The Job Creation Disconnect

The Greensboro (NC) News and Record newspaper had a huge article the Sunday before last stating that this area has lost tens of thousands of good paying factory jobs in the last 15 years or so.  And if you're from this area, or much of the country, you're reply is probably, "Duh."  For those of you not in this area, the "Piedmont Triad" is the marketing name for this area in central North Carolina comprising the three main cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Highpoint, and the surrounding small towns.  This area traditionally was big in tobacco, textiles, and furniture making.  Guess what, many of those jobs have been outsourced to other countries.  In the tobacco world, the anti-smoking fervor also helped reduce that industry.  Like the article said, this area, like so many others, has lost over a hundred thousand jobs over the last 25 years or so.  We all know that.

As a recovering taxi driver, I'm one of the millions of people who hasn't been able to find a good paying job.  I've written for magazines, worked on the crews of TV shows, and done many other things over the years.  But none of that helps me get a job in today's work force here in North Carolina.  Unlike millions of unemployed people out there, though, I've been reading and educating myself on the big picture and macro-economic situation in our rapidly changing, tech-laden world.  Unfortunately, most of the people actually running our cities, counties, states and federal government have not read the books or listened to the dozens of lectures I have.  I know I'm a geek in this area, but it still baffles me how clueless so many people in power are to the big picture.  So here are some of the main issues in job creation today.  These aren't my conclusions, but the findings of experts in various areas.  This is why we're having such an issue finding good jobs today.

Robots:  I don't have exact figures, but industrial robots and other forms of technology have probably taken more former human manufacturing jobs than out sourcing.  ATM machines, for example, killed off hundreds of thousands of bank teller jobs.  We've all seen the TV commercials of the robot arms welding cars and other things.  That's where a huge number of jobs have gone.  Those jobs aren't coming back.

Outsourcing:  This started a lot earlier than many people today think.  When I was a kid in rural Ohio, people were complaining of a few companies shutting down factories and moving to the American South.  Some years later, big corporations started moving jobs into Mexico and Taiwan.  Then jobs went to Japan.  Then came Southeast Asia and China.  Again, those high paying manufacturing jobs aren't coming back.  Period.  Stop whining about this.  Those jobs existed for a couple of generations because of the labor unions and because industry was nation-oriented.  Once the business world got more global, American workers were just too expensive.

High Technology:  Technology has completely changed our world in my lifetime, and most of our industrial age organizations, and thinking, have not caught up with that.  One by one, our industries and institutions are crumbling in the wake of new societal norms and the way tech has changed the working world.  Today's high-paying jobs are largely in tech, computer science, engineering, and similar fields.  We don't have enough workers to fill many of these jobs in the U.S.  This is a huge part of the disconnect, on one hand, 30 million people, including me, can't find decent jobs, but there are thousands of jobs employers can't fill because we don't have the right skills.

Clustering and the brain drain:  No one in politics (that I've see) even has a clue about this huge trend.  The cutting edge tech companies have spent the last 25 years clustering in a handful of regions in this country.  Why?  According to professor Richard Florida (who wrote The Rise of the Creative Class), this happens because now the top companies are going to where the talented people live, rather than workers moving to where the big companies are.  In addition, many of the best and brightest people in our country are going to work in these few regions.  The San Francisco Bay Area (aka Silicon Valley), Seattle, the Boston/New York City/Washington D.C corridor, Southern California and Austin, Texas are the main spots where tech is clustering.  This creates a couple of big issues:  These areas are where venture capital and money are focusing and pouring into.  On the other hand, with the smartest people in these few areas, the rest of the counttry is not only struggling to create jobs, but they're stuck with the people of 2nd and 3rd rate intelligence trying to figure out how to create more jobs.  Pure and simple, most of this country is slowly dying economically, and they don't even realize it.  The area where I live is one of those regions.

Changes in communication:  Personal computers, the internet/world wide web, smart phones, tablets, social media and other advances in technology have completely changed the work world.  While most people use these devices and tech in their personal lives, they don't take full advantage of these technologies in the workplace.  In this area where I live, many people in their 50's and older avoid computers all together.  The civic leaders in most of the country don't fully understand how this tech is affecting society, and they're still trying to bring back the lost factory jobs.  The mayors, city councils, state legislators and governors are all fighting the wrong battle.  They're stuck in the mentality of the industrial world they grew up in, and simply don't have a clue how to create new jobs for the millions of unemployed people in these cities across the country.

