chrisisoutrunning

I need to release some of my frustration that's been building up for a while... and this seems to be the most appropriate thread to do that in. I was let go from my Structural Engineering job at the beginning of February, it wasn't completely unexpected, I could tell that there was getting to be less and less work, but kept hoping that I wouldn't be one of the ones to get the axe... I kept an eye out looking for jobs to apply to in case it did happen to me, but never found anything. Unfortunately I was one of the two they let go. They let two of us go, neither of us have enough experience to sit for the PE exam (I graduated in May '07 and my colleague in May '06), but kept around another non-PE. They had been at the company the shortest, but would have been in the middle as far as experience (December '06 grad). Basically I figured they got rid of the two that they did because we had been there long enough for them to give their "standard" raise to. Anyways, I after this happened I sent out my resume to basically every Structural Engineering firm in the state of Wisconsin, along with the Chicago and Twin Cities areas. About 25% of the places sent me a standard thank you for your resume email and a few more managed to say they weren't hiring. The rest I never heard back from. At the same time as this I applied to a fairly large company in Madison that I have a couple of friends at, originally just because I knew they hired a decent amount of people all the time, but after the process went on, I really did want to work for the company. Well that process drug on extremely long... over a month after I originally applied I went over for an on-site interview and things went great. I was told that I'd hear back the following week, which came and went with nothing. I waited until it had been two weeks since I interviewed before I emailed the HR contact I had, to which she responded that they should know by the end of that week. So that Friday afternoon (first Friday in April) I get a call saying they haven't decided yet, and it'd be the next Friday. Once again, I survive until that Friday (mostly because I was going to the home opener), and about the 6th inning I get a call saying they still haven't decided and I would know by the 22nd... Well on Monday I found out that they couldn't offer me a position... My friends have told me they have stopped hiring for right now, not even filling the positions of people who are leaving. I completely understand why they would be doing this right now, but I'm still a more than a little frustrated that they strung me on for so long... I don't really expect anything to come out of this post, I know there are a ton of other people out there in my situation, but I needed to get all of this off my chest... I guess I'm just pissed right now that every job in my line of work wants 5-10 years experience and a PE license. If this keeps up for too long there are going to be a ton of people like me who leave engineering because it's nearly impossible to get a job.

I have to preface by saying I've only seen four of the 15, but I have a hard time believing there's any way you can create a top movies list that goes beyond 10 and fails to include The Godfather... I'll just blame it on Part III... I realize it's not a "top" movies list per se, but I still believe that it should be on that list.

I got my tickets today for my Terrace Box 9 game pack, Loge Bleachers like the others, I wasn't lucky enough for row 1, I'm row 15 seats 1&2 in 234. Now I just have to wait and find out if I can go... (Waiting for a phone call on a job interview I had last week, if I get a position I might be starting April 6th... if not it'd be May 4th... as much as I love the crew, I'd really rather have a job sooner than later)

I'm thinking that the economy will keep some people away, but I also think that it mostly depends on the team. Early in the year the crowds will be in the "honeymoon" phase from the playoff run last year, so I think things will be pretty full for the first two or three months (we also start of with the cubs, so 3 straight sell outs are guaranteed). but i'm going to with 2.8 million, as I think the team isn't going to be as good as last years, hurting the attendance...

Trying to find a job. I've applied to every company in the Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Twin Cities areas in my field (Structural Engineering) who's website says they are taking applications, or actually have a job posted. Problem is I have just over a year and a half experience, and worse, the economy sucks, banks aren't lending, so people aren't building, so architects and engineers like myself are losing their jobs. My company evidently had been losing money for about 3 or 4 months before myself and another engineer were let go, we were in the crappy position of not having our PE certifications yet, but we had been there long enough to have gotten raises... So goodbye to the most expensive expendable employees. It's cold outside, I've cleaned the entire apartment, I've done the laundry, I've sent out my resume to 17 different companies... All I can do now is wait or look for jobs in different fields... If anyone is looking for someone with a strong math and science background and doesn't mind a Civil Engineering degree, let me know, I can start the 23rd...

Pretty sure the game is in Columbus. yep, columbus

thanks, i tried digging through that site and never found that page.

