HAIR!!!

Tis a sad day. Once again, I have cut my hair. As this beautiful image to the left illustrates, I once again had grown the flowing afro, but as of today this image is no longer of what is, but of what used to be. Don has gone with a conservative haircut (I can even part it on the side!!!). I'm now sure if I like it much, but I might as well get used to it because it may be a bit before it grows out.

Well friends, we now get to the present. Now that you have reread the past and reflected on the good times you had reading them initially, I will give you the lastest. Are you ready for this... wait for it... wait... and NOW: I'M STILL UNEMPLOYED!!! I know most you were bracing yourselves for the terrible news that I had possibly become a contributing member of society, but fortunately for all of us, this is not so. I am successfully maintaining my status as a drain and leech on all of you hard-working taxpayers. I'm actually rather enjoying this status. Just the other day I was checking out prime cardboard box real-estate for when I can no longer afford my apartment. The riverfront property is looking quite nice, although I'd have to kill off at least three winoes in order to make sufficient room for myself. But I digress.

Overall, the job hunt is going quite well. I've put in quite a few applications and resumes. Now I just have to get the employers to start calling me back.

So I went to my new ward on Sunday. I think I actually prefer this ward. Its much smaller. Only about 50 people at Sacrament meeting. I'm actually in the University Park ward that serves the University of Maryland. We meet at the Institute building right off the UM campus. It's only about 5 miles from where I live so I just take the bus up there. Quite convenient actually.

Well, Party on and don't let the man get you down. Stick it to him whenever you can.

Well, just to update all of you, I did recently get hired on at a temp/placement agency specializing in providing employees for non-profit organizations. They seemed really focused on getting me hooked up with organizations that I would actually feel good working for, so that looks quite promising. I'll let you all know how that ends up. I'm also putting in my application at the House and Senate recruitment offices, so hopefully I'll be able to find employment working for an extremely left-wing Congressman. That would be cool.

The time has come for the second chapter of this thrilling saga. When we last left our hero, he was training future public servants for their own futures in some sort of National Service. Well, as with all good things, that also had to come to an end. Don now faces the most daunting challenge of his adventure in the land of politics: Unemployment. Yes Don was officially canned on Sunday (after a one week extension to work a youth program on Law) and is now once again facing his nemesis: the job hunt. However, this time around, Don does not have his trusty parent's basement to serve as a base of operations against the dreaded fiend. However, he has relocated to Maryland with a fellow former member of the staff of the youth program who is also fighting the same beast. As Don attempts to attain the goal of sustained meaningful employment, many questions arise for our hero: Will he once again prove victorious as he always has in the past? Will he be able to find a job that will support his convictions? Or will he have to sell out to the man in order to make ends meet? Find out the answer to these and many more questions in the next exciting chapter of our ongoing Don in DC Epic.

So, random thing happened to me last Saturday (10/15). I was out on the National Mall as our kids were exploring the Smithsonians. If any you caught the national news, you would know that last Saturday was the 10 year anniversary/sequel to the Million Man March. For those unfamiliar with the Million Man Movement, it is a black-power rally. I got to stand in the National Mall and listen to the likes of the Rev. Al Sharpton and Minister Louis Farakhan tirade about the current administration and how they sabotaged the levees in New Orleans, etc. It was pretty cool. So of course I signed my name on one of the official rosters to say I was there and to show support for my black brothers. Word.

So, I was at church last Sunday (10/9), and who do I see? Not one, but two 177th ward alumni. You all remember Pete Keyworth? Yeah, he was there. And Anne Colton is in the ward as well. So, needless to say, it was nice to see a couple of friendly faces (Not that the other faces were unfriendy. Its just that I didn't know the other faces, and thus couldn't tell if they were friendly or not. You know how it is. What may appear to be a friendly face could actually be extremely unfriendly, and vice versa. But with those two, I knew the face and thus could accurately label them as either friendly or unfriendly. And they were friendly.)

Greetings Friends!!

This is my new blog, so today I'm republishing the mass emails I've sent out in my blog so that those of you who wish to visit and revisit my adventures over and over again can have one convenient locale to do this.

So, here goes...

I'm doing great out here. The job is a ton of fun. The kids that are in the program are quite smart and well behaved, so I really haven't had to be much of a babysitter. I'm more of a mentor and guide as they embark on their journey towards a future in national security policy. OK, so that was dumb, but you get the picture.