This is just a brief look  at why we have so many decent people without good paying jobs, and why we have so many high-paying jobs that can't be filled at the same time.  I'll go into more detail on these issues in further posts.  My advice to the chronically unemployed:  Create your own job if you possibly can.  That's what I'm doing.

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Get A Job

This is probably the worst radio edit of all time for a really great song.  Have you ever been in a situation where people who see you just don't know what it's like?  Everlast.

It's frustrating.  This week, the drama nob got cranked to eleven here in the household.  I got blindsided by things I didn't know were going on.  On one hand, I was offered some help in an area that I could really use it.  I didn't ask for the help, and it was initiated by someone talking behind my back.  That's really frustrating.  I accepted the help, because it came at a crucial time, again, unasked for by me. 

On the other hand, a couple of people I have a lot of respect for told me, "Maybe you should get a part time job."  I just nodded.  I know millions of other people in this country hear this on a regular basis, too.

Their frame of reference is 30 years ago when they began their professional careers.  At that time, factories in this country were just starting to shut down and move to other places.  But the job market was still strong.  Jobs were easy to find.  Decent paying jobs were pretty abundant.  Entry level jobs were everywhere.  You could walk into the office of most any company, fill out a paper application, maybe give them a resume', and get hired, often times on the spot.

But we don't live in that world anymore.  The people who wanted to help me simply don't realize what today's job market is like.  They're intelligent people.  But they just haven't had to deal with this situation in years.  I've already applied for pretty much every entry level job in this town, several times.  Even entry level jobs now require a 30 minute online psychological evaluation, graded by a computer.  Our digital resume's are scanned by a computer and searched for the appropriate keywords.  Then, if you even get called (which I never do) there are multiple interviews for a job like wiping off tables and taking out the trash at McDonald's.  In the end, they person in charge usually hires their friends and relatives.  This is, after all, still a small town.

I'm not alone.  That's what this blog is about.  There are 30 million or more people like me, unemployed or underemployed.  I'm more motivated than many of these people.  Ive decided to create my own job.  I've been self-educating myself on how technology has changed our working world for years.  I'm now working 12 to 14 hours a day building a small business.  But none of that matters to people with a 1980's mindset.  They still say, "Get a job."  I nod, hold the frustration until I can release it later in art, and I go back to the 21st Century.  This blog.  My other blogs.  My social media.  My crowdfunding campaign.  My fledgling small art business.  I'm busy working in today's world.  They are entrenched in a world that began 30 years ago for them.  In that world they'll stay...  Until technology comes along and revolutionizes their industry.  It's only a matter of time.  Then they'll know what it's like.  That's where the song above comes in.  Keep plugging along people.  Create your own jobs if you have to.

Who the heck is Steve Emig

This crazy clip is video I shot at the 2-Hip King of Dirt contest at Mission Trails in 1991.  Mission Trails is a desert area outside San Diego, California with lots of hiking and biking trails.  This happened four years before the X-Games started, a year before Mat Hoffman built the first mega quarterpipe, and 12 years before skateboarder Danny Way built the first full Mega Ramp.  Most of the best BMXers in the world were at this contest, and no one had seen a jump like the huge "Death Jump" you see in this clip.  We were all actually afraid someone might die at this contest. 

My name is Steve Emig, and I've lived a pretty weird life.  I was born in Ohio in the 60's, making me one of the old farts of Generation X.  I lived in a series of small towns in Ohio until I was 13, when we moved to New Mexico.  I was a smart, dorky kid who sucked at sports.  I was scared to death most of that year in New Mexico, but I came to love exploring the desert during that time.  A year later, my family moved to Boise, Idaho, where I lived all through high school. 

In a trailer park outside of Boise in 1982, I got into BMX bike riding.  My friends and I rode little jumps and tried to out ride each other night after night.  That fall we learned there was a BMX track in Boise, and we started racing BMX.  I raced all through 1983, then got into the emerging sport of BMX freestyle.  Basically, I was a high school kid doing tricks on a little kids' bike.  I loved it, but everyone else thought I was a n idiot.  But I stuck with it, becoming part of Idaho's first BMX trick team with friend Jay Bickel. 

