Loudoun County is No.1 in wealth

I don't feel like I live in the wealthiest county in America. Yet, Forbes says households here have an income of about $110,000, making it the richest place in the U.S.

Loudoun County, Va., is a nice place. If you live in the populated eastern end, you're less than 30 miles from D.C. If you live farther west, you have views of mountains, wineries and horse farms. Scattered throughout the county are high-end stores, restaurants and major companies.

Two miles from where I live, in a more modest townhouse community, is the Donald Trump Golf Course. It winds its way along the Potomac River. However, two miles in the opposite direction are some low-income housing complexes. A little farther away, across Route 7, lies the community of Sterling Park (not part of Sterling) -- a place known as the home of illegal immigrants, lots of gang activity and rundown homes.

The weather here isn't as nice as La Jolla, Calif. There are no views of the ocean like in Palm Beach County, Fla. You might run into the occasional politician or Washington Redskin football player out and about in Loudoun, but you aren't likely to see any celebrities of note as I did when I lived in the suburbs of New York and occasionally would run into Al Pacino or other famous people.

The beautiful people do not live in Loudoun County, but that's not to say there isn't some old money to the west in horse country. Yes, there is plenty of grooming and lots of fitness gyms here, but no starlets fluttering about at any New Age spas or young guns cruising the boulevard. You will see a lot of luxury cars, but they are usually stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic or driven by people who should have never been granted a license. A vanity plate will on occasion indicate that someone has too big of an ego for these parts. But there are showoffs everywhere. Big fish in little ponds.

Life in Loudoun County is about making money and raising kids. That's its focus. It doesn't attempt to be the tourist capital of the world. It doesn't pretend to be enlightened or artsy like a Santa Fe or San Francisco. It is well educated, a bit arrogant and not the friendliest of places.

Crime is low in Loudoun but taxes are high. On the eastern end there are lots of Arabs and Indians, but few African-Americans. Like most places, there is a mix of Hispanic folks from various countries. It is more of a melting pot than many other affluent areas around the nation.

Dulles International Airport continues to grow, giving the county another boost. New terminals and airport transportation systems are being built. A Metro train rail will connect the airport to downtown D.C. by 2016. Already-high property values are expected to shoot up once that project is completed. Unlike Reagan Airport in D.C., Dulles has international flights. Because there are a lot of foreigners living in Loudoun, the airport is a major convenience when they want to travel. Businesses throughout Northern Virginia benefit from having an international airport. Dulles also has some of the longest security lines in the country.

Unemployment is low in Loudoun. Most of the jobs are in technology-related fields, but of course lots are jobs are tied to the federal government. There are also plenty of service-industry jobs. I am not sure how people working in lower-wage jobs can afford to live here. When I was working at USA Today (12 miles from here in Fairfax County), I needed every penny of my salary to maintain my home, pay my taxes, etc. Now that I've been unemployed for awhile, it's becoming less and less feasible to live in Loudoun. There isn't anywhere in Loudoun to go that would be safe and affordable.

Overall, I like living in Loudoun. After my 9 years here, I'd have to say it's one of the better places I've lived. I hate the traffic. Don't appreciate the rudeness. And I do get worn out by all the kids. But I figure most places have their drawbacks. I like feeling safe in Loudoun. I like living in a place without too much ignorance. I like mountains and rivers and eateries that aren't run by large corporations.

I wish Loudoun had more of a sense of Virginia about it. You're more likely to hear an Indian accent here than you are a southern accent. Of course, you are less likely to see a moonshine bust in Loudoun than you are in Danville, Va., 200 miles south of here. Dental health is generally pretty top-notch in Northern Virginia, too. Kids from Loudoun tend to go to college. That's not the case in say the southwest part of the state.

I don't think most Loudouners think of themselves as living in a highly exclusive area. Greenwich, Conn., has far more snob appeal than Leesburg, a historic town located near the center of Loudoun County. But Loudoun has a sense of livability and convenience that seems to attract folks of means -- folks who would not be as comfortable living in more rural or more urban places. We have our fair share of blue-bloods and residents who feel entitled to, well, everything, but I suspect Beverly Hills has more. As I mentioned, Loudoun is largely about families. And regardless of how much a person earns or how often they go to the tanning salons, you can only be so snobbish when immersed in raising kids. By the way, Loudoun has one of the highest rates of multiple-kid families in the country.

