Where in the world is my paycheck?

 I'm curious as to how many stay@home dad's there are in Minnesota due to being laid off. I have been unemployed since around March of 2009 and still have not had any luck landing a job which is rather depressing. Do not get me wrong, I love spending all this time with my son and I believe its good for parent/child relationships. I did however grow up with the mindset that a "Man" should be the bread winner and its frustrating to say the least being unemployed. Sometimes I feel like I have failed my family and failed my associates by not having a job to support my family with.
 My wife enjoys working but I do think she would rather be at home with Hansel. Come to think of it, my dream job would be to stay at home with my family and write blogs, reviews, technical documentation for a living. I am currently seeking a journalism or creative writing degree to supplement my current experience and education. I do work part time for my church as an IT contractor but paychecks are few and far between.


 One of our local papers the Pioneer Press, has been currently working on a new segment called "Watchdog: Your Next Job" and I was recently selected as one of the five panel members who will be periodically commenting on our job searches, experiences, let downs and overall anything we can think of relating to getting a job in the current market. I am really excited about this for several reasons.
 The first and more obvious reason being, exposure. To have a news paper following my every job search experience for thousands of readers to see, is what I consider nothing less but an honor. Another reason why I'm excited to be a part of this is, I have been wanting to change career fields for a long time. The IT field has really boomed over the years and there is allot of competition in the job markets pertaining to IT.

 I have been officially working in the IT field since I was 17 and to be honest I'm getting burned out. I have always wanted to write about various topics but mostly IT since that is what I'm most knowledgeable about. I used to write short stories in grade school when I was a kid and was very good at it. Over the years however   I have lost that ability due to focusing so much on strictly IT related fields.
 The ultimate goal of the Watchdog is to get the panel of five employed but also to share with readers common ground to which they can relate with and hopefully educate themselves on what to do and not do in the hairy art of job searching. The goals I wish to obtain from this blog and the Watchdog are: Experience and Employment in a somewhat different career field.

 If there are any stay at home dads who share the same experiences, please feel free to comment, as I would love to hear from you on the topics of being a stay@home dad and job searching.

The link below will give you more information about Watchdog and it's resources to help you on your way to becoming  employed again. Thanks.
http://www.twincities.com/watchdog - Pioneer Press