Ok, so what have I been up to since the last time you heard from me? (Not Monday, of course; the time before...January 2008, as I recall.)
Well, here's the short answer (any questions can be asked in the "comments" section below):
The last time I updated, I had just finished up with the Bill Richardson for President campaign in Des Moines, Iowa and moved back to Spartanburg, South Carolina. Well, welcome to the life of a political operative...
The rest of that month, I stayed at the townhouse and collected unemployment.
The next month, I took a job as a third-shift clerk at a local gas station, where I stayed until April...
...then, my best friend Anna (a native New Mexican I met on the Richardson campaign) got a job with the Ben Ray Lujan congressional campaign in her home district. She pulled some strings, got me an interview...
...and the next thing I knew, I was putting everything I owned into a storage unit and moving 1,400 miles west to the tiny little town of San Jon, New Mexico (population 342.) I became the field organizer for the "Little Texas" area of Roosevelt, Curry, and Quay counties. I stayed there for a while, then relocated to Portales (population 12,000). I lived in an old caboose that an old railroad-union guy had converted into a guest house (trust me, it was a LOT cooler place than it sounds like.)
Long story short, on Primary Day in June, we did a lot better in "my" three counties then anyone expected--I won Quay county outright, lost Curry County by about 300 votes, and Roosevelt County made itself irrelevant with rediculously low voter turnout. Mr. Lujan won the primary. Yay for us!
...but then we were laid off again.
So, I went to Las Cruces and stayed in another guest house, this one owned by a state representative I had met on the Richardson campaign. She calls in some favors and gets me an interview with Harry Teague, who had just won his primary in the New Mexico 2nd District. But also, about this time, Dad makes a dramatic turn for the worse and has what looks like a brain tumor turn up on his MRI.
So, I packed up again and headed back to South Carolina.
Well, Dad's surgery went well. Turned out to be a blood clot in an odd place, rather than a tumor (there was no way to tell for sure on the MRI). So I stick around until he gets home and some sense of normalcy returns, then head back out, this time to Hobbs, New Mexico.
On this return trip, I got rear-ended and run off the road by some pickup-driving, road-raging asshole at 11:30 at night in Ruston, Louisiana. I overnighted there, filed a police report the next morning, and limped the rest of the way to New Mexico that day (with a trunk lid held shut with a bungee cord donated by Ruston's finest and an exhaust system literally tied back on with shoelaces.)
So, in July I went to work to Hobbs, NM ("Hobbs America" to the locals) as the regional field director for the Harry Teague for Congress campaign. My area included Lea (home of Harry...and lots of oil wells), Eddy (home to Carlsbad Caverns), Chaves (home to Roswell, the tackiest tourist trap in the world), De Baca (home of Billy the Kid's gravesite), and Guadalupe (the town of Santa Rosa, on historic Route 66.)
Anyways, I wasn't entirely prepared for life as a regional field director, but I muddled through. I was ably assisted by the Lea County Young Democrats and the two field organizers I eventually got to hire: "Charlie Hustle" from Guam...and the aforementioned Anna.
(I always look out for those who look out for me.) Long story short, in a district that hadn't voted Democratic since 1980....Harry Teague won by an 11.6% margin.
So I'm a lock for a position on his Congressional staff, right?
Not so fast.
Since I was out of the campaign-provided housing once the campaign was over, I spent some time in Albuquerque with Charlie and Anna, and then came back to Barnwell. Just for a bit. Just to help out Mom and Dad until Harry brings me back to New Mexico on January 6th...
January 6th came and went. No job.
So, since then I've been scrambling for a job. I've sent dozens of copies of my resume out all over the country. And until last week, all I had to show for it was a growing stack of rejection letters....
...until Greenpeace interviewed me last week. I'm not sure what I said or did that impressed them so much, but they want me in Chicago on April 4th for the final interview--and yes, they're paying for my travel expenses.
If I get hired, I'll be working as a field organizer in one of several cities (Burlington, VT; Baltimore, MD; Columbus, OH; Ann Arbor, MI; St. Louis, MO; Atlanta, GA; Tampa, FL; or Dallas, TX.) It's a pretty good job: it pays $31,426.50 a year, with medical and dental benefits and paid vacation. It's a job for which I have plenty of experience, working for a cause I deeply believe in. So wish me luck!
In the meantime, I'm here in Barnwell collecting unemployment checks and helping out Mom and Dad as much as I can. Not my favorite place to be, but I don't believe in coincidences. I needed a place to stay, Mom and Dad needed help because of their advancing age and health problems...it worked out for everybody.
___
On a sadder note, Calypso the iguana finally succumbed to the skin infection she'd been fighting off and on for so long (and I'm sure all the moving we'd done the last few months didn't help much.) However, considering what poor health she was in when I first got her, she still lived a much longer and healthier life with me than she would've had we never crossed paths. She will be missed.
