Five “A Week Without Work” Thoughts Under the Fedora Fortunate Timing, The Interviews Keep Coming, The Craziest interview end I’ve ever had, No Pain and Surprisingly no Gain and the Preview of Coming Attractions Trap

Posted: May 16, 2026 by datechguy in business, culture, personal, under the fedora
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As a general rule there is no good time to be unemployed, however just as my last day became in stone my wife’s Asthma which had been pretty much under control flared up something horrible to the point where she ended up unable to function without multiple nebulizer treatments and a bunch of new perscriptions.

She ended up home sick for a week and it turned out I was very available to help her and keep an eye on things.

If you’re going to lose a job that’s the time to do so.

Last week I had three job interviews and a job fair. This week coming I have a 2nd interview at the job I want the most, and two other jobs that I can move to the “next step” on. I have also not double check availability on a third position that a friend clued me into.

To say that this is a huge contrast to the 13 months with only a single job interview during the Obama years is the understatement of the year.

Apparently it’s a buyers market for Job seekers, even in Massachusetts.

How good is the market? I went to one interview last week for a national company that has local warehouses. The job itself seemed pretty straightforward although requiring a bit of physical labor and the pay is very good it unfortunately is a 12 hour shift FIVE days a week.

If I was turning 43 on Monday instead of 63 I think I would have jumped at it as that would have pretty much doubled my pay and put all my debts in order in no time. It’s the type of job a young guy who wants to buy a house should rush to grab. Being an honest bloke I told the interviewer that I don’t know if at 63 I’m physically capable of a 5 day 12 hour shift that ends at 5:30 AM anymore, but if I found nothing else I’d certainly consider and would like to be kept in mind on that basis.

We shook hands and I headed to the exit and out the door into a pouring rain, when I was half way to the car he literally came running out into the rain calling me back. I presumed I had forgotten something but instead he mentioned that there is an opening on that shift for a supervisor and that while I might not be physically able to do 5 days 60 hours of serious labor I might be able to do those hours as a supervisor. He urged me to apply for that position.

That’s one hell of a boost to the ego when it comes to self worth, but it also illustrates the difference in the job market when a 63 year old guy gets chased into a rainstorm to be asked to apply for a job.

This week I’ve had a lot of time to be with DaWife, cook for DaWife and go out to eat with DaWife but due to the weather have not had time to walk and it goes without saying that the physical aspects of my previous employment are not taking place.

I found myself dreading weighing myself as I suspected I had put a bunch weight back on. I had gone into my final day down needed 2.2 pounds to complete my diet (down 51.1 out of the 53.3 goal). Today I weighed myself fully expecting to be outside of the five pound window and having to go hard, but instead found myself 3.8 pounds from completing my died (down 49.5) which is basically in the 2 pound range that I’ve been for a couple of week as those final pounds to officially end my diet just won’t go.

It was a pleasant surprise but I have to make sure I don’t get comfortable with it. That’s the danger.

Speaking of danger there has been one thing apparent over this week.

I’ve done the math & figured out that if I we work to age 70 both my wife and I can retire off of social security alone & cover all our regular bills and still go out several times a week without an issue while reserving all we’ve saved for retirement for special things, maybe a day trip or two, perhaps some season tickets to the woo-sox, maybe another quilting trip etc etc etc.

As I’ve mentioned before I’m the son of depression era parents with a father who served in World War Two and the grandchildren of a bunch of folks who were born in Sicily in the 1800’s with very little to their name who came here 120 years ago for a better future. I find a life spending the day with my wife at home, cooking for her, maybe hitting daily mass, punctuated by a few dinners or breakfasts out & shooting the breeze with strangers at a lunch or dinner counter while reading a book to be a pretty nice life.

I don’t need big flashy trips, expensive stuff or anything else much. I know enough about history to understand that a nice quiet life with a few comforts is all a person really needs.

Alas this week I’ve had a preview of that life and I REALLY like it, however I can’t have this life until I work another seven years to get it, so it’s no time to be lazy about finding work, however comfortable this time living off a severance package and unused vacation time seems.

It’s a trap & I have to make sure I don’t fall for it.

Unemployed Again or a Practical Comparison of the Obama and the Trump Economies

Posted: May 8, 2026 by datechguy in business, personal, Uncategorized
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On November 29th 2008 this blog began with the following post:Unemployed and blogging under my own blog

Well after 3 years blogging at the HiWired blog and nearly 4 years doing tech support at HiWired my circumstances have changed. I along with the entire staff of HiWired (except for Deb who is doing the final tax paperwork) are kaput. I am now blogging here. What does this mean?

