I really appreciate your advice about this, btw -- it's not so much that you're saying anything I didn't more or less suspect, but after four years of college and eight in the PhD program, I'm a babe in the woods in terms of "employment."

I know there's been scads of money budgeted for all kinds of things as part of the stimulus and spending and suchlike; I don't suppose you have any idea when when your agency, and by extension other agencies, would get this "real money?"