Well, here's the short answer (any questions can be asked in the "comments" section below):
The last time I updated, I had just finished up with the Bill Richardson for President campaign in Des Moines, Iowa and moved back to Spartanburg, South Carolina. Well, welcome to the life of a political operative...
The rest of that month, I stayed at the townhouse and collected unemployment.
The next month, I took a job as a third-shift clerk at a local gas station, where I stayed until April...
...then, my best friend Anna (a native New Mexican I met on the Richardson campaign) got a job with the Ben Ray Lujan congressional campaign in her home district. She pulled some strings, got me an interview...
...and the next thing I knew, I was putting everything I owned into a storage unit and moving 1,400 miles west to the tiny little town of San Jon, New Mexico (population 342.) I became the field organizer for the "Little Texas" area of Roosevelt, Curry, and Quay counties. I stayed there for a while, then relocated to Portales (population 12,000). I lived in an old caboose that an old railroad-union guy had converted into a guest house (trust me, it was a LOT cooler place than it sounds like.)
Long story short, on Primary Day in June, we did a lot better in "my" three counties then anyone expected--I won Quay county outright, lost Curry County by about 300 votes, and Roosevelt County made itself irrelevant with rediculously low voter turnout. Mr. Lujan won the primary. Yay for us!
...but then we were laid off again.
So, I went to Las Cruces and stayed in another guest house, this one owned by a state representative I had met on the Richardson campaign. She calls in some favors and gets me an interview with Harry Teague, who had just won his primary in the New Mexico 2nd District. But also, about this time, Dad makes a dramatic turn for the worse and has what looks like a brain tumor turn up on his MRI.
So, I packed up again and headed back to South Carolina.
Well, Dad's surgery went well. Turned out to be a blood clot in an odd place, rather than a tumor (there was no way to tell for sure on the MRI). So I stick around until he gets home and some sense of normalcy returns, then head back out, this time to Hobbs, New Mexico.
On this return trip, I got rear-ended and run off the road by some pickup-driving, road-raging asshole at 11:30 at night in Ruston, Louisiana. I overnighted there, filed a police report the next morning, and limped the rest of the way to New Mexico that day (with a trunk lid held shut with a bungee cord donated by Ruston's finest and an exhaust system literally tied back on with shoelaces.)
So, in July I went to work to Hobbs, NM ("Hobbs America" to the locals) as the regional field director for the Harry Teague for Congress campaign. My area included Lea (home of Harry...and lots of oil wells), Eddy (home to Carlsbad Caverns), Chaves (home to Roswell, the tackiest tourist trap in the world), De Baca (home of Billy the Kid's gravesite), and Guadalupe (the town of Santa Rosa, on historic Route 66.)
Anyways, I wasn't entirely prepared for life as a regional field director, but I muddled through. I was ably assisted by the Lea County Young Democrats and the two field organizers I eventually got to hire: "Charlie Hustle" from Guam...and the aforementioned Anna.
(I always look out for those who look out for me.) Long story short, in a district that hadn't voted Democratic since 1980....Harry Teague won by an 11.6% margin.So I'm a lock for a position on his Congressional staff, right?
Not so fast.
Since I was out of the campaign-provided housing once the campaign was over, I spent some time in Albuquerque with Charlie and Anna, and then came back to Barnwell. Just for a bit. Just to help out Mom and Dad until Harry brings me back to New Mexico on January 6th...
January 6th came and went. No job.
So, since then I've been scrambling for a job. I've sent dozens of copies of my resume out all over the country. And until last week, all I had to show for it was a growing stack of rejection letters....
...until Greenpeace interviewed me last week. I'm not sure what I said or did that impressed them so much, but they want me in Chicago on April 4th for the final interview--and yes, they're paying for my travel expenses.
If I get hired, I'll be working as a field organizer in one of several cities (Burlington, VT; Baltimore, MD; Columbus, OH; Ann Arbor, MI; St. Louis, MO; Atlanta, GA; Tampa, FL; or Dallas, TX.) It's a pretty good job: it pays $31,426.50 a year, with medical and dental benefits and paid vacation. It's a job for which I have plenty of experience, working for a cause I deeply believe in. So wish me luck!In the meantime, I'm here in Barnwell collecting unemployment checks and helping out Mom and Dad as much as I can. Not my favorite place to be, but I don't believe in coincidences. I needed a place to stay, Mom and Dad needed help because of their advancing age and health problems...it worked out for everybody.
___
On a sadder note, Calypso the iguana finally succumbed to the skin infection she'd been fighting off and on for so long (and I'm sure all the moving we'd done the last few months didn't help much.) However, considering what poor health she was in when I first got her, she still lived a much longer and healthier life with me than she would've had we never crossed paths. She will be missed.
R.I.P Calypso