-mail, calendar, contacts, Google, gmail! They are all terrific. Oh I forgot twitter, bloggers and assorted online only friends!!! Woo Hoo!!

Resume

Click on the title to display my online resume site.

Resume is almost ready!

I'll post it here soon so that readers can help find me a new job. I'm also going to setup a new web page for my job search to post my resume without my home address included.

Strange Cat Noises

My cat likes to sit near me when I'm on a computer, preferably next to the keyboard or on my shoulder. In my home office (spare bedroom) she has to jump up and walk across the printer. Which caused one to break! and so I had to buy a new and better one for less money than the broken laser printer - I got a multi-function printer/fax/copier/scanner from HP. Any way, there's a bed in the room too since it's one of our guest rooms. She likes to sit on the edge of the head of the bed and look out the window which goes almost to the floor. The front bushes cover most of the window but I have raised the blinds about one foot and there is a small area where she can see the world from the window. Tonight she was sitting there and started making a weird growling hissing sort of noise. I looked out of the window and a twin black cat with collar was looking in at her. I guess she wasn't pleased. The visitor cat went on his/her way when I went over to look at it. Cat make strange noises!

Retirement vs. Laid Off - not much difference

I've got a number of friends who received STRONG suggestions that they take "the company's" early retirement package. These are people in their 50s, who still want and/or need to work. The Turk came to visit them too. But they didn't get a choice: take the package OR wait and see if you win/loose the layoff lottery. Not a good choice any way!

We all knew that "the company" was going to do a layoff. I guessed it last year several months back. I knew that when they announced the early retirement program starting in December, with a deadline of acceptance of January 23rd, that a layoff would follow. I just didn't know THE DATE of it.

Well, the retirees have had a couple of weeks (at least) to say their good-byes. I didn't get an hour to say mine. I really wanted to be able to say good-bye to my dear friends and co-workers at "the company" where I worked for TWENTY years of my life, Dec 1988 to Jan 2009. I got my freaking GOLD badge and parking pass in December 2008. It got ripped away on January 27, 2009. Rather ironic that I really wanted the privelege of having the stupid gold parking pass to park a few rows closer to the building. VERY IRONIC.

"The company" will not be the same place, ever again. Too many GOOD PEOPLE are walking away or were booted out the revolving door. I keep hearing more and I'm starting to be glad that I was shown the door. At least the anxiety and stress of worrying about when the layoff would come is over. So is the stress of the current reorgs at "the company". It's a totally different place.

Yes, I miss my GOLD BADGE. I freaking earned that little piece of plastic. I gave them at least 15 good years and 5 not so great ones. It averages out to a pretty good career there. But so many of the retirees and laid off people were EXCELLENT folks that were put out the door before their time.

PS. I kept the DART pass. F*** them! I deserve it.

PPS. Remind me when their stock goes up. I need to SELL all my stock in "the company" as why be an owner of a company that kicked me to the curb. SELL SELL SELL!!!

When the Turk Comes to See You...

Here's the excellent article about our layoff that my DH (dear husband) had published in the Dallas Morning News local options section today...
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/collin/opinion/stories/east_bloom_0201edi.286ce78.html