Here’s what is behind you when you first walk onto the dunes.
Posts Tagged ‘colorado’
Photo: Road to the Dunes
I really need to get out and take some photos. I imagine you’re all getting really tired of the sand.
Photo: Spinthrift
The wind was blowing so hard that you could see a kind of soft haze at the edges of dunes. It made everything feel slightly ethereal and impermanent. It also resulted in me getting sand in everything, including my teeth.
Photo: On the Dunes
An experiment in low angles.
Photo: Sun Dunes
Mmm. Tasty tasty lens flare. It’s probably bad for my camera to shoot straight into the sun, so I don’t do it often, but the results can be awesome sometimes.
Photo: To Scale
Those little dots are people. That’s how big these sand dunes are. I had no idea what I was getting into until I got there.
…Trials and Tribulations Continued
My status for my unemployment claim finally updated today to tell me that I won’t be paid for the time period because it is my “waiting week.” Whatever the hell that means. I thought the fact that it took them 2 weeks of screwing around to even get all my information processed equaled my “waiting week.” So one month of no income. Thanks, The System! The System is just grrreat!
I think I’ll work on getting my info loaded up with The Creative Group (temp agency) and count that as a job contact and be done with it for the week. I get to ask for another payment on Sunday. Let’s hope this one actually gets paid.
Thankfully I don’t have to worry about the state actually paying me in March, as I’ve got a good bit of freelance lined up for then. So I’m not going to let this get me down for long. I’m back on my feet and dusting myself off and throwing myself back into the work.
The Trials and Tribulations of the Unemployed in Colorado
I filed for my first unemployment payment a little over a week ago (Sunday, to be precise). I have since waited not-so-patiently for the money to arrive in my account. As of writing this post, I have yet to see a dime of it.
I have called repeatedly to get a status from the automated system over the past week. Each time it simply says that my payment hasn’t processed yet. It’s no surprise that the payment system is under siege right now. Thanks to the Bush Crash, we’ve got more people out of work than we have had for quite a long time even in a relatively stable state like Colorado. Idiotically, there’s no way to check your payment status online, so I am forced to call the system over and over again. Today, I can’t even get through. I want to know if there is a problem so I can sort it out immediately. But I have no way of knowing.
It shouldn’t take a week to process a payment. Not in this era of automated deposits. People are relying on that money to pay their bills and feed their children. In our case, we have a little savings to get by on while we wait, but each time they do this, our buffer against what I call “The Cardboard Box Life” gets a little slimmer. And we’re better off than most. I can’t imagine how a single parent is handling this system.
Filing for unemployment in the first place is humbling and embarassing. I felt humiliated to do it, and everything about the process treats you like a suspect in a criminal case. The least they could do is make sure we receive our payments in a timely fashion. We’re not talking about walking-around money here. We’re talking about rent and prescriptions.
Colorado government, get your act together. Speed up the payment process. Use some of that stimulus money to hire some of the unemployed to bolster your ranks in the department. Do something. A lot of people are hurting out there, and you are failing them. You can do better.
Hopefully I’ll land this freelance gig for March and I won’t need to collect unemployment for the month of March. It’s ridiculous how few jobs I am finding lately for which to apply. Again, I say to you my most excellent readers, if you need a website built, or know someone who does, please contact me. (Yep, turned that post into a whoring post. Many of my posts are going to end this way I am afraid).
Photo: RMNP Elk
It’s the rutting season in Colorado and the bull Elks are out doing their thing. Last Friday, after some serious hours at the day job, I got the day off and took advantage of the week day low-traffic to head to Estes Park and to Rocky Mountain National Park to see what kind of photography I could take.
It turns out that even with my okay wildlife lens, most of the elk were too far away for me to get the full frame shots that I would have liked to have taken. But then, I saw quite a few professional photographers in the park with their $10,000+ lenses and I figure, I’ll just take what I can take and maybe my stuff won’t have that traditional appeal, but the limit may make me more creative. So I got a couple of nice shots like this one. I was really hobbled by forgetting my 2 GB CF card, so I didn’t want to take a shot unless I was sure it would turn out great.
