I’ll admit I’m a fan of Disney, specifically the work of the Imagineers- those men and women who took Walt’s ideas for a theme park that could be enjoyed by both kids and adults alike and made them reality. I’ve had a thing for Imagineering since I was very young — around the age of 6 if I remember correctly. My family made the long hour and a half trek to Disneyland from San Diego, and I remember being completely impressed by the shiny white architecture of Tomorrowland, and even had a picture of myself with two “astronauts” — a man and woman in white space outfits and big dome helmets. It was so cool.

I already had an affection for mid-century architecture before I realized it, and this was the epitome of where mid-century design was going to go in my mind. I hadn’t known about the Imagineers until watching an episode of the “Wonderful World of Disney” and Walt did a piece on them. It was then I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up (okay, when I became an adult…).

So, here I was at Disneyland, enthralled by Tomorrowland. Sure, the Imagineers created all the other areas of the park, but those were things that already existed somewhere. But Tomorrowland was something from pure imagination, and to me seemed to be a lot more difficult to create than the other “lands”.

In my ongoing quest to be an Imagineer someday, I came across some great books on Amazon, which I think are great resources for anyone who has any creativity within them. The first is “Designing Disney” by John Hench. A great book on how Disneyland was actually designed, involving show, character, color and story.

The next two books I recommend are “The Imagineering Workout” and “The Imagineering Way“, both great reads for anyone who has any level of creativity within them, needs inspiration, and wants to work out their creative muscles.

And if you know anyone high up in Imagineering, tell them I can begin working for them right away.

As I mentioned in my last post, it seems like there’s not a lot of work to be had in sunny San Diego, Ca- my hometown where I grew up and have never left. In the past, there seemed to be tons of work in video production, multimedia, IT, the Web, etc.  Lots of very talented and creative people, and lots of work to go around.

However, it now seems to be not so easy these days to find good paying work in San Diego. Sure, most any San Diegan can tell you the pay scale here has always been a bit lower than other big cities due to what everyone refers to as the “Sunshine Tax”, but that doesn’t help in that the cost of living here is very high. Always has been and most likely always will be.

So, as I’ve been scouring job boards, Craigslist (yep, I’ve sunken to checking Craigslist), company websites- the fact of the matter is most all creative, IT, multimedia, video and so on jobs are north of San Diego, starting in Orange County and then getting denser the closer you get to LA. Even my wife who’s background in purchasing is finding that most the jobs for that are in about the same areas. Sure, I’ve found some great ads for jobs here, applied for them, sent nice cover letters, but never get a call back, and I think I’ve figured out why. Even though most don’t advertise what they want to pay for someone with say 10 years experience ( I have way more than that), some on Craigslist do say they pay $35-50k per year. So my guess is most the jobs I’ve applied for that seem like a perfect match won’t even consider me because they know I need more than that, which breaks down to about $20 or so an hour.

The big question is, how does anyone in San Diego survive on that, unless you’re fresh out of college (which means you don’t have 10 years experience), don’t have a mortgage, take public transportation, don’t have a family to support, don’t eat often, or have two or more jobs to make ends meet. Even freelance work which used to be in abundance seems to be far and few between as companies are cutting back on media production services for now. I’d be happy for now to be working a full-time gig at something reasonable and doing freelance work at night, which I used to do all the time. I would rather be working full time with a decent salary so I could be home to hang out with my wife and kids, help with homework, and enjoy evenings with them, but beggars can’t be choosers.

It’s either that or move to LA (or Orange County CA), which my wife and kids have agreed that we need to go where the work is, and trust in where God wants to put us. And to be honest, LA seems very exciting and I felt a very long time ago that’s where I’d eventually end up working.

In the meantime, I want to wish all of you looking for jobs the best of luck.