Be Our Guest

My first step into this new world called the blogosphere began on New Year’s Day.

2010.

That’s the day I wrote my first words in something I titled, “My Journey Through Unemployment.”

Over the last 30 months, the blog has evolved.

To say the least.

A lot of words about unemployment.

And a lot of words about food.

And music.

And more food.

And family.

And quite honestly whatever has been on my mind.

As I embark on a new chapter of my life.

Called parenthood.

Again.

I’m sure that too will become a pretty common topic in my blog.

Especially as I continue to search for my next job.

But today, my blog is not about me.

It’s about someone I met through my blog.

Her name is Christina McCale.

Dr. Christina McCale.

Recently the good doctor asked if she could write a guest blog about her life.

And her unemployment.

In a word, I said... YES!

Dr. McCale, or Chris, is the author of a book titled “Waiting for Change.”

“It’s a book about unemployment and how it impacts every part of someone’s life:  housing, the job hunt, kids, emotional health, and food.”

Don’t I know.

But those are her words not mine.

Today she has provided us more of her words.

750 of them.

Telling the story of her story.

Which is not much different than mine.

And maybe yours.

If you’ve got an extra five minutes, I encourage you to click the link to my "old" blog:

http://myjourney-unemployed.blogspot.com/2012/06/waiting-for-change.html

I think it's well worth it.

Thank you.

If you are interested in writing a guest blog, please feel free to contact me at sirbacon123@yahoo.com.

Block Party

So where was I?

Oh yes.

Writing a blog.

Nearly two weeks ago.

Unfortunately it’s been that long since I hit the giant publish button at sirbacon123.com.

And boy have I really missed it.

Forget reading and arithmetic.

Writing is my favorite of the big three.

I could blame it on a bunch of things.

The holidays.

The kids winter break.

The this.

The that.

And true, all of those things have chipped in.

But the real truth is that for the last few weeks I’ve been living right in the heart of Writer’s Block.

At this very second, there are close to a dozen blogs just sitting on my desktop.

A dozen unfinished blogs.

Unfinished being the key word.

Blogs about my TiVo.

Blogs about Howard Stern.

Blogs about the Dollar Store.

The Vacuum Store.

The game of telephone.

Osama Bin Laden.

Do you see any connections there?

You do?

I don’t.

Right now I have more half-empty thoughts going through my head than Paris Hilton.

And that’s saying something.

As the great philosopher Bruce once said, I’ve got 57 channels.

And nothin’s on.

This is hardly the first time that I haven’t been able to complete a thought.

But it is the first time in a while.

And to be honest, it’s got me a bit freaked out.

After all, I am nothing without my words.

Even if I don’t punctuate them properly.

This little outlet called Sir Bacon has been a paradise for me.

Not always paradise.

But A paradise.

A place to disappear for a while.

A place to release the inner me.

A place to let it all go.

Everybody needs one of those.

For some it’s a bar.

Or a pool hall.

Or a Golden Corral .

For me, it’s my writing.

And unfortunately it’s been 12 whole days since I wrote my last blog.

Better known as The 12 days of Blisslessness.

I could blame it on a lack of time.

But that would be a lie.

I could blame it on a lack of stories.

Lie.

I guess I could blame it just on.... IT.

After all, IT happens.

And lately IT has been happening to me.

But just 347 words into this here blog, I can feel the blood in my fingers again.

And that’s a good feeling.

My writing is my castle.

And with the new year now here, I’m looking forward to a new beginning.

Another new beginning.

With new stories.

And new readers.

And new words.

Isn’t that why we all make new year’s resolutions?

Well this time my resolution is to start writing again.

NOW!

Do not fear Bacon lovers.

I still have a lot to say.

I just haven’t been able to say it.

A few days ago I tried writing about a weird dream I had.

A real dream.

Real weird.

I made it to 219 words.

Then stopped.

Then I tried writing about a weird story I heard.

A true story.

About a BIGTIME star athlete.

Who recently got in a plane crash.

But he doesn’t want anyone to know.

So nobody knows.

Except for me.

And the person that told me.

And the person who told him.

But I couldn’t find the right way to seal that story.

