On the 12th day of August my true love sent to me.....

Five new furry puppies..... Lets see, not only do we have Bonnie blowing through south Georgia and Southeast Carolina but we also have Hurricane Charlie to be making his appearance on the Florida peninsula around Friday evening and then tracking up the SE coast of the United States. On top of this all Angel decided to give birth to 5 puppies.

So far so good. All the puppies survived the birthing process and the weather has not been too horrible YET... We have gotten plenty of rain so there will probably be some localized flooding here in Charleston and the tri county area. I am watching the radar thanks to Channel 5 News and Intellicast.com and we have a couple of storm cells inching up the Eastern Coast that will be dumping lots of rain and wind on us in the next 2 hours. Once that happens we should have about 24 hours of calm before Charlie comes calling. I believe that we will probably see a lot more action out of him than what Bonnie gave us. I hope and pray I am wrong and that Charlie just peters out and dies or goes right back out into the Atlantic ocean and misses us alltogether. We had a cold front that helped to push Bonnie back out to the coast line and moved her up the coast at a high rate of speed today which also helped to break down the tropical storm and weaken it considerably.

I was in Moncks Corner today for most of the day and apparently a tornado touched down there. I was in the South Carolina Unemployment Commission office signing up for the WIA program so I did not notice the bad weather sneaking up on us. When I left there were several very ugly thunderstorms bearing down on Highway 17 and Main Street.
WIA stands for Workforce Initiative Assistance. This program is designed to help displaced or underemployed workers such as myself to get back to within 80% of my previous salary after I experienced a lay off or a reduction in work from an employer. That is what happened to me back in Feb of 2002 when Ahold USA laid off 36 employees and then let go a lot of their contractors (me included). We have been reeling from that financial disaster every since. From what I have been told today I definitely qualify for this program and my case worker is working out the details as to how she is going to certify me so that I can be elligible and be officially enrolled in the program.

I spent the entire day filling out my life history, work history, family history and doing some online testing on their computer lab. I had to pass a basic math test, reading and reading comprehension exam which I passed. The only thing that they did not require of me was a blood sample which I am surprised after all the other things I had to do. Once I am deemed elligible and enrolled in the program I will be able to tap into training funds that are given to the state for folks like me. WIA will help me to get funding through WIA as well as connect me with participating technical schools or colleges in this area that have agreements with the State and Federal government to provide training programs. WIA will also help me to find and procure any grants or student loans that I need to help finance the training. I guess you could say that this is a VERY positive thing. There is light at the end of the tunnel because it means that once I get some certification in either Information Technology or training in a different field it will enable me to break free from my current DEAD END job that pays poorly and has NO benefits. That is the goal anyway and after today I am well on the way to making this dream a reality.