A year after high school, my family moved to San Jose, California, an area which was just starting to be called "Silicon Valley," because of a lot of computer companies in the area.  I started a BMX zine, (pronounced zeen) which is a small, self-published booklet.  My initial reason was to give me an excuse to meet and interview the pro BMX freestylers in the area.  While I did that, I worked at a local Pizza Hut.  In a turn of events that still boggles my mind, that little zine got me a job at Wizard Publications, the company that put out BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  Suddenly I was part of the BMX industry, and couldn't really believe it.  Instead of reading about the top pro riders every month in the magazines, I was meeting them, writing about them, and driving the photographer to photo shoots.  At 20 years old, I was a guy who never took a single college course, and suddenly I was proofreading two global magazines, and writing articles.  My life went off in an unexpected direction.  I went on to work at the business that put on the BMX freestyle contests, and then moved to a video production company owned by Vision Skateboards. 

I went on to produce and/or edit fifteen low budget bike, skateboard, and snowboard videos.  I contributed to 7 different BMX magazines, and self-published over 30 zines.  I stumbled into the TV production world, and worked on over 300 episodes of a dozen different TV shows.  I spent four years as a crew guy on the set of American Gladiators in the early 90's.  Then, in 1995, I burned out.  I drifted away from the BMX world, though I was still riding my bike every day for fun.  I was sick of working on lame TV shows.  I wanted to produce my own shows, and start my own business, but I just didn't have the personality and the guts to do it. 

I started reading lots of books during that time, on business, economics, philosophy, religion, and personal development.  I went to work as a furniture mover, sometimes moving three houses or apartments in a single day.  It sucked.  I continued to try and figure out what life was all about and where I fit in to this weird world we inhabit.  I went back into the entertainment industry, working as a lighting tech (basically a roadie).  It paid well, but I had to quit because of an injury.  I couldn't do the heavy lifting anymore.

Still not sure where I really wanted to go in life, I wound up working as a taxi driver in 1999.  I did that off and on, and also struggled with homelessness for several years.  Finally the taxi industry took a big dive in 2007, and I became homeless.  No booze, no drugs.  I just couldn't find a job that paid enough to get away from cab driving.  I lived on the streets of Southern California for nearly a full year, panhandling to survive.

With my life stripped down to a daily struggle for survival, I gained a whole different perspective on life.  Many of the personal doubts and issues I'd been struggling with faded.  But I wasn't able to find a good job, or start a business to get myself off the streets.  I called my family in November of 2008, and they scraped together money to fly me to North Carolina, a place I'd never lived.  Remember November of 2008?  The global economy was one the verge of collapse, and no one knew what was going to happen.  There were no jobs to be had here in Kernersville, NC.  Eventually I became a taxi driver in Winston-Salem, but couldn't make a decent living at that. 

Finally, last fall, I decided I needed to create my own job.  I'd been doing this weird type of drawing with Sharpie markers for nearly a decade.  I stepped up my game, and worked on getting work drawing pictures for people.  I'm still in the early stages of this, but I'm drawing seven days a week now.  I'm not charging enough to really pay for the time I put into each drawing, I'm more focused on getting my work out there and building a following at the moment.  I also have two or three books in my head that I want to self-publish in the next two or three years. 

At a time when 30 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, I realized that my best bet was to create my own job.  This blog is dedicated to those 30 million people looking for meaningful and well-paying work in today's crazy world. 

Resumes Are Like Butts

Lets face it, resume's are like butts, everyone has one and most of them are full of crap.  The tech guys in this video talk about how they got great tech jobs.  They did it through personal connections and building cool stuff that shows a potential employer they knew what they were doing and could actually finish something.

That said, I'm not a tech guy.  I did actually get one job from a resume'.  After years in the TV industry in Southern California in the early 90's, I burned  out and wound up working some lame job in Orange County after a while.  I learned there was a small equipment rental company within walking distance of my house.  I didn't know anyone there, so I typed up a resume' and took it over to them.  But I knew from experience that bosses doing the hiring rarely read an entire resume'.  In the TV production world, nearly all jobs are filled through personal contacts.  So in the very bottom of my resume', I wrote, "lost in the woods ages 4 to 9, and raised by raccoons."  I walked over to the company, handed my resume' to the manager, talked a couple minutes, and walked home.  A couple days later they called and said they needed some help for a few days.  An hour into the job, I asked the guy I was working with why they called me.  He said, "We just wanted to see what a guy raised by raccoons was like."  We both had a good laugh, and I made $100 a day prepping equipment for a few days. That was the only time I ever got hired off a resume'.