Or if that was even the right story to seal.

So I didn’t.

New Year’s Day marked the beginning of the third year of Sir Bacon.

280 blogs so far.

Probably an average of 650 words per blog.

My calculator app just told me that 182,000 words.

Catcher In the Rye has less than half of that.

And it took J.D. Salinger nine years to write that book.

12 days is nothing.

It’s good to be home.

One Bad Phishing Trip

Twishing – the act of sending a message to a Twitter user in an attempt to obtain his or her name and password. The message may instruct the recipient to visit a Web site where he or she is asked to log in. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information. Twishing is a combination of the words Twitter and phishing.

Boy do I feel stupid.

The direct message came in to my twitter account on Monday afternoon.

From a “friend”.

It read...

"Hey what's up with this bad blog thats going around about you?"

Followed by a link to that bad blog.

What!

Someone said something bad about me?

How dare they!

Who are they?

What did they say?

What did I say?

Was it that last blog I wrote?

That line about....

What’s wrong with a little honesty?

I must know.

And I must now know!!!!

So I did what every self-conscious.

Insecure.

I-just-want-to-be-loved-is-that-so-wrong blogger would do.

I clicked on the link.

That’s the stupid part.

It was a left hook to the gut.

I just didn’t feel it.

Yet.

The link sent me to a twitter homepage.

Or at least a page that looked like a twitter homepage.

Now for the REALLY stupid part.

It asked for my login name.

And password.

Check.

And check mate.

The entire time I’m sure there was a little voice in my head screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

But all I could hear was... “BAD BLOG ABOUT ME?” 

Within seconds of clicking on that link.

...

...

...

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

No bad blog.

No explanation.

No nothing.

It was at that exact point that this genius realized there was a phishing hook firmly planted in my beak.

D’oh!

Something had gone terribly wrong.

Like my lack of a brain.

I didn’t pass go.

I didn’t collect $200.

But what I did get.

Was a virus.

A virus that spent the night sending hundreds of direct messages to each of my beloved twitter followers.

The message read like this:

"Hey what's up with this bad blog thats going around about you?"

Look familiar?

Newman!

Unfortunately I had no idea this had happened until I got up the next morning.

6:22 to be exact.

I rubbed my eyes.

As I always do.

Then rubbed them again when I saw my inbox.

By the time I made it from the iPhone to the iMac.

I knew I was iScrewed.

• ??
• Got this from you.  What do you mean?
• Is that link good?
• I believe you’ve been hacked.
• Change your password.

Enter panic mode.

I immediately changed my twitter password.

As instructed.

I deleted the two tweets.

That were not from me.

Then I clicked on my messages folder.

Where I saw all of the emails my account had sent out.

Hundreds of them.

Which felt like millions.

And they all said the same thing:

"Hey what's up with this bad blog thats going around about you?"

Followed by a link to click on.

I started emailing people to tell them what had gone on.

And to NOT click on the link.

And that I was sorry.

VERY sorry.

At that point my phone rang.

From a friend.

No quotes.

A friend who received the direct message.

He informed me that I had been hacked.

Thanks for that.

I felt so bad.

At the time I really didn’t know how much damage had been done.

But the fact that my momentary lapse of reason brought this on really pissed me off.

It would be easy to blame it on the hacker.

Or the twitter.

Or the whatever.

But the bottom line is I was the one who put my fingers through the flame.

Even though I should’ve seen the fire from a mile away.

But somehow my friend talked me off the ledge.

He explained that I was the victim here.

Not the guilty one.

This was like my house being robbed.

My cyber-house.

Oddly enough, that was the same exact point my brother made on the phone with me an hour later.

There must be a handbook on how to talk to people who have been hacked.

But it helped.

And after I changed my password the messages stopped going out.

Which helped too.

A day later, the damage seems to be minimal.

Thankfully.

Fingers crossed. 

Fortunately most of my friends were smarter than me.

And they didn’t click on the link.

And maybe best of all.

There was no bad blog about me.

Until now.

The Write Stuff

Somewhere between being sick...

moving into a new house...

having writers' block...

getting offered a job interview...

and then having that offer rescinded... 

restarting my own version of the Atkins Diet...

getting a blister from shoveling snow... 

and watching the Super Bowl.