Unfortunately, growth has also made Loudoun less desirable to folks wanting more elbow room. Like the other D.C. suburbs, sprawl is becoming a problem here. The infrastructure is not in place to handle all the new subdivisions. Schools are constantly being built to keep up with the growth rate, therefore taxes go up each year. Some older people without kids are beginning to move away, tired of paying for schools that don't benefit them directly. County leaders can't seem to say no to any developer. As a result, some of the charm of Loudoun County has disappeared.

I like that I don't have to go far to get almost anything I need. Sure, if I want great crab cakes, I still need to drive the hour or so to Baltimore. If I want world-class museums, I need to go to Washington. But from Loudoun, those places are accessible. Loudoun has nice parks, a decent mall, good medical care and some of the best wineries on the East Coast. We even have not one, but two Wegman's food stores. Many universities have satellite campuses here. There are still quaint towns like Waterford and Middleburg that are nice to visit for the day. And parents rave about the public school system.

I am sure there are glitzier places that would appear to be wealthier than Loudoun. I know there are friendlier places and states and counties with nicer weather and lighter traffic. Loudoun County is very good at providing for the upper-middle class. And as long as you have a good job and can tolerate an area that seems to have more than its fair share of Type A personalities, life in Loudoun is very doable.

With that said, I think Loudoun needs to pay more attention to quality-of-life issues and not shut out the middle and lower-middle class folks who want to live here. School teachers, police and county government workers should be able to afford to live in the county they provide services to. This should not become a county just for members of the Trump country club. Too many businesses in Loudoun still underpay their employees. A lot of the money made by Loudoun residents comes from D.C. and surrounding counties in Virginia and Maryland. Salaries in a place like Leesburg are still relatively low compared to salaries in McLean, just 20 miles away in Fairfax County. One of the reasons why traffic is so bad in Loudoun -- and why people are so cranky here -- is because they have to commute to get the big bucks to afford homes and taxes.

If I have to leave Loudoun this year because of not being able to find a job, I will be disappointed but not entirely devastated. Loudoun isn't a warm and fuzzy place. It's a functional county but not one that creates a lot of sentimental feelings. I personally don't know of any adult who grew up here. Few people have roots in Loudoun. Most of Loudoun's growth happened in the last 15 years. So there are people from all over the world who now call this home, but they don't really have any serious attachments to the area.

Still, I would rather stay than be forced to leave. Living here is a mixed bag, but it's more good than bad.

Yeah, we're No. 1 in household income. We have lots of new buildings, some scenic vistas to the west, lots of college-educated people. Whether Loudoun has a soul remains to be seen. Whether or not people who want to stay or move here can afford to do so also remains to be seen. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am wary of anything that gets too big or is ranked too high. There is only one place to go once you've reached the top.

Read more about Loudoun's No.1 ranking.

Tearing down old memories in the Bronx

You won't see the old Yankee Stadium imploding. Using dynamite to bring down large structures is not permitted in New York City. So the stadium, which holds many good memories for me, is being ripped apart piece by piece. Slowly. Painfully. It will be completely gone by June. Yes, I do see the potential metaphors...

Across the street lies the new Yankee Stadium, which debuted last year when the Yankees won the championship. I haven't been to the new stadium. Frankly, I didn't want to see the remnants of the abandoned old House that Ruth Built -- didn't want to see anymore reminders of what no longer exists. But I hear the new stadium is spectacular, so I hope to eventually make the trek up I-95 to the homeland to see it. It won't be the same, but few things remain constant in life. Baseball stadiums are no exception. Watch video.

Feeling fatigued from too much Toyota news

My daughter drives a Toyota. I recommended the brand and went with her to buy the car a few years ago. She likes her car. It's not one of the recalled models, but obviously I have had some concerns because of the safety problems being reported.