Later that day I posted about the closing of HiWired, the tech support company I worked for. You can read about it here. The process by which it died was remarkably similar to the process that was followed when my former employer gradually shrunk and then eliminated their operations in Massachusetts, the biggest difference being that HiWired had been a startup in 2004 and closed outright while our corporate owner simply moved our operations to other warehouses in the south and west joining the great exodus from blue states where it’s more expensive to operate to red states where it is not.

But the bottom line is the same. I am as of today for the 2nd time in the last 20 years unemployed because the business I worked for no longer exists as least where I live.

Now I’m in a slightly better position in one respect in that I have a severance package that can carry me for a couple of months if necessary but in a worse position it that I’m just a few weeks shy of 63 which might make me a tad less desirable to employers.

But here is the thing that really hits me.

At the time of my layoff in 2008 I was not all that worried, as you might have noticed by the tone of the blog post. While I still had teenagers in the house, with a good degree and an excellent work record I was sure it would not be long before I found something.

You might recall the coming of Barack Obama. It produced an insane level of optimism. The media/left was shared a rapturous joy over the country he would create. I didn’t have that same optimism always seeing Obama for the cheap Chicago Machine Pol he was but as I said I thought my credentials & word record would be enough.

Alas I had the dubious pleasure of experiencing the result of the Obama economy first hand because I had to try and find a job within it.

From the time he was sworn in to January of 2010 I had a total of one job interview. Absolutely nobody was interested in me. I supported myself on doing the occasional tech work for people in need but was completely unable to find permanent work in the Obama Economy.

Little did I know that Robert Stacy McCain would change my life beginning on January 15th 2010 when I picked him up at the train station and we covered the final week of the Scott Brown campaign together. Before the week was over I had members of the media filing from my dining room table, my first press credential at the Brown victory party with my press badge in my fedora. On January 28th 2010 he posted his piece: Send DaTechGuy to CPAC Much to the surprise of DaWife the money came in, I was packed for CPAC and my life was changed forever, A Radio show, A NY post op ed, a TV appearance, the magnificent Seven bloggers but I digress…

Alas 6 years later my blog and radio fortunes changed to the point where I ended up taking a 3rd shift warehouse temp job for 45% of what I was making eight years earlier. Within a couple of years I was hired full time and eventually reached a point where was (without adjusting for inflation) making what I was before & again in a job I enjoyed (Inventory control team) making enough that a secure if modest retirement was before me.

Then the bomb dropped in January and I discovered I’d have to go through finding a job all over again.

But this time I would be doing it in a Trump economy rather than an Obama economy so the question on the floor is: What are my prospects for finding work this time around?

Well let’s put it this way. As already noted in the 13 months that proceeded my rendezvous with Stacy McCain and destiny I had a single job interview and no job offers.

As of today I have already had three job interviews and I have a fourth scheduled for Wednesday & a fifth scheduled for Thursday. More importantly unlike the single job interview that I had back in 2009 for a position that paid 75% of what I had been making every job I’ve interviewed for pays at least 5% more than what I was making this morning.

Of course an interview isn’t the same as employment. It took my oldest son took six months to find work which came after a dozen interviews and there is no guarantee that I will be offered any of the positions I interviewed for & have been rejected for one of them already

There is one other wild card in this situation.

At the time of my previous layoff my digital footprint was almost non-existent. My blog posts for HiWired were almost all tech in nature (other than one of a family trip which had the odd effect of making a photo of my wife and kids the #1 result of Yahoo for “World’s Greatest Family for two years) I never joined facebook & if you searched for me on the net you wouldn’t find much.

Now I’m a very public Catholic conservative with definite opinions over 1000 videos on Youtube and a long twitter history. While some have decided to scrub their internet history for job searches I have decided, despite living in a very blue state not to do so. I am who I am and will not pretend otherwise. I trust my reputation at work and even in the blogosphere for honesty & straight shooting to, with God’s help carry the day.

So tomorrow I spend the day with my youngest, Sunday I spend time with DaWife on Mother’s day and starting Monday my focus becomes finding a new job to employ me till retirement at 70.

Despite the gas price spike I find myself confident both in the Trump economy and my prospects within it. We will see if that confidence and my natural optimism is rewarded or if as before it will be crushed until fate throws a curve.

