It's the waiting that drags you down.

With our unemployment rate edging near 10 percent, many are waiting for companies to finally rehire. I can imagine them shaking their heads when they look at the Dow's ascent in recent weeks. Somebody's making money, but it certainly isn't them.

I'm not sure if welder Charles Salak has been paying attention to the Dow, but he's been busy with home improvement projects, occasionally working for a relative, repairing farm equipment. He isn't sitting still. In August he was laid off from Katana Summit, a wind tower manufacturer in Columbus, Neb. The company had no choice. Katana is awaiting the go-head for a 200-plus tower order. Wind energy is capital-intensive, so even today, with the promise of government help, it takes time to get the green light. If and when Katana finally gets the go-ahead for the order, Salak may get his job back. But for the past few weeks he's been waiting.

New York Times reporter David Segal visited Columbus and used Salak as the centerpiece for his article, which appeared yesterday on the front page of the business section. Segal also visited Behlen Manufacturing, a metal fabricator specializing in farm products, machine tools, and custom fabrication. Especially poignant was Segal's description of idle equipment on Behlen's plant floor. Tony Raimondos Jr., son of the company president, gave the reporter a tour of the expansive, 850,000-square-foot shop floor. (If you need space, Nebraska has it.) Riding with Raimondos on a golf cart, the reporter recalled:

"Every minute or two, you come upon a couple of guys who are galvanizing metal or fabricating tubing. Mostly, it's quiet.

"'We're hopeful,' says Tony Jr., driving past an unused ... steel punching machine. 'But it's really strange to see it look like this. The other day I looked through this window in a door to the factory floor, and it was dark. During second shift.'"

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Yesterday's "Fabricating Update" lead item ruffled feathers, raised hackles, and had this editor ducking for cover as fabricators sounded off about comments from the Obama administration's recently released employment report.

The item cited an article that appeared in The Washington Post about President Obama's economic team releasing an upbeat employment forecast July 13. The forecast predicted robust jobs growth in the health-care and clean-energy sectors, and a recovery in manufacturing positions over the next decade. The report also addressed the need for improvements in education and job training.

The newsletter item concluded by asking readers what they thought about the report and whether it indicated that the government finally understands the need for better education and training programs—something manufacturers have sought for a long, long time. Be careful what you ask for; you might just get it, with both barrels.

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Oprah, I'm not. And I don't have a book club. But this morning, I read about a book in USA Today that I believe might appeal to thefabricator.com's visitors. In fact, I'm guessing many of you could have written it. I plan to read it; maybe you'll want to also.

The book's title is Blue Collar & Proud of It. USA Today published a Q&A with the author, Joe Lamacchia, 50, of Newton, Mass., who owns a landscaping company. Newton argues that despite societal pressures to the contrary, not all high school students need to go to college to be successful. This sentiment is shared by many in the metal manufacturing community, including "Welding Wire" readers who responded to last month's newsletter about disappearing voc-tech programs.

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My last blog post was addressed to Crook County (Oregon) High School officials and others who could help decide the fate of vocational and technical programs in the U.S., which often are the first items on the chopping block when funding for education is tight. It featured an item from News/Talk 1110 KBND, Bend, Ore., about a high school metal and welding class that likely will be cut in next year's budget. The Oregon State champs (pictured) in the Skills USA Competition came from this class.

That post ended with a request to forward it to those who might be able to help preserve voc-tech programs not only in Crook County, but all across the U.S. In one of those coincidences that remind us just how small our world is, one of my colleagues received an e-mail yesterday from the Crook County High School metals/welding instructor quoted in my post. His current students have a more immediate need than preserving the program. Maybe you can help.

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Crook County High School, educational institutions all across the U.S., and Congress, we're addressing you. Please listen.

Last week's "Welding Wire" newsletter featured an item from News/Talk 1110 KBND, Bend, Ore., about a high school metal and welding class that likely will be cut in next year's budget. The Oregon State champs in the Skills USA Competition came from this class.

Teacher Dan Holland is concerned because the metal and welding skills the kids learn are applicable for many of the jobs that stimulus money is providing. He reportedly said that "if the [school district] sees community support to keep the class, there is a good chance that it will stay. "Welding Wire" readers throughout the U.S. and Canada agree with Holland and support retaining vocational-technical (voc-tech) programs.

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I've got to leave work a little earlier than usual today. Actually, this is nothing new. It's been going on for about 12 weeks.

I started taking a Spanish class—Occupational Spanish 101 to be exact—at a local community college in the hopes that I could beef up some conversational skills when I visit Mexico in support of the Spanish-language version of The FABRICATOR.

Well, I wish I can say I'm much better at speaking Spanish than I am. But that's really my own fault. The instructor stresses to engage Spanish speakers in conversation to strengthen my own conversational skills, but when I greet the cashier at the grocery store with "Buenos dias!" in a Southern drawl, she just stares at me.

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As many do before heading off to work each day, my husband and I turn on a local television station to check the weather forecast. This morning, the two items we heard before the weather segment were about a gunman who shot several people in California (can we go a day without something like this happening somewhere?) and a 31-year-old male sex offender who posed as a 12-year-old and attended several Arizona schools for two years. This deviant was sentenced to more than 70 years in prison yesterday.

My husband said, "I'm sick of this. We're always hearing bad news. Why can't we hear about the hundreds of cyclists who braved the elements in the Wheels O' Fire ride to raise money for a good cause? Tell me something good."

After getting past the initial free-association thought "tell me something good" brought to mind—think Rufus and Chaka Khan, or Pink— it hit me. I would write about something good in today's post. If you are suffering from good-news deprivation, read on.

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Among my job responsibilities is compiling and sending out monthly e-newsletters—Fabricating Update, Stamping News Brief, Tube Talk, and Welding Wire. These newsletters deliver industry-specific information to subscribers. They also are what I like best about my job. Why? Because subscribers often share their thoughts about the topics in each newsletter's lead item and their thoughts are always interesting.

Yesterday's Tube Talk discussed an idea that's gaining momentum: tuition-free, post-secondary training.

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Several years ago Ken Smith took a long, hard look at the country's welder shortage. The manager of training for Lorain County Community College's welding program in Elyria, Ohio, saw a need to tackle the issue at the source: education.

Smith, together with representatives from the American Welding Society and elsewhere, started the National Center for Welding Education and Training—Weld Ed for short—funded by the National Science Foundation. The program focuses on educating someone who's not necessarily a hands-on welder, not a welding engineer, but a little of both. It is the hope that graduates of such programs would go on to become weld technicians and eventually land in supervisory roles.

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Have you ever noticed how things run in cycles? Feast or famine? Drought or flood? No phone calls, or one call after another? I telecommute, and days go by that my work phone doesn't ring at all. On those days, all communication transpires electronically. This is not one of those days.

Among the many unexpected calls today was one from a business owner in Ohio who has an idea. He wants to start a program to train industrial workers. The idea came to this gentleman as he drove around and kept seeing signs seeking CNC operators. He feels that most trade programs now are geared toward training people to work in the HVAC field and not in manufacturing. He thinks there's a need for and money to be made training skilled labor. I know the former to be true; can't speak for the latter.

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