If you have similar worries about Toyota read this. Essentially, the writer of this article does the math and the math indicates that the chances of having a runaway Toyota are pretty darn low. He also gets into why we are afraid of so many things that don't pose any overwhelming threat.

This doesn't mean that as a father I have no worries about my daughter's Corolla. I wish Toyota would have paid more attention to safety and less attention to the bottom line in recent years. I don't want to let the car company off the hook, nor do I want to ignore a country (Japan) that is so pro-business that it hasn't yet recalled a single Toyota in its homeland. But I also think that Americans are overly jittery about far too many things lately. Heck, we mentally fall apart, close schools and shut down the government whenever a snowflake falls from the sky. The risk of slipping in the snow seems to overwhelm us.

There are risks in life. I don't believe companies should knowingly create and lie about those risks like cigarette manufacturers have done for decades. We need consumer advocates and government regulators to expose and police companies that have bad intentions or cut too many corners. I am glad Toyota's over-the-top ambitions and greed have been exposed. However, I don't think this particular story deserves the media attention it has received. I don't think we need another thing to be overly anxious about.

There are plenty of things in life that fail far more frequently and have dire consequences when they do. Politicians fail us every day in profound ways that lead to recessions. Toyota cars aren't creating the infections in hospitals that kill tens of thousands of relatively healthy people each year. Camrys aren't wiping out the rain forest. We have convicted pedophiles living in our neighborhoods. We barely give any attention to the food we ingest or the factory farms that create it. Yet, we're obsessing about Toyota?

As the author of the column writes, the problem could lie in the software of these runaway cars. We are relying way too much on technology, in my opinion. It's seeping into everything. Frankly, I want to make the decisions on how my car drives, handles and brakes. I don't want a computer telling the engine when to accelerate or steering mechanisms how to turn.

Perhaps one good thing that might come from these Toyota headlines is that technology needs to be managed better. Just because something is new and shows potential doesn't mean it's ready to go to market or will ultimately improve the quality of our lives.

Missing the old Greenberry's cell-free zone

Greenberry's Coffee & Tea Company started in Charlottesville, Va. Now there are franchises throughout the commonwealth and a few in neighboring states.

I hadn't been to the Greenberry's in Reston in months. But today I was in area and wanted to have a good cup of coffee before going home. In addition, I wanted some quiet -- something not associated with Starbucks and other large franchises.

I was disappointed to see that this particular Greenberry's no longer frowns upon cellphone use. And sure enough, a woman was chatting up a storm on her phone, oblivious to everyone around her.

Seems there are few places left where cellphones aren't permitted. That's unfortunate. Cellphones deter the opportunity one might have to start a face-to-face conversation with another patron. While these devices connect us in one way, they separate and isolate us in other ways.

I understand Greenberry's relaxing its store policy from a business standpoint, but I still think it's a shame on a more profound, cultural level.

Rejection a tough pill to swallow

"We will retain your candidate file in our database and may inform you of job openings that match your profile. We also invite you to visit the career section on our Web site regularly."

When I am lucky enough to receive the courtesy of a rejection letter from a potential employer, those are the words that the note often ends with. I guess it's an HR thing.

I have come to realize that those words are fairly empty. I've applied to companies and universities multiple times, for a wide variety of jobs, only to receive the same rejection letter or no reply at all. One local university that I won't name claims it is a champion of hiring mid and late-career professionals such as myself, yet I can't even get a phone interview for jobs that I am qualified for according to the requirements listed in the postings.

Rejection is rejection, I suppose. There aren't too many nice ways to tell someone they don't even merit a call. Still, I rather receive a rejection letter than to be left hanging. I would estimate that close 90 percent of employers don't respond to job applicants at all these days. I believe this is unprofessional and will come back to bite these employers if the economy improves. With almost everything being done electronically, it wouldn't take much effort for companies to automate their response systems so that applicants are left wondering if their applications were even received.

