Here Come the Holidays

Happy Halloween, y'all. And then Thanksgiving. And then Hannukah. And then Christmas and Kwaanza and New Year's. I know Ramadan falls in there somewhere, but being one of those move-around holidays (like Hannukah) I never know when it falls.

The video below is from a favorite film of mine, "The Nightmare Before Christmas." It's such a nice marriage of opera, film and Tim Burton's weird and slightly dark visual stylings. It's fun and exposes kids to a formal style of music they would probably never hear anywhere else, just like my generation heard most of its classical music in Bugs Bunny cartoons ("Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit!").



It's odd that Mom died just before the holidays, and that her memorial is scheduled for just after the holidays. No reason, just strange.

As for me, I do have news. I received the WIA grant this week and on Monday I will be going in to sign up for classes and get my schedule for school. It will take about six months and then I'll be suitably employable in this Web-weighted design world we now live in. I even found out that the grant will reimburse my mileage to and from school. Like I told Warren, my caseworker, I might even make some money on this deal.

It's going to be good to have some structure back in my life after these months of unemployment, with the only routine being the frustration of looking for work and finding practically nothing. And with the openings I did find, sending out dozens of resumes with 20-plus years of really good experience on them, only to never receive a reply from a single submission. Hopefully, all that will be changing soon.

I'll be going up to Arroyo Grande next weekend just to visit and spend some time with friends and family because it may be a while before I can do that again.

So, not much of an entry. I just wanted to do something visually festive and let everyone know my training is a sure thing now. More on all this later.

And those in Washington and Maine: Vote "NO." You know the referendum/question I'm talking about!