[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

Your #6 is dead right. Fortunately for me, I own a lot of property and can afford to just consider myself 'retired" because at 49 and having failed to nab a tech contract in over a year, I'm totally over in that field, even if it comes back in a year or two. Since I've only been an independent consultant, I never qualified for UE anyway.

There's a lot of over forty guys who are plain screwed.

[dtel]

"There's a lot of over forty guys who are plain screwed"

I guess, looking back in hindsight, you could see this happening, but we were so busy working our asses off that we couldn't see the forest for the trees.
I too, am semi-retired at way too early an age, luckily we ignored conventional wisdom and bought a little hobby farm when things were good. If anybody is interested in Longhorns, drop me a line. Am hoping to have limited beef production in the next 18 months or so.