Digging out in the suburbs of D.C., again

After two feet of snow, I stopped counting and just kept shoveling. By the way, those are buried cars on the far right edge of this picture.

I think we got close to 30 inches in Sterling, Va., just outside of Washington, while Baltimore was up around 32 inches. In the mountains west of Loudoun County, inch totals were in the 40s.

To show how serious this storm was, malls closed all around Northern Virginia. I mean big, upscale malls in Tysons Corner and elsewhere. Malls never close on a Saturday -- not here in the materialistic capital of the world where there are more enclosed mega shopping centers and sprawling outlets in a 25-mile radius than anywhere else east of the Mississippi.

For this area, this weekend's storm brought twice as much snow as we usually get in an entire winter. And don't forget, back in December we were hit by a similar storm, not to mention several smaller storms in between. For a guy who can't stand winter, this hasn't been a good year.

This winter is adding insult to injury (it has not been a good year in any regard) and creating a few new aches and pains along the way. After hours of shoveling I have come to realize that driveways, even short ones, in cold climates are a young man's game. I'd be far better off swatting mosquitoes in Boca.

My house is still standing and I am not in traction. I am grateful for both of those things. But get this, the forecast for Tuesday calls for more snow.

Are we almost there?

The road to landing a job these days will mostly likely begin online.

As I sat in Starbucks today, a young man came in and asked a couple employees if they were hiring. Knocking on doors was a proven way of finding a job, particularly in retail or the service industry, in the not-so-distant past. I expected the Starbucks workers to give the young man an application, maybe sit down with him for a chat, but I was wrong.

I should have guessed it. They directed him to the company web site. Told him he can get information and apply online. He nodded sort of knowingly and departed. I know the look.

I have called human resource departments at universities and major companies a couple times to get information on hiring. I was quickly rerouted to their career web sites. I've also called top hiring managers at smaller firms. Same results.

Most help-wanted ads these days instruct job seekers not to call. Some are pretty darn hostile about it. And god forbid you show up in person with a resume in hand. You could find yourself escorted from the building by security guards.

It seems the web is the perfect method for employers to screen the many unemployed people looking for work in this recession. Just navigating through some company career sites serves as a way of making sure one has the technical skills needed in today's job market. If you can't do that you obviously won't be hired. Fortunately, I haven't had any difficulties creating PDFs of my resume or directing employees to web sites that feature my work or references. I am good at that stuff, but not so good at getting positive replies.

Most employers warn in their ads that they probably won't contact applicants unless they want to hire you. Just not feasible, I guess, with all the applications they receive. The lack of a human touch in this process is sometimes difficult to cope with. Some employers, I have found out after applying, withdrew the position for budgetary reasons.

I remember looking at Guitar Center's web site several months ago when I was considering finding a "fun" part-time job with a retailer just to get out of the house and bring in a few extra dollars. The music store went the extra mile on the Internet highway, actually having a mechanism for conducting the initial interview online. I didn't want to try selling myself to an electronic interviewer, so I passed.

No wonder it's so difficult to find work. Along with the high unemployment rate, the efficiency of web-based job applications is only efficient for employers who don't want to look beyond a few keywords that their computers identify in resumes. For employees, it's easy to get lost in all the traffic on the job-site expressway.

Yet, I offer a warning to those who seek back-road shortcuts or alternative routes. Proceed at your own risk. Most employers frown upon people trying to circumvent the process. You won't get any initiative points for not following the rules of the road in most cases. I've tried it and found myself right back on the Internet entrance ramp, trying to merge into oncoming traffic.

I suppose the best way to find a job is to know someone in a hiring position -- or at least it was a decade or two ago. I do know a few of those types of people in those types of positions. In fact, at one time, I hired some of them. In one or two cases I actually saved their jobs. Another story for another day. But now they tell me there just aren't any openings. No opportunity to return the favor, sort of speak. I believe them but still can't help feeling disappointed that we're now in an era where people who want to help can't. I am sure it's not a good feeling for them, and I know it's a rotten reality for those seeking work.

So it's back on the Internet freeway for me, trying to get noticed amongst all the other electronic applications and professional networking colleagues, hoping that one of these exits is the right one. Hoping the traffic subsides soon before my fuel gauge hits empty or the kids in the back seat ask yet again whether we're almost there.

China warns U.S. about the Dalai Lama

No matter how many advancements China makes, there is still something primitively insecure about its government. China can host spectacular Olympics and build high-speed-rail trains, yet this is a country that has the arrogance to warn the United States not to meet with a Tibetan monk.

I understand China holds a lot of our debt and has territorial concerns in its part of the world, but that doesn't mean we have to quiver at its every warning. We could make a few threats of our own -- like we could stop importing China's poisonous pet foods and defective drywall. In many ways, we've built up China's economy while imperiling our own.

Chinese officials don't want President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama. Among other things, they charge that a meeting between Obama and the spiritual leader could harm America's economic recovery.

This paranoia about the Dalai Lama makes China, a country with the largest military on the planet and a robust economy, look silly and immature. The threats related to our economy are manipulative at best. Read about it here.

Coming from a country that produces the world's toxic junk, still slaughters endangered animals because of a cultural belief in the healing powers of parts of those animals and provides weapons to rogue nations ... well, I have trouble respecting demands from its officials. It seems the more things change with China the more they stay the same.

I read the Dalai Lama's book, The Art of Happiness, several years ago. The thrust of his message was that unhappiness is rooted in the desire for things. Those things can be material objects like cars and jewelry. They can also be intangibles like control and power. Maybe China's political leaders should read it.

Taking typing to a new level

I believe my typing skills have vastly improved in my year off from work. A modest silver lining to an otherwise humbling and difficult year.

As much as I typed in my job at USA TODAY, it doesn't compare to how I burn through a keyboard now. I am almost always typing. It's how I apply to 90 percent of the jobs that I seek. Employers generally loathe when you call or show up uninvited to inquire about a position. They will redirect you to their web sites with lightning speed. Of course, web sites weren't so prevalent the last time I was looking for work, so this has been a change for me. Thus far, a fruitless change. I've applied to 223 companies, some of them several times. That's a whole lot of typing and navigating through multi-layered job applications.

Typing is how I primarily stay in touch with long-distance friends and colleagues. I do the social/professional networking thing and blog when I have a few spare moments. I cover a lot of ground on any given day. There is a sense of efficiency in doing personal and professional business this way, but there is also a feeling of losing human connections.

Despite the speed and efficiency, technology has its drawbacks. For instance, I have pains in my hands that I never felt before, probably from overusing my laptop and mouse. Nothing severe. But nonetheless annoying. When I worked at the newspaper, I was behind a nice desktop Macintosh, writing from one of those ergonomic chair-desk combos. Now I am on an aging Dell laptop with a bad screen, sitting in a $50 chair at a desk that is way too high. My questionable posture isn't getting any better working this way.

When technology fails or a server crashes it can mean even more time in the chair, retyping a job application or refiling an unemployment claim, literally adding insult to injury. It's no fun losing your tax information because of a software glitch or having your cover letter zapped from an employer's web site just as you're putting a period on the final sentence. Universities and government employers have a particularly technical and grueling process for applying to jobs. Better hope your internet connection is stable before getting started.

I am not sure what my typing speed is up to now. I am guessing I'm at least 10 words per minute faster than I was last year. As an English major, I've always been comfortable behind a keyboard, but have taken my game to a new level lately. Instant messaging is particularly useful for building up typing agility. Of course, I am not looking for data-entry or word-processing jobs -- at least not yet. But if and when the time comes for that sort of employment, I will be ready.