You can see the article here:

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20120926/BUSINESS/309260015/LaGrangeville-man-ends-2-year-job-hunt-even-Dutchess-unemployment-rate-rises

Job hunting did get real bad for me, in addition to going through two back surgeries to fix back issue that really limited employment. The Games on Half a Checkerboard Series was created during this time.

Well, towards the end of the article, you see referenced games groups I have started:

But he kept looking, and kept busy by inventing games and publishing them in game magazines. He also started an online nonprofit called International Abstract Games Organization and runs a Facebook games community called CADERS.

Has anyone said you look a bit like Nick Nolte?

Anyway.. congratz on the job... hope it works out for you!

Ah nice news about the job.. Did the Kelly Services drug test you for the Apple job? It is my understanding that Apple doesn't even drug test. One of my friends got a job for Apple providing support. Eventually, he was able to work from home on his computer (I believe they even provided him with a mac) answering tech support questions online. Have fun dealing with a lot of idiot customers because Apple has a bunch of them. They pay decent and have pretty good benefits though. I believe my friend even has money pulled from his check to buy Apple stock at a discounted rate.  He worked for a temp agency at first but was hired on within about 4-6 months.

The idea was to get offers out like by mid-October.  I missed a prior window, so cleared everything except a position.  They then stepped it up.

I will be working a contract position, and the pay isn't really that good, but it is work.  I get to work out of the house also, which keeps costs down.  Will see how it goes.

I am plugging away at other things also, like getting the world's worst boardgame to market (it is a game that doubles a satire, FYI).

Yea, working from home will be nice.  You don't have to worry about gas, traffic, etc..   I suppose there aren't Apple buildings (campus) like there is in Austin, Texas where you live thus you get to work from home right away.  My friend was working at the Apple site at first till they decided he was good enough to be able to work from home.  Did they give you any information about how long the contract would be for yet or if you could get directly hired onto at Apple?  Probably not and even if they did a lot of times contract companies just lie.  I remember I was told before working at Flextronics that usually after 6 months to a year they will hire you on.  I then got to the job and asked a few people about it and there were plenty of people that were still contract even after 3-4 years.  Glad you got something.  I am now currently on my 2nd month of being unemployed after being laid off at Flextronics (they lost a Microsoft contract for building 360 controllers and Cisco was reducing their orders).  I want to use my degree in Wildlife Management but there aren't too many of those jobs going around and there are tons of people applying for the same job.  So I will probably just end up in manufacturing again.  I plan to move maybe to the Smokey Mountains area (Gatlinburg / Pigeon Forge Tenn.) to one of my parent's houses since I might be able to land a parks job there.  I don't want a wildlife job in Texas.

Best thing to do is get what you can in your field, and then look to transfer elsewhere, when you can, later.  You may also want to look into trying to set up volunteer work connected to your field, so you keep your resume busy.  I have years of no paid work covered by what I did with my game groups.  It was legitimate management work (arguably board of directors level), so it counts for something.  It is just unpaid.

Yea, I need to look into volunteer work either at animal shelter or somewhere.  Unfortunately, Austin has a very small Zoo which is pretty far away from where I live.  I did volunteer at the Houston Zoo once when I was in college (went to Texas Tech but was taking courses at HCC one summer).  It was alright but they pretty much just made me do bitch work that they really didn't want to do (I worked in the bird department and mainly cleaned crap out of the cages while trying to avoid being pecked at by some of the birds).  So I will get off my lazy ass and try to find something that is degree related for me. 

Thought it was pretty cool that you got a spot in the newspaper.  The only time that happened to me was during college.  I made a Facebook group (no longer a member to any social sites) that lumped all the Nintendo fans at Texas Tech into one group.  They called and interviewed me on the phone about the name change from Revolution to Wii and whether Nintendo stood a chance in the home console business.  Caught me a little by surprise so I didn't give as good of answers as I wanted.

http://www.dailytoreador.com/archives/article_d160d55c-67b9-56c8-9cab-9b1a24132d5b.html