5 months

I haven't posted in several months, so if anyone cares, here's what could happen to you if your not watching. In July after 3 months of sitting at home because new Illinois legislation says minorities get to do the work I used to in road construction(legislation the big paving companies wrote to save themselves my union scale in payroll and found congressmen to sponsor and vote for, for the right 'campaign contribution') I applied, interviewed and got a job in highway maintenance in Wyoming, where all that matters to work is merit. I sold the Mustang (it was easier than I imagined, house payments and groceries seemed more important at the time) moved out west and my family will be joining me here after school lets out, and we'll sell my big house payments- er, our house. The finances are almost better and I have a nice 05 F350 V10 crew dually to play with. I also found that nothing rusts out here, and there are very few Fox Mustangs. I did however find a sweet 71 Mach 1 sitting in a field that nobody seems to own...Merry Christmas everybody!

Thanks guys, there's a lot of work out here I didn't even know about, and it seems to be a well kept secret from back east. No state income tax was a huge surprise, big raise on my first check. Picture me calling back home and asking why we have so much money in the account! Lol! Minorities aren't the issue we had, as a Teamster we were priced out of our jobs by our Local. I would've done my job happily for $25 an hour, but in the middle of a recession our Local demanded $34 hr. Insanity from the companies standpoint, so they sat over a golf game and cooked up this legislation making job minority hour requirements, bought off some politicians with a 'contribution' or 2 to introduce said legislation that helps the minorities and makes said politician look like a great guy. Just happens to save the aforementioned companies a wheelbarrow full of payroll cash, but they keep that really quiet. So minority brokers get my job for 60 % of what we cost, work gets done, politician is touchy feely enough to get re-elected and everybody wins. Cept about 200 guys who were raising families for 15 years doing the work. So the companies then hand the Local(won't mention any names, ahem 731) a nice check to look the other way about the union busting they just did, and there's suddenly nothing they can do to help members out on the street. It all worked out, but the papers would prolly love the story. And yes, the 71 is sitting there in the field...