The last 36 hours

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

It’s amazing how quickly life can change. In just the last 36 hours:

The economic crisis hit home as I was laid off from my year-and-a-half long gig directing organizing programs at YouthNoise. The organization, facing some tough economic times, cut back a number of staff members and cut the hours and pay of virtually everyone else. I’m honestly not sure who got the worse end of the deal, me and my fellow layoffees or the folks who are left behind, with twice as much work to do for 80 percent of the pay.
I partied with the Bay Area parrothead population at a Jimmy Buffett concert in Mountain View. Not relevant to this story, per se, but it was a ton of fun and a few beers and a few margaritas help anyone forget about being laid off earlier that day.
Attempted to apply for unemployment insurance from the State of California. Now in the mandatory week-long waiting period, I’m amazed at how I have an Ivy League graduate degree and still struggle with the unnecessarily complex process. Oh yeah, and don’t try to call the office: you get a nice message about there being too many callers (no kidding, have you stepped outside lately?) and then are disconnected and told to call back later.
And I’m now sitting at the airport boarding a red-eye to Dayton, Ohio, where, with the help of some good friends, I landed a job for the next two weeks doing get out the vote efforts for the Obama campaign. While I’m not totally sure what lies ahead–other than lots of cold pizza and sore feet–I’m more excited than I’ve been in a very long time and ready to see what the presidential race looks like from a swing state.
I’ll be writing new posts as often as I can, though they’ll probably be sans pictures, as I just realized I forgot the cable for my digital camera. (Argh! I hope I didn’t forget anything else important.)

In the meantime, take a look at this video about traveling to Ohio from the Obama campaign. It’s about all I have to go on for now: