My great and good friend, Gary Harlan, is speaking truth. Unemployment sucks, and it just happened to me, after 19 years of working 40-55 hour weeks, in two different major industries, and at an executive level. Three professional certifications and demonstrated impact and achievement meant nothing. One guy decides to make a change, read the tea leaves differently, and your world changes. We will ride this out, we will recover, but it will not be fun, at least not for a while. To those of you that have friends that are going through this–check on them. Offer words of encouragement, call them. It is very easy to fall out of a routine, to get “lost”, especially if you have not had to look for work in a while. That is a skill all in itself. Friends mean a lot–a whole lot–Gary is a good one. Everyone should have at least one friend like him. Mike Whitten