These days, much of the working world operates like the TV production world did back then.  There are lots of qualified people seeking every decent job.  So how do you set yourself apart?  In the old days, the trick was to make friends.  That hasn't changed.  What has changed over the past 25 years is the internet, smart phones, and social media.  Are you on Linked In?  If you're looking for a decent job, you probably should be.  I'm creating my own job, so I haven't bothered with it.  But I do use Facebook to get art jobs right now.  I'm working my existing network.  Are you?

Here are some tips I've learned from my blogging and social media experience. 

1.  A blog, website, You Tube channel, or good Twitter feed show people you can actually do something.  I blog about my days in the BMX freestyle industry in its early years.  I have a blog of the artwork I'm doing right now.  And I have this blog, aimed at the 30 million unemployed and underemployed people in the U.S.  I'm one of those people, and I got to the point where I had to create my own job.  (More on that in future posts).  What a blog, vlog, You Tube channel, custom Facebook page or other web presence does is show that you're self-motivated.  It also establishes you as a possible expert in your field.  That's a good way to meet people who need talented employees or freelancers.

2.  Use social media to meet people in your chosen field.  As a 20-year-old kid in the BMX bike industry many years ago, I learned that the trick to finding work was to get around the people who make stuff happen.  In any industry, there are relatively few people who are really pushing the progression of the industry.  These days, you can often friend those people on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, link to them on Linked In, or connect in many other ways.  Here's the big trick:  don't connect and ask for a job.  Follow what they publish.  When you have something worthwhile to add, comment or contact them.  Make it short, sweet, and to the point, as the old cliche' goes. 

3.  Social media superstar Gary Vaynerchuk took his parents' New Jersey liquor store from $3 million in sales a year to over $30 million a year.  He did it with internet marketing, a video series, and social media marketing.  He stresses to GIVE what you can to people.  Get to know them, make friends.  Then, and only then, ask them for help, a reference, a job, or to make a sales call. 

For tips on using today's technology in the work world, check out You Tube talks (and blogs and books) by Seth Godin, Mitch Joel, and Gary Vaynerchuk.  There are plenty of other people you can learn from, but these three are a great start. 

Confessions of a Former Luddite

Like most high tech Luddites of the 1990's and early 2000's, I didn't really know where the term "Luddite" came from.  This short video explains it, if you're curious.

Here's what screwed up my thoughts about the internet.  In the late 90's, one of the guys I worked with was lead singer in a band.  It wasn't a huge band, they played good ol' rock n roll, and they had a hardcore local following.  He invited me to a party at the band's house after one of their shows.  It was a good party, guys and girls drinking an socializing, music playing and all the normal party stuff.  At one point, someone led me into another room.  In that room were several drunk party goers surrounding a computer screen.  On the screen were several small pics of other people they were communicating with.  "That guy's in Norway!" someone said, pointing to one of the pictures.  That was my introduction to the internet.  Drunk and stoned people in Anaheim, California typing messages back and forth to drunk and stoned people in other parts of the country and the world.  I wasn't very impressed.

A year or two later I became a taxi driver, and spent most of my time sitting in the taxi.  At that time, the Dot Com boom was in full swing, and it just seemed ridiculous to me.  I didn't like new technology.  I didn't see any point in changing.  It sure looked like this "whole internet thing" was a bunch of hype.  I decided to just wait it out for a few years, and see what became of it all.  Sure enough, the Dot Com bubble burst in the early 2000's, and things fell apart.  At that time, I was still working as a taxi driver, and couldn't afford a computer.  I spent most of my time sitting in my cab and waiting for calls.  I would occasionally go to the local library, rent a computer for $5 an hour, and check my email and look a few things up on Google.  That was it for me.  I still saw no point in the whole internet thing.I didn't get it.

Then, in 2003, the taxi company I worked for switched to a computer dispatching system.  Every cab had a $2500 computer mounted in it, and it KILLED our business.  Literally overnight, our business dropped to almost nothing, and I struggled to survive.  Like so many other people in other industries, I was minding my own business when technology came out of nowhere and completely changed my industry.  I wasn't able to escape taxi driving over the next few years, and I worked more and more hours, and eventually wound up homeless.