I haven’t published a blog in five days.

And it is killing me.

But it's not due to not trying.

(Two negatives makes a positive.)

In fact, in those five days, I wrote two blogs.

Two completely different blogs.

But neither one was right.

And you deserve right.

One blog was about a miserably sleepless night I recently had.

A night where I contemplated, but ultimately rejected, my maiden voyage into the land of Xanax.

You see, I had knots in my stomach like I had done 60 million sit-ups.

But that’s not possible.

Only Herschel Walker could do that.

But you can only stare at the ceiling for so long.

So finally I turned to the drug I have used and abused for the last 14 months.

It’s called writing.

I wrote a blog about exactly how I was feeling at exactly that moment.

It went a little something like this:

If there was ever a night to try the X-factor.

This would be it.

I could be sleeping right now.

Instead of writing.

Maybe that wouldn’t be such a good thing.

Writing has been the best medicine any doctor could’ve prescribed.

It has bailed me out more times than I can count in the last year.

In fact, with every hit of the keyboard I can actually feel the wind coming back into my sails.

Or maybe somebody opened the window when I wasn’t looking.

I’m really glad that most of my stories are funny.

Or hopefully funny.

Because that’s who I am.

A guy who just wants to laugh.

And make people laugh.

I have so many things to be happy about.

I couldn’t count them on the hands of an octopus.

If octopi had hands.

And it makes me feel like a selfish fool that I can’t break this funk that I am in.

My kids have tried to break me.

Fortunately they think I have a fever.

My wife has tried to break me.

She knows the truth.

And it hasn’t set her free.

She is sitting next to me trying to find the right words to say.

Or not say.

I wish it was that simple.

Somehow at the end of my writing, all 673 words.

I felt better.  A lot better.

I still couldn’t sleep.

But the knots had gone away.

Writing is like Tabasco sauce.

It goes with everything.

A few days later I tackled the latest twist and turn in my pursuit of employment.

Recently I had a business meeting.

Not a job interview.

Just a meeting.

At this meeting, we talked about my life.

Their company.

And our business.

We never talked about a specific job opening.

Because there wasn’t one.

This particular meeting was with a very high ranking person in my industry.

I traded in a bunch of favors and a Pete Rose rookie card to get her email address.

I was shocked when she responded.

Maybe she thought I was somebody else.

But either way, this was my chance to shine.

And apparently I did.

About twenty minutes in she said... 

“It’s not often that great people occupy the couch you are sitting in for meetings like the one we are having.”

(Did she just call me “great?”)

“Does that mean that I am great?”, I responded.

My response was one part humble, one part tongue-in-cheek and seven parts PLEASE SAY YES.

“Yes.”

“You are great,” she said.

Holy ego boost Batman.

Upon hearing this, I did what any bashful person would do.

I threw both of my arms into the air like I had just completed a 149-yard touchdown pass.

Being called “great” in an interview, I mean meeting.

Wow!

But what did it really mean.

Well, in this case, it meant that six weeks later I had heard nothing from her.

Nothing.

Not a word.

Until a few days ago.

Out of nowhere she emailed me.

SHE emailed ME.

“I wanted to check in to see what you are up to?”

Um, nothing, absolutely nothing, positively nothing, I’ve got more free time than the greeter at WalMart.

I thought to myself.

She then asked if I would be interested in...

YES.

Interested in _______, fill in the blank.

The answer is still the same.

YES.

But in this case, I actually was REALLY interested.

Dream job, maybe not.

Great job, definitely.

Job!

I was going to wait three days to respond to her note.

Like they taught me in Swingers.

But instead I responded in three hours.

And I said I was very interested.

Not interested.

VERY interested.

Too eager I suppose.

About an hour later she replied back.

And said she had jumped the gun and that this wasn’t the right job for me.

But you called me GREAT.

Actually, I had to agree.  On the job not being right part.

But she also said she will stay in touch.

SHE will stay in touch with ME?

Nice.

Hey, the fact that I’m even on her radar is the victory here.

And that will help me sleep tonight.