Rather than start a new thread, I'll throw my question in here. I got laid off last Friday from my job as a Structural Engineer. I received a week's severance pay and reimbursed for unused sick and vacation days, neither of which they were required to do per the employee manual, but this was the first time in the 21 years the company had been in business that they had to let professional staff go. Okay, so here's my question, I know I can't receive unemployment this week because of the severance pay, (I already got myself in the unemployment system and the guy I talked to stated I wouldn't be able to receive benefits until the week of Feb. 15th - 21st and I couldn't file for those benefits until the 22nd), but I wanted to make sure that if I take a part time job between now and then that I won't disqualify myself from the benefits. I don't want to end up taking a 20 hr per week job that won't get be half of what unemployment would... Can anyone else confirm what DougJones43 said about the $.67 on the dollar? (not that I don't believe you, just want reassurance) And if anyone knows where there are Structural Engineering jobs for someone with about 2 years of experience... let me know... I basically already know if I want to stay in the Milwaukee area or move back to Madison, I won't be doing Structural Engineering...

I did my taxes online using TaxAct and there was a specific screen for me to enter the amount of money I received from the stimulus checks earlier in the year. I could be wrong, but I don't believe you count it as income, but I'm just an engineer, not a CPA, so take my word for what it's worth.

I'm pretty sure this contract will go through his 3 arbitration years. He didn't get called up until May 2006, so he wouldn't have qualified for Super-2 status and this would have been his first go around with arbitration this year. Personally I think the Phillies will get the better end of this deal if Hamels stays healthy and pitches the way he has the past couple of years (and they'll come out even better if he gets better). But as always, if Hamels blows out his arm, Phillies lose, Hamels walks away with $20 million guaranteed. I'm also not quite sure why they couldn't have at least got an option year to take up one year of free agency, I thought that was part of the point of signing multi-year deals with a guy pre-arbitration or in his first year of arbitration. If he stays healthy and progresses like a young pitcher normally does, I could see him making himself $100 million+ since he'll be turning 28 a couple of months after the end of this contract... Edit: I'm an idiot, at least according to MLBTradeRumors he's a Super 2. I guess I'm slightly confused, both about why you would give someone a guaranteed contract that doesn't go through all of their arbitration years, and the Super 2 thing, I think I get it, evidently the Phillies didn't keep him down in the minors long enough into May in 2006.

Current collective bargaining agreement runs through 2011 I think it would actually be a tough sell for owners of both the big and small market teams. The big market teams can still make money spending whatever they feel like spending, but the small market teams would be forced to spend money on older talent that would either stand in the way of their young talent or just be expensive benchwarmers. If you were to create a salary floor you would probably have to rework the salary structure for the first three years and the arbitration process because that holds down the salaries of younger players who could be making more. Also, how low is the floor going to be? I think of a team like Pittsburgh, how are they going to come up with the revenue streams to be able to afford to pay something like $70 million (just throwing a number out there for a floor) if they are 67-95 the year before this goes into place. Pittsburgh drew just under 1.61 million people this year, the Yankees just short of 4.3 million. I may be in the minority in this part of my opinion, but it would probably take 5-10 years to get things anywhere close to the "even" playing field that is present in the NFL. In addition do we start having non-guaranteed contracts similar to the NFL? Or keep the guaranteed contracts like the NBA? I think that it's hard to compare what a salary cap would look like in baseball to the one the NFL has because of the huge difference in number of home games and the way TV revenue is distributed amongst the teams. That being said, I'm sure someone will bring up a point that I missed here and prove me wrong or give a good counterpoint.

I thought when he opted out, the Rangers were absolved for the remainder of the contract. Yeah, the biggest winners in A-Rod opting out were the Rangers, as that meant they were off the hook because the original contract was terminated.

I'll mark my name down second on the petition to allow swearing in this thread. Back on topic, I can't say I'm surprised. I really thought he'd sign with the Red Sox. So that's $161 million for Sabathia, $170 million for Teixeira, and $82.5 million for Burnett. Add in A-Rod for $275 million and in those four players the Yankees have spent $688.5 million. To put that in perspective, I looked up the Brewers team salary and found a usatoday.com page that listed the team payroll for the past 21 season. Over that time frame (1988-2008) the total Brewers player payroll was (if my adding was correct) $723,206,756. If you throw in the Posada and Rivera contracts from last offseason ($52.4 million and $45 million respectively), that brings the Yankees to $785.9 million. So in six players (37 total years worth of contracts), the Yankees have more money tied up than the Brewers have paid in the past 21 years. I've never been a huge proponent of a salary cap. I figured eventually the luxury tax would curb the spending of the Yankees. I will admit that I was completely wrong on this assumption. I also feel that something needs to be done about the draft compensation in regards to situations like this. The fact that the Brewers will be getting the Yankees 2nd round pick and the Blue Jays will be getting their 3rd round pick is completely wrong. The compensation system wasn't set up for situations like this.

