I've been unemployed for most of July and will be for most of August.
During the last few weeks, job hunting has taken priority over blogging. The first opportunity I found out about, on July 11th, was the one that turned into an offer, on August 5th. I start at the new job on the 22nd.
At my previous job, I was a lone developer. Therefore, I took an approach to professional development that involved a lot of reading. Becoming self employed without an income, I took up reading as more or less a full time day job. I did update my resume and hit the job boards, but not as my primary activity. I wanted to pace myself and not set up too many contacts with possible employers at once.
I was surprised to find that a lot of the tech bubble infrastructure is still in place. There are headhunters who search for people they can pass on to employers for a fee. Some headhunters are conscientious, others spam with abandon. In one case, I got an urgent e-mail and voice mail from someone looking for a fluent Japanese speaker. The word "Japanese" did occur in my resume, but I never pretended to speak the language.
I was lucky. I didn't find the employer; a headhunter found me and figured out I was suitable for the position. I didn't answer every question perfectly in the interviews, but I got better as I progressed. This employer was more technically focussed than most; it paid off to read up on the details of Java, threads and RMI (among other things).
I have nearly two more weeks of leisure. I'll keep up with the reading, but I'll also have time to take care of chores and errands. If the earning member of the household could get time off, we'd probably go somewhere. But there's no need to go anywhere for warm, sunny weather. I'll try to enjoy the relaxed pace of summer while I still can.