A year later, when I moved in with my parents in North Carolina, I had daily (and free) access to a computer for the first time.  I started playing around on it.  I was unemployed, in my early 40's, living with my parents, and really depressed.  The Great Recession was in full swing, and nobody was sure what was going to happen.  I started blogging about my early days in the BMX freestyle world.  I didn't think anyone would read what I wrote.  It was just a creative release for me.  After about a month of blogging, one of my posts went viral in the old school BMX freestyle community online.  I didn't even know there was an old school BMX freestyle community online.  Suddenly I started reconnecting with lots of old friends through the internet.  My BMX blog became the #1 blog in its niche in the world.  I did a follow up blog when the first one ran its course.  That blog became #1 in its niche.  I was still unemployed, but my blogs about BMX, and later homelessness, drew in over 160,000 page views.

One day someone emailed me and wrote, "you know some people make money with blogs, right?"  I had no idea.  So I started looking up blogging and learning more about it.  That took my life in a new direction.  I'm basically a writer at heart, and I started learning how technology had completely changed the writing industry.  I began searching for my place in this new and changing world.  I also learned that very few people actually make money form their blogs.  But blogs are really good even if you don't directly make money from them.  That led to this blog you're reading right now.  Millions of people in this country are now unemployed or under-employed.  One big reason is because technology (and social change) have completely changed the game where work and business are concerned.  This blog is to share what I, myself, have learned on these subjects.  Hopefully you'll get something positive out of this blog that will help in your work life. 

Funny Panhandling Sign 15

I actually used this sign back in 2012.  At the time, I didn't have a PayPal account.  I just thought it was funny.  I really like this sign, because it shows just how much, and how fast our world is changing these days.  If you go back to this post, you'll see there is a panhandler in Michigan who actually has a website and accepts credit cards on his phone with Square.  Or at least he did until his phone got stolen.  This may seem like a big joke, but on today's world, this is the kind of thinking it takes to get your life back on track if you're really down and out.  Homeless people just can't walk into a factory, fill out a paper application, and interview for a job like they once did.  These days our resume's are digital, the job scans keywords, and it's difficult to even talk to the person doing the hiring in many cases.  If they do interview you, what do they check next?  Your background, probably your credit report, and your social media.  These changes in the hiring process make it much, much more difficult for a homeless person to get hired for the job that may eventually pull them out of their financial quagmire.  If you haven't been homeless, or chronically unemployed, these ideas may never have crossed your mind.  But they're a reality in today's world.  And that's what this blog is about.  On my journey to get my life back on track, I'm dealing with many of the issues that 30 million other people are dealing with in today's rapidly changing working world.  Just because you can do the job, doesn't mean you can get the job.  Even if you do get the job, it might not pay enough to get on top of things financially.

I've been near the bottom.  I've lived on the streets and panhandled to survive, despite my reasonably high I.Q., my willingness to work hard, and my background of working long hours.  It still wasn't enough.  If you can relate to any of that, you'll probably find some interesting posts on this blog.  Good luck on your  journey through these issues. 

Crowd Funding My Small Business

Singer/songwriter/musician Amanda Palmer went to college and then worked as a self-employed "human statue" for years while getting her music career going.  She's now one of the best known musician/entrepreneurs out there.  She has a really hardcore following of around 25,000 people.  That makes her a loser to most major record companies.  Yet she did a crowdfunding campaign to produce an album a couple years ago and raised a record $ 1 million+.  She encourages people to download and torrent her music.  Yet she's doing better than most musicians out there, and doing it on her own terms.  If you are an artist, have any kind of business (or even a non-profit), I highly recommend taking 14 minutes to listen to her TED Talk above.  It's a great insight into how to be a working artist these days.

A couple weeks ago, I started a GoFundMe campaign to raise $1,000 to get my small business going.  For the most part, I'm hitting up old friends from the BMX world, and other people in my Facebook world.  I had no idea when I started if this would actually work.  To my old friends and acquaintances, this raises a bunch of questions.  Why didn't I start a business 25 or 30 years ago like so many of my friends did?  Why don't I have a "normal" job at age 49?  Why did I suddenly decide to become an artist?  Why not go drive for Uber since I used to be a taxi driver?  Why am I broke at my age?  Why would anyone give money to a guy who used to be homeless?  Why don't I borrow money from my local friends and neighbors here in North Carolina?  I'm sure it goes on and on. 

