One of the veterans I profiled in my 2008 Columbia j-school master’s project recently received honorable mention recognition by the Military Times for Army Soldier of the Year.  Staff Sgt. Eduardo Avila is an instructor assigned to the small arms readiness group at Fort Dix, N.J., but he won the award for his dedication to the Boy Scout troop he revived in Queens, N.Y. where he resides.

Photo taken in 2005 when Avila was serving in Iraq

Don’t cancel your vacation to Southwest Florida, if you have one planned!

Oil from the BP spill has not yet reached this beautiful region of Florida and, ideally, never will. This past week, while there on a short visit, we saw a mother manatee with her calf, dolphins, osprey, a bald eagle, tarpon, mullet, otters, egrets, ibis, herons, frigate birds, snapper, catfish and sharks.

This region of the country, which depends heavily on tourism, has already suffered a one-two punch from Hurricane Charley in 2004 and the ongoing recession.  Its economy is struggling.  Many people are out of work or barely scraping by on seriously reduced incomes.  Don’t add to their troubles by canceling a trip to Southwest Florida now!

Early morning from Useppa island, looking back at Pine Island.

We’ve posted our video interviews with Deborah Russell, AARP director of workforce issues,

and Laurie McCann, AARP senior litigation attorney on age discrimination issues,

in the new Experts section of our Web site.  Check out the videos to learn about getting back to work and tips to help overcome the issue of age discrimination.

We’ve wrapped up our trip to Weirton — interviewed the town’s mayor, as well as four 50-plus laid-off steelworkers and a few others in the town and nearby Steubenville, OH who are over 50 and out of work.

Mark Harris, mayor of Weirton, below, is trying to revitalize the town since employment at the Weirton steel mill has declined from 14,000 in the 1970s to 923 today.

The steel mill, which only produces tinplate currently, is now owned by Arcelor Mittal.

We’ve got the Over 50 and Out of Work blog up — check it out!  We arrived in Weirton, WV yesterday, and we’ll be here, interviewing people, until midday tomorrow.

On Monday, we’re headed to Weirton, WV to interview steelworkers who have lost their jobs, as well as other laid-off workers for our Over 50 and Out of Work project.

Yesterday, Sam, Max and I covered the Work@50+ Career Fair, held at Nationals Park in Washington, DC.

Three thousand job seekers over the age of 50 attended the fair, sponsored by EmploymentGuide.com in collaboration with AARP and wiserworker.com. Below, they hurried into the park at 10 am when the gates were opened for entry into the career fair.

We’ll be posting interviews with Deborah Russell, AARP Director, Workforce Issues, Education & Outreach, and Laurie McCann, Senior Attorney, AARP Foundation Litigation, on our Over 50 and Out of Work site soon.

Monday, May 10, we’ll be interviewing Deborah Russell, AARP Director, Workforce Issues, Education and Outreach, Social Impact Group, and Laurie McCann, Senior Attorney, AARP Foundation Litigation, at their offices in Washington, DC for our Over 50 and Out of Work project.

Net Tuesday, we’ll be covering the Washington DC Career Fair in Partnership with AARP to be held at Nationals Park for our Over 50 and Out of Work project.  The fair’s organizers are expecting at least 3500 job seekers.

As background research for Over 50 and Out of Work, I’ve been watching (catching up on) documentaries: Paper Heart, The September Issue, Roger and Me and Food, Inc.

Quirky and fun, Paper Heart follows Charlyne Yi as she sets out across the country to interview people, searching for the answer to the question: What is love?

I was jealous when she interviewed owners of wedding chapels in Las Vegas – there was an Elvis impersonator and a clean-cut owner wearing his pants buckled way too high. They told great stories about marrying impulsive couples, but I’m sure they had many more to tell. I also wanted to know how these two got into that crazy line of work to begin with and if they could make a living at it.

In the end, I also found the entire documentary unsatisfying. Over the course of the film, Yi herself appears to fall in love for the first time, and she pledges to keep filming whatever happens. But when she follows her friend or lover (Michael Cera) to his family home in Toronto for a surprise reunion and he opens the door, she tells her crew to turn the camera off. Advised by her producer that the inconclusive scene didn’t work, she concocted an animated ending for the film that still didn’t answer the question — Did she find love? — and that also reminded me, regrettably, of Disney’s Mulan.

The September Issue is luscious and lovely. Also, fun, unless your livelihood depends on the fickle, fast-moving fashion industry. Watching Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington spar over the creation of the September 2007 issue of Vogue from the vantage point of 2010, though, was a bit painful. Making a living from fashion and art has become even dicier since then.

Saw yesterday that the fashion designer Mario Pinto, favored by Michelle Obama, is closing up shop and about to declare bankruptcy.

More on the other documentaries later in the week.