Most employers claim they are so swamped with applications that they can't respond to everyone who they reject. From my experience of dealing with well over 300 companies in the last 15 months, the employers receiving the most applications seem to be in areas like parts of Virginia, where unemployment rates are relatively low. A modest job opening here could produce hundreds of applications from all over the country. Thousands if the job is a higher paying one.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I recently talked to an employer in west Texas. She said her company, which is in a sparsely populated area, is actually having trouble filling jobs because of the lack of applicants. Seems most folks looking for work are focusing on the more cosmopolitan areas and better quality-of-life places.

It would be risky to relocate to an area where job opportunities are few. Even if someone were to secure a job in place like west Texas, there would be an uneasy feeling knowing that if that particular job or company were to eventually downsize or disappear, there would be no other options for work in that vicinity. You'd most likely have to relocate again, assuming you could afford to do so. It could get expensive hopping from state to state.

However, being in an area like northern Virginia also means intense competition for every job opening. Some employers have mentioned to me how wonderful it is having such a vast talent pool to recruit from in this part of the country. Yet for every super-talented person who is hired, there are a bunch of almost-equally qualified people who are rejected - intelligent people who in any other time in the last three decades would have been snatched up quickly by employers.

Being rejected month in and month out is a tough pill to swallow. Life's rejections usually come in smaller doses and sudden spurts, then it's over for awhile. A girlfriend dumps you. A bank turns you down for a car loan. You move on. For unemployed people who are desperately looking for work, rejection is an everyday occurrence. It has to be processed and managed without doing significant long-term damage to one's spirit. Unemployed people aren't just dealing with not earning a paycheck. They are coping with solitude, self-worth issues and a general feeling of being invisible. Society swirls around them, but they remain inside an eerie bubble that is clouded, disturbingly silent and alienating. Once proud and in possession of solid work ethics, they continually search for a way out.

The real numbers tell the real story

There are six people looking for work for every one job that's available... There are some communities where unemployment rates are around 50 percent... About 11 million jobs are needed to get everyone back to work... About 100,000 new people enter the job market each month, mostly after graduating from high school or college.

If you're unaware of the magnitude of the unemployment crisis, you have chosen not to pay attention for whatever reasons or have convinced yourself that you are immune to losing your job and/or wealth.

These are daunting numbers that still haven't received the attention they deserve. In places where unemployment rates are relatively low, you would almost think there is no recession. I live in one of those places where people can't see beyond their own inner circles of employed friends.

As many observers have noted, the Democrats are blowing it by obsessively focusing on health care rather than the economy. And the Republicans don't have enough of compassion to focus on any real solutions to either health care or unemployment. They're too busy trying to tear down President Obama.

Read more about this from a New York Times columnist.

So where do we go from here? Does unemployment need to spread like a virus, penetrating even the wealthiest neighborhoods and the most bullet-proof businesses before it is addressed in a more urgent and intelligent manner?

It makes me cringe when I hear people throwing around statistics that they twist into evidence of recent improvements in the job market. There is virtually no improvement. There are only people like myself falling off the radar because we're no longer on the official unemployment rolls because our benefits have run out, making it appear as if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Do I know of some people who have found work recently? Sure. But for every one who found work that means five other people didn't. Even if you are a hard-nosed cynic and want to believe that one of those five don't want to work or have never held a steady job, that still leaves four other well-intentioned, well-qualified folks without much hope. There are countless reasons why this can't be sustained forever without a total collapse in our economy and society.

We're in the eye of the hurricane. There is a false sense of calming, like the storm has passed. But the numbers indicate that we haven't seen the worst of times yet. Just as Americans rallied to win world wars, we need to rally our efforts to fortify the economy before its too late.

Why I may never vote Republican again

It doesn't happen often in my mature years, but every once in awhile I want to punch some arrogant politician in the face -- if not literally, then figuratively.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is the latest moron without a clue as to what he's talking about. Delay says people are unemployed because they want to be. Read about it here.

I would love to invite Mr. DeLay to my modest home and show him my Excel files on my computer with hundreds of jobs that I've applied to since being laid off from USA Today in December 2008. I would love to show him how little food is in my fridge, my lawnmower that won't start and my dishwasher that has been turned off for over a year because I can't afford to have it fixed. My thermostat is on 64. My socks have holes in them. And my pride has been blown to pieces.