So here are some of those answers.  I wanted to start a business 30 years ago, but I was way too shy to be a good salesman.  I've learned over the years that, like it or not, selling is a huge part of running a business.  That sounds obvious, I know.  But a lot of people, especially in creative work, work on an idea but aren't able to sell it.  Either you have to be your own salesperson, or you have to hire one.  That's why my 1990 video, The Ultimate Weekend didn't turn into my own business.  I wound up teaming up with Chris Moeller, one of the best salespeople I've ever met, and producing the first couple S&M bikes videos.  The Ultimate Weekend, my 1990 personal project, sold about 500 copies in the U.S. and an unknown amount overseas.  I sold the world rights to it.  In 1993, the S&M Bikes video 44 Something went on to sell around 8,000 copies, making it one of the best-selling BMX videos of the 1990's, and possible all time.  I made a decent low-budget video, and Moeller sold the hell out of it for years.  But I wasn't able to sell on my own then.

Why am I broke and starting over at age 49?  After an injury in 1999, I left my good paying job as a lighting tech in Hollywood and became a taxi driver.  Taxi driving isn't a job, it's a small business.  We had to pay lease on our cabs every day or every week, ranging from $550 to $875 a week.  On top of that, we had to pay for gas, another $300 a week on average.  Keep in mind that the average ride was about $12, and we normally got one ride every two hours from dispatch.  If you do the numbers, they don't add up.  In the good times, a taxi driver had to really know the area and the bar and club scene, AND had to hustle like crazy.  I earned a great reputation of always paying my taxi lease, even when many other drivers were getting behind.  Then, like so many other industries, new technology entered the picture.  Taxi companies went from radio dispatching to computer dispatching.  In one day, literally, a single day, the whole business changed.  The companies put a lot more cabs on the road, and it became harder and harder to scrape by.  I gained a ton of weight working those crazy hours, and started having serious health problems.  I had to walk away because of the poor business and health issues. 

Ultimately I wound up in the small town of Kernersville, North Carolina, right when the Great Recession hit.  I couldn't find ANY job.  Here, in this highly conservative part of the country, backgrounds like mine, with a wide variety of jobs, don't play well.  By one estimate, there are about 30 MILLION unemployed and under employed people in the U.S. right now.  I'm one of those people.  I decide to take matters into my own hands and put my full effort into art and writing.  Those are both things I've made some money at in the past, and I've actually made my living writing at times.  Instead of fighting for the handful of factory jobs left or fighting everyone else for a low pay service job, I'm creating my own job.  To do that, I need some help.  This is where the crowd funding campaign comes in. 

I've learned there are different ways to use crowd funding in today's world.  One example is a guy named Cat Man, the Carolina Panthers self-proclaimed #1 fan, who gets on TV and the jumbo tron nearly every game.  But he didn't have the money to go to the Super Bowl to watch his beloved Panthers this weekend.  So he launched a GoFundMe campaign to ask for donations.  Last I heard, he raised something like $8,000 in a couple of days.  Good for him. It wouldn't be a Panthers game without Cat Man there.  He's that much a part of the scene.

I'm taking a different tack, similar to the way start-ups use Kickstarter.  I'm not asking for donations, I'm asking for orders.  For $25 I'll draw you an original picture that I usually sell for $30.  And I'll throw in a zine, too.  Why?  To jump start the business and get it going quite a bit quicker.  I've been doing a few drawings, but I need to find work on a much more consistent basis.  It's working, slowly but steadily.  I'm far from making a living at this, but I'm on my way. 

The biggest thing I've learned about crowd funding, from books, online sources, and Amanda Palmer herself, is that you need a following of some kind for this kind of fund raising to work.  My network online is limited mostly to old school BMXers, but that's where I have to start.  In this new blog, I'm working to set an example for the other 30 million unemployed/underemployed people out there as to what's possible in today's world.  Things don't work the way they did 20 or 30 years ago.  It's a whole new game, and a lot of people are having trouble adapting, myself included.  This blog is a chronicle of my journey from a former homeless man to someone able to thrive in today's world.  You're along for the ride if you keep following.