If nothing else it will be an excellent practical measure of the Obama way vs the Trump way.

Wish me luck.

(Note if you want to wish me more than luck feel free to either hit DaTipJar and/or subscribe to my youtube channel as I’m only 12 subscribers away from being able to monetize it.

Iran: It’s Worth it, Even at the Cost to my Wallet & of Election 2026

Posted: May 5, 2026 by datechguy in economy, middle east, politics, war
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Paul Crewe: Hey Pop, the time you hit Hazen in the mouth, was it worth 30 years?

Pop: Yeah: For me it was.

The Longest Yard 1974

Last week I filled up my gastank at $4.009 a gallon.

The $4 barrier was a big shock as gas had plummeted during the 2nd Trump term to a point where I had paid $2.56 just before the start of the war with Iran. That had saved me a lot of money and it showed.

I had hoped that things would be over before a final oil delivery but it was not and my oil delivery cost considerably more than I had budgeted, fortunately my prepay had still covered it so the impact wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

With my job about to end this week after 10 years these additional costs are a real strain on the family budget and I imagine that for people who are less careful with their money, which I imagine is most people, the gas increase is a matter of real pain.

Gas is now $4.27 everywhere as we start getting fuel that was traded on markets at the top of the spikes.

It’s a real concern not just financially but politically because the cost of gas increases the cost of everything else and the Democrats who didn’t say boo when gas prices were like this during the Biden years are making hay of it all.

Every incentive both personal for me and political for conservatives in election 2026 screams for things in Iran to end yesterday.

But when it comes down to it, none of that matters, because this is a defining moment for the country and the world.

For 47 years the Islamists in Iran have been the number one source of murder and terror in the world and have exported this terror to almost every corner of the planet. Thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of others have lost their lives become of their direct actions over this time. They have been the delivery system for all our enemies who want us dead. For 47 years they have chanted “Death to America” and I’ve never for one moment thought they didn’t mean it.

America had opportunities to stop this. Reagan, could have gone in regardless of the Hostage release but was dealing with the cold War. Bush one didn’t want to upset Arab allies as he dealt with Iraq. Clinton was more interested in not getting booted, Bush two who actually had Iran surrounded on three sides never pulled the trigger and Barack Obama, It’s my opinion that he’s been on Iran’s side from the very beginning of his presidency and into his 3rd term running the autopen man.

The single greatest thing Donald Trump can do for the United States and for the World is removing the Islamic Republic from the face of the earth.

  • It will save countless lives, free the people of Iran from the terror they’ve lived under.
  • It will destroy terror networks and connections that will take our foes years to rebuild.
  • It will change the face of the middle east permanently giving an incentive for Israel’s neighbors to make peace
  • It will deprive both Russia & China of a proxy used to attack us and intimidate others
  • And it will deprive Islamists of a nuclear device (at least until England and France fall)

All of these gains are stacked against a tighter belt for me and mine.

There is no contest.

I hate where Gas prices are, but if they reach $5 and Iran falls this year, it’s worth it.

If the economy slows because of the increase in gas prices, but Iran falls this year, it’s worth it.

And if the Democrat left, which I suspect is doing all it can to encourage Iran to hold out actually wins both houses of congress because of this war, but Iran falls IT’S STILL WORTH IT!

All of those things me a harder life for me in the short term, but a better life for my sons and myself and the entire world in the long term.

About 85 years ago my father found himself in the Pacific fighting a war for the world’s survival while at home my ancestors on both my mother and fathers side did without in order to support that effort until it was won. Because of their sacrifices I lived in a safer world in freedom.

You and I are being asked to do the same but on a much smaller scale and with a lot less pain.

Let’s be worthy of those who came before us.

Mr. President, fight this war to win. I know the world will not thank you for it, in fact they will publicly curse you for it and teach others to do so. A generation of idiots (outside of Iran itself) who already hate you will hate you more. The Europeans whose oil supply you will scorn you and don’t even think of the Nobel Prize that you had earned for your actions of the past year.

They will attack you for the rest of your life and dance upon your grave with you go to face your maker. They will live to do it in freedom and security.

But even as they do all of these things, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that the freedom, security & even the lives that they spend mocking you, will have been a gift you have freely given them asking nothing in return.

That’s one great legacy.

Indulgence Calendar for May 2026

Posted: May 1, 2026 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions
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It’s the first of the month so that means it’s indulgence calendar day

indulgence calendar May 2026Download

feel free to download and distributre widely

Update: Fixed error

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