I would love to show Mr. DeLay my credentials in order to make my case that for 29 years I was a responsible employee who earned his way up to larger companies, building an admirable career in journalism, learning new skills with each job, and embracing technology. I would enjoy telling him how I worked on my college newspaper and interned at the local television station while other people were partying, and how I am a third-generation journalist with ink in his blood, not a bum sitting on the corner drinking ripple wine.

If Mr. DeLay could produce a job in the area where I live, which paid even 60 percent of what I previously earned, I would take it. I would even consider relocating in order to work. But I doubt this Republican has any clue about the predicament I am in, the efforts I've made and the crushing disappointments I've experienced, nor cares. I am beginning to regret ever having voted Republican in my life. After the recent cold and uninformed comments about jobless people from DeLay, Pat Buchanan and Jim Bunning, I might never vote Republican again.

Wonder if Mr. DeLay knows what it feels like to interview for a job over the phone for 90 minutes and then never hear back from that potential employer? Wonder if Mr. DeLay realizes that I and millions like me spend 4-10 hours a day, seven days a week, looking for work, filling out sometimes complex online applications, networking and making cold calls?

If politicians like DeLay want to do something constructive, how about enforcing age-discrimination laws that are openly being broken by numerous companies. That might help improve the job-hunting chances of qualified folks 50 and older.

Right now, I am fighting against a recession, a dying industry (journalism) and blatant age discrimination. I apply to hundreds of jobs that I am 100 percent qualified for, Mr. DeLay, yet rarely get a reply, even though I usually state that I am not looking to exceed or even match my previous salary. Sadly, as my unemployment payments appear to have run out, I have to choose between selling my house this year so I can afford to accept a minimum-wage job or freelance work, or exhausting my remaining savings while I continue my search for a position that will enable me to maintain my modest lifestyle. This is reality and not as easy a choice as some people throwing stones seem to think it should be.

Mr. DeLay, does this sound like someone who doesn't want to work? Yeah, it's my personal story of the last 15 months, but it's also the story of many other people my age. I suggest you and other politicians who are prone to stereotyping unemployed people leave your gated communities and plush offices in Washington and start talking to guys like me -- guys who have busted their butts for decades, only to be treated like unwanted garbage by people like you. Many of us lost our jobs for less than honest or legitimate reasons. The layoffs of this recession were driven by some companies wanting to clear their payrolls of older workers. Now we're faced with criticism for not being able to find new jobs? Unbelievable.

Sen. Bunning was not "brave" in his recent attack on jobless Americans. That undignified attack wasn't about fiscal responsibility. You two are apparently cut from the same cloth -- talking in code, out of touch with realities of today. You are selling something to your conservative base, the ones who can't think for themselves, that is not honorable or true. Ironically, with your cold tactics and idiotic comments, you are doing more damage to your party than are the Democrats.

I am fiercely independent and weigh each issue on its on merits. I wish there was a political party that spent money wisely, but also protected the environment -- was pragmatic, yet compassionate. For whatever reason, it seems politicians can't support the protection of wolves yet also be tough on crime. I have never understood this. If it was up to Republicans, there would still be smoking in restaurants in Virginia, but we might not have the ridiculous car tax. Republicans want no regulations, but Democrats want to regulate everything. Where's the balance?

After these last several weeks, I doubt I will be supporting anymore Republicans for awhile. I live in a state where Republicans have turned down federal assistance for unemployed people. I've seen what a lack of regulations/funding leads to. And while I still believe Ronald Reagan was the perfect president for the time, I think we live in a very different era now. This recession is different than the last. The unemployment problem alone has taken on a unique form. We need less of Tom DeLay and Jim Bunning, and more politicians who can listen and not simply make ignorant assumptions.

"The Cove" wins best documentary feature

As I had hoped for in my previous post, The Cove just won an Academy Award. Maybe the film will help put an end to the horrors dolphins face in Japan and elsewhere. I feel particularly good for Ric O'Barry, the former Flipper trainer turned activist, who I mentioned in my last post.