Minnesota Headhunter: Minnesota Morning

Happy Holidays. I hope this post finds everyone doing well or at least as well as can be.

It has been ~~many months~~ almost a year since I fired up a Minnesota Morning post. For the most past my Daily Twitter Updates have taken its place. Twitter is a cool tool (click MN Headhunter for my Tweets as they are called) and I use it a lot but I am finding the 140 characters to be a bit restrictive.

I think I am going to come back and start using the Minnesota Morning posts and will carry over Twitter links to articles and economy news here.

Lots of things will be in these posts like recruiting and HR stuff, economy and business news tidbits, links to interesting (to me) local blog posts, politics and sports likely too.

Sometimes there will be items that have nothing to do with my being an IT Recruiter but important to me for one reason or another.

And the following item will be an example of this.

Both on Twitter and Facebook I have linked to a story about Emilie Lemmons a local blogger, wife, mother and friend to many who passed early in the morning Christmas Eve. I never had the honor of meeting Emilie who was married to a fraternity brother of mine, Stephen. While in college I was very close to the guys a couple of years older than I and Stephen was one of them. He is a great guy with a huge heart.

This is one of those examples where as years go by, people get busy, we get into our business careers and start families. We can lose track of one another. So the news of Emilie’s passing was a shock to me.

Over the past few days I have spent some time reading Emilie’s blog and because of her writing style and transparency feel as if I know her and Stephen as well as anyone. She was a freelance writer by trade so while an introvert in one sense sharing her stories through a blog came naturally. Emilie started writing before the birth of their first son and before she learned she had cancer.

When you have a moment take a look at the following links:

lemmondrops sweet and sour stories of life, love and little ones (Emilie’s blog)
St. Paul blogger Emilie Lemmons shared her story of living with and dying of cancer with readers worldwide (St. Paul Pioneer Press article in today’s paper)
In Memory of Emilie Lemmons (Facebook group)
Finding joy in the midst of darkness (Emilie’s last article at TheCatholicSpirit.com)

While this story does not end as many had hoped and prayed there are a lot of wonderful, special, touching and real moments shared in her writing. Say a prayer for Emilie, Stephen and their sons.

I have a lot of other stuff on my mind but for the moment will just go with the following links.

Recruiter and Career blogs:

Staffing Technology: How to Start a Staffing Company
INTERNET inc: Job board outlook 2009 - the hurricane
My Global Career: Is Social Networking a Career Safety Net?
MSNBC: Out of work? It's time to get connected
Brazen Careerist: You Can’t Put This Workforce Back Together Again written by my buddy Maren Hogan
CollegeRecruiter.com: College senior? At least the feds are hiring Steven Rothberg gets on MPR

Economy:

Commerce Department final report on Q3 GDP remains at -.5% Good news that it was not revised down. Most analysts predict -5% for Q4
U of Michigan Consumer Confidence: Rises to 60.1 from 55.3 Analysts expected 58.6 Rise most likely due to deep discounts at stores
Wells Fargo Annual Economic Outlook – 2009 (PDF) Predicts recession ends in 2009 with Q3 and Q4 growth

Local blog posts from TwinCitiesBlogs.com: