Monday_Aug30th

Well, tomorrow's the last day of August.  I can't believe that Labor Day is just one week away.

I got a call back today from a job application that I made over a month ago.  I'm pretty excited that this may be something with promise.  I made an appointment to go in for an interview on Thursday morning.  At this point, I have been out of work for 60 weeks, have applied for approximately 193 jobs so far and mailed out untold numbers of resumes.  It's too bad that postage and supplies are not tax deductible as a job hunting expense.  They're not, are they?

It's really hard to remain positive about any job prospects when you keep hearing the dismal news of the Economy and the stock market.  Oddly, people are still able to buy new cars and July has showed strong sales figures in that sector.  Practically everyone that I know is too afraid of taking on any new car payments, which would also mean much higher insurance premiums and higher personal property taxes.

I live in VA and here's a couple of added expenses for buying a new car:  $25,000 car - add $750 for (3%) sales tax and $1,062 for personal property taxes. (4.25% per each $100 assessed value)  The city that I live in also has the personal property tax due date of December 5th, making it just one more thing to check off on your Christmas list.  (Isn't that helpful?)

But, I digress...

I hear we're heading into the peak of the hurricane season here along the Mid-Atlantic coast.  Earl is expected to be here by Thursday night and Fiona is right behind him.  We could, actually, use the rain that usually accompanies a hurricane since it's been such a dry summer.  What we don't need, however, is the damaging winds and flooding.  The last severe hurricane for this area was Isabel in 2003.