Worth repeating
I found this in the archives from a couple of months ago. I like it so much I'm going to throw it out there again.
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other's children." --Jimmy Carter, Nobel laureate
Peace, for all of us. Now.
Monday, March 31, 2003
Saturday, March 29, 2003
Friday, March 28, 2003
Y'all saw this coming
Me and The Wall had a violent collision the other night.
Marathon runners speak of The Wall, the signal that the runner has taken his or her endurance past its limit. "I've hit The Wall." For most, it hits at about the 19- or 20-mile mark. The champion marathon runner scales The Wall mentally, catches a second wind and presses on. The weaker runners collapse in a sobbing heap of muscle spasms and shin splints.
For many years, I have scoffed at The Wall. I always thought burnout was for losers, for whiny suburban corporate guys whose jobs didn't generate their own energy. That's what I've always loved about journalism, and it's what has made me think for all these years that I had beaten the system. "I've never had a job," I have often said. The pursuit of a big story in many ways is its own reward. Challenging a deadline and beating it is a rush like few others. Knowing something nobody else knows; well, there's just nothing better. Coming up with the last-minute idea that takes a good page to brilliant is like hitting a 3-pointer with 0.3 seconds showing on the clock. Making the catch that saves the newspaper from an embarrassing error was, for me, like making the catch to win the Super Bowl.
Burnout -- that's for stockbrokers and accountants and bankers and Mariah Carey and people who work in offices.
I've been wrong about a lot of things in recent weeks. I can add the above assertion to the list.
I hope I'm not wrong about the following: I'm sure this is temporary. It's been a pretty stressful time in the news world, especially here on the Edge of America. We've had teams making Super Bowl runs, we've had space shuttles falling out of the sky, and now we have war. There's nothing particularly inspiring about any of that.
A lot of things about burnout suck:
I thought I could solve it by just doing my job a little bit better. I put in a call into my usually reliable energy reserves -- and damned if they're not answering. Instead, I'm hyper-sensitive about every little mistake I make. The best way to not make mistakes or errors in judgment is to simply keep one's mouth shut. That's never been my philosophy, but I suddenly see the merits in that line of thinking.
I'm becoming an asshole. I'm becoming one at work, and worse, I'm becoming one at home. The Wife is doing everything she possibly can to help. She's offering suggestions, she's propping me up when necessary, and she's hollering at me when it's necessary. She basically goaded me into standing up for myself in a work situation today, an instance where I normally would have just said, "uh, OK," and hated myself for it. Instead, I stood up for myself, and I'm not entirely sure I should have, despite the fact that I know it was the right thing to do.
I question every decision I make. I'm questioning whether I should post this or if I should call on my trio of close friends, Click, Drag and Delete. I'm questioning whether I should go to sleep or stay up all night. Come morning, I'll question whether I should get out of bed. I'll make several perfectly fine decisions at work tomorrow, then question whether I should have gone the other way. That's a hell of a cycle in which to be stuck.
I'm bothered that I even think like this. My patience for whiners is less than nil. I don't like that I'm becoming one. And those who have followed this forum for the last several months can be excused for believing that I might never find true satisfaction.
But they tell me the first step toward solving a problem is admitting that you have one. Now I need to thumb through the directions and find Step 2.
Me and The Wall had a violent collision the other night.
Marathon runners speak of The Wall, the signal that the runner has taken his or her endurance past its limit. "I've hit The Wall." For most, it hits at about the 19- or 20-mile mark. The champion marathon runner scales The Wall mentally, catches a second wind and presses on. The weaker runners collapse in a sobbing heap of muscle spasms and shin splints.
For many years, I have scoffed at The Wall. I always thought burnout was for losers, for whiny suburban corporate guys whose jobs didn't generate their own energy. That's what I've always loved about journalism, and it's what has made me think for all these years that I had beaten the system. "I've never had a job," I have often said. The pursuit of a big story in many ways is its own reward. Challenging a deadline and beating it is a rush like few others. Knowing something nobody else knows; well, there's just nothing better. Coming up with the last-minute idea that takes a good page to brilliant is like hitting a 3-pointer with 0.3 seconds showing on the clock. Making the catch that saves the newspaper from an embarrassing error was, for me, like making the catch to win the Super Bowl.
Burnout -- that's for stockbrokers and accountants and bankers and Mariah Carey and people who work in offices.
I've been wrong about a lot of things in recent weeks. I can add the above assertion to the list.
I hope I'm not wrong about the following: I'm sure this is temporary. It's been a pretty stressful time in the news world, especially here on the Edge of America. We've had teams making Super Bowl runs, we've had space shuttles falling out of the sky, and now we have war. There's nothing particularly inspiring about any of that.
A lot of things about burnout suck:
I'm bothered that I even think like this. My patience for whiners is less than nil. I don't like that I'm becoming one. And those who have followed this forum for the last several months can be excused for believing that I might never find true satisfaction.
But they tell me the first step toward solving a problem is admitting that you have one. Now I need to thumb through the directions and find Step 2.