Checked the fuses last night, at least anything that had the word Heating or HVAC in the owners manual. Still didn't work when exchanged with spares. All also appeared fine to the eye. Mechanically inclined, not so much, that's why I'm hoping to get it home. I could change it if I really needed to, but it wouldn't be the prettiest sight in the world.

I'm hoping to get a little bit of advice on how to deal with a slight predicament that I'm in right now. I went out to my truck (1998 Chevy S-10) after work last night only to find my heater not blowing out any air. So I was forced to drive home looking through an approximately 9" wide hole in my windshield that I managed to scraped clean. I don't hear a fan running at all, no matter where I have the fan speed dial set at between 1 and 4. I checked the fuses last night and all of them appeared to be fine. I went to the dealership this morning hoping they could look at it today, but they said they wouldn't be able to until Friday, so I left, took it back to my apartment and got a ride to work with my fiancee. The advice I need isn't so much on what the problem may be, but anything along those lines would be appreciated, because my dad use to be a mechanic and can probably fix whatever needs to be done. But I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to drive from Waukesha to west central Wisconsin tomorrow afternoon without completely freezing the inside of the windshield over with condensation from my breath. Am I going to have to drive almost three hours with one of my windows part way down? Any other home remedies that may help me out here? The alternative to driving my own vehicle home is riding with my fiancee, coming back to Waukesha on Christmas Day so she can go to work on the 26th (no choice), and only seeing my family for about a 24 hour time period.

There was a Real Chili on State Street in Madison for a couple years. Never really seemed to catch on... I don't really know, it was too far down State during the winter to venture down to it, and when it was warm enough... well I didn't really want chili... As for the credit cards thing... beats me... Mickie's in Madison only takes cash...

Is anyone else looking forward to Tom Clancy's EndWar? I basically geeked out when I found out about the game, forgot about it while it got delayed, and re-geeked out when I downloaded the demo on the Playstation Network. It comes out tomorrow and from what I know you can basically play the entire game with one button and a headset.

I'm going to be in Philadelphia for a friend's wedding this weekend (unfortunately I'm the best man and can't skip out to try to scalp tickets to game three of the World Series...) and was wondering what I/my friends could do to kill some of the extra time we have on Saturday and before our flight leaves Sunday. The wedding and everything that goes along with that is actually in Wilmington, DE, but I think we'll have access to a vehicle to get to Philly. I'd love to get downtown and get an authentic Philly Cheesesteak, but beyond that I'm not sure what else there is/I want to do.

I actually have gotten through three times for single seats. What I figured out is that it appears they release seats at 10 and 40 after the hour. Just start refreshing basically as fast as possible starting then... Each time I got through within a minute or two. Good luck.

There's the obvious answers in CC, Prince, Braun, Sheets... etc. We couldn't have done it obviously without all of them. But the one guy down the stretch to me that we couldn't have done it without is Craig Counsell. The one thing the team needed badly when Yost was fired was someone who could get on base. After the firing, per my quick calculations, Craig only batted .185, but had an OBP of.450! In just the last 7 games, when every game was needed, that OBP jumps to .556. As for a moment, Braun calling out the team after Boston would be the single moment that stood out to me. The team was basically in a tail spin, and for the next 3 1/2 months the team played unbelievably.

http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp208/ccgates/guido.jpg

stupid question but are you out the money if there isn't a game 5? or are you going to get a refund somehow?

So from what I can tell, Branyan isn't able to play in the field, so we're down to picking two of Counsell, Escobar, Hall and Lamb. So we're basically looking at one of the following combinations: 1. Counsell - 3B and Escobar - SS 2. Hall - 3B and Counsell - SS 3. Lamb - 3B and Counsell - SS 4. Hall - 3B and Escobar - SS I highly doubt #4 and somewhat doubt #1, though that's probably the one I'd like to see. #2 would be putting Hall out against a righty he can't touch, and #3 would be putting the "worst" defensively of the four out there... Ideas?

Haudricourt says that something might have happened, but they won't know for sure until J.J. reports to the park today. Haudricourt: Hardy might have hand injury (edit: added text to this link and to the link in the post above; that way members will know they're the same --1992)

I tried for a while to get two, but ended up getting the message saying that amount of tickets wasn't available, so I tried for one just to see, but got the same message... looks like FSN-WI for me...