Getting let go unexpectedly is usually a big shock, and your instinct will probably be to try and get back into a paying job as quickly as possible. But while you're still recovering from the surprise of losing your job, you'll make poor decisions - and poor employment decisions will make you miserable. Take a little time for yourself and decompress before jumping back in with a clear head.
Review your finances & savings. Look into cutting back on things. Figure out how long you can hold out with just your unemployment before you have to dip into your savings (or retirement, life insurance, whatever).
If you have student loans, now is the time to tell them you lost your job & won't be paying. They're far friendlier about it if you tell them before than after.
Polish up the resume. Start posting it to Dice/Monster/etc.
Go have a beer. Getting laid off sucks. Have another one because beer is good.
Depending on how evaluating your financial situation went earlier, you may want to take a few days to relax & just not give a fuck, if you can afford it. If you can't, time to get started...
Start looking for jobs. Depending on how much experience you have & how much local demand there is for them, you might have to put a lot of work into this & spam out resumes, or you might get bombarded by recruiters. Either way, eventually, you're going to have to start working again.
When you're unemployed, you find yourself with a lot of freetime, and hence, a lot of time to waste. If you have the financial means and are physically capable start traveling. between now and october is one of the peak seasons for cheap airline tickets to just about anywhere, if you don't know where to go, hover over to http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn (SFW btw, not that you have one now, haha, j/ks) and start browsing. Get some friends (or just go by yourself) and just go. My favorite is Zion National Park. I find that under the starlit sky, without lights or cell reception I find it relaxing and then you'll be able to think about why you got laid off, what you liked or didn't like about your previous job and what you could have possibly done in the past to prevent yourself from getting fired.
The most important thing is to just keep moving, rewrite your resume, watch some comedies, reconnect with your family and friends and possibly, make new ones, make a schedule and pack it with so many things to do that you're tired each and every night starting from today. I could go on, but I hope you get it. The second most important thing to do is to not get angry and take it out on your friends and family, what happened to you is truly unfortunate, but getting mad doesn't really help anyone.
So peace out, and I hope to see you in the future at another job kicking ass at what you do best.
btw, unemployment benefits are okay, but b/c the economy is bad, plan for the long-term, like cancelling your monthly bills, aka netflix (you don't got time for that shit anyways), etc.
I have no idea where you are right now, but I read pretty much that a software developer with Rails/Ruby skills is pretty in hot demand in a lot of start-ups as of the moment.
Good luck.
Do I get a referral bonus if he gets hired? :D Cough Hire me too, I'm awesome and know BJJ to go with that Boxing ;)
Seriously, you need do the job-search thing now. Save your money like Scrooge, apply to jobs, interview, get hired. The wheel keeps turning.
How about some freelance work in the mean time?
I'm definitely considering some freelance work. I've never dealt with odesk or anything right now.
https://jobs.github.com/positions?description=ruby+on+rails&...
EDIT: But don't ever start a sentence with "In Rails, its done this way..." ;)