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Monday, March 24, 2003
Friday, March 21, 2003
The first couple of days
Wednesday, 9:45 p.m.
Here at the Edge-of-America Beacon, we're ready for war. It's an hour and 15 minutes past the deadline Bush set for Saddam to take his vacation. Saddam has decided to stay at work, we're told, so war is imminent.
Imminent. Imminent. Imminent ... but apparently not happening yet. My design staff has one extra person tonight, thanks to the designer who volunteered to come back from a seminar at which I wish she could have stayed. I told her a half-hour ago to go on home and be ready to come back in early in the morning in case we put out an extra. She said, "OK; I gotta answer a few e-mails first."
We've put together a huge special section that is set to appear in the paper the day after the war starts. We have it ready to be in tomorrow's paper. I have to call the pressroom at 9:45 p.m. to tell them to run it or hold it.
I have the phone in my hand, ready to make the call to tell them to hold it.
10:10 p.m. Wednesday
Various upper managers are making decisions. We have a plan, but, as something I read earlier today stated so well, "A military plan is followed right up to the time bullets are fired." We're adding six -- no wait, make that eight -- no, let's make it 12 pages to the paper. It's not like we just have to fill those 12 pages, however ... the 14 existing pages will be affected, also, because the pages have to be tucked into the front of the section. Even pages that have long since been finished have to be redone -- some just to change the page number, most to accommodate stories that have to move from Page One or in some other way. The designer who came back from the seminar just answered her last e-mail.
I call the pressroom to ask if the press is running with the special section. "You told us to hold it," they said. "No," I said, "I didn't. I told the guy in the pre-press area to roll it." I said Go, they heard Whoa. "Well, I'll have to talk to my supervisor," press guy says. "Go ahead," I said. "It has to go either way."
The computer system through which we do our pages is waiting for the update from the advertising folks. We can't start on anything until the pages are ready. We wait, wait, wait, wait ... still waiting to get the signal. We finally get started on the big remake about 10:35.
TO: Designers
FM: me
DATE: Wednesday, March 19, 2003, 10:36 PM
SUBJECT: You'll find this funny
All pages must be gone by 12:20. -thanks, rj
12:44 a.m., Thursday
An Upper Manager is doing laps around the newsroom, trying to inventory how many pages have still not been sent to the pressroom. She's on her 23rd lap, and she's asking me for the 23rd time. In my mind, I say, you know, the pages aren't going to get out faster if you ask more often. It's just adding to already intense stress. By my rough count, we still have 10 pages waiting to go. The copy desk is moving stories through as fast as they possibly can. Four people from the pressroom are up in the newsroom watching us work. I wonder why they aren't in the pressroom, waiting to press the button. Maybe they're up here confirming that we're still actually working on the pages, that we didn't decide to just throw up our hands and go home. I wonder if that wouldn't have been the better decision.
Adding to the confusion: the old pages maintained their old page numbers in the system; the new numbers are lost in some system-related ether. Page 15 is really Page 5. Page 7 is now Page 19. Page 6 is now Page 6.1.
Here comes the Upper Manager again. I prepare to give her the same answer I gave her two minutes ago.
1:10 a.m., Thursday
For some reason, Page One is stuck on the designer's computer screen. He keeps hitting the Go button, and nothing is happening. The Upper Managers, the pressroom folks and one lone systems person are standing over his screen. In the interim, I catch a potential really serious error on a proof. The Upper Managers get bored with the system problem and go look for somebody to fire. The systems person figures out the problem and says, "Go." I say, "Whoa." We fix the mistake -- which would not have been fixed had the system not glitched -- and we go. Not even an hour late. I'm really happy about that.
1:50 a.m. Thursday
The papers are back from the pressroom. The Upper Managers thumb through them quickly and go home. We're coming back at 6:30 to put out a 12-page Extra. I express surprise that, in the hubbub of all that was going on, we weren't being interrupted with constant updates. "Is that all there was?" I ask. One small strike, apparently aimed directly at Saddam and his goons. This wasn't exactly Shock and Awe. The guy on TV says for the 300th time, "This isn't exactly Shock and Awe."
I spent the next hour or so setting up our Extra for tomorrow afternoon.
5:30 a.m. Thursday
After a 90-minute nap, I'm headed back in to put out our 12-page Extra. I check the Web for updates; strangely, there are none. As I pilot the Oldsmobile through the dark neighborhood streets, I note with puzzlement that the news radio guys are talking about non-war related stories. I wonder why we're doing this.
7 a.m. Thursday
Apparently the Upper Managers wondered, too. The 12-page edition is now eight pages. We're doing it basically because we can. We get it out 20 minutes past the 10 a.m. deadline. I get some marching orders for the rest of the day, one of which is, "Go home and get some rest." At a little before noon, I take The Boss up on that.
5 p.m. Thursday
The crew is in. We're back and ready to put out another edition, waiting for the update that never comes. No shock. No awe. A helicopter crash, which is par for the course. We steer the huge edition home basically on time. I go home to get some much-needed sleep, knowing that my grip on reality is tenuous.
11 a.m. Friday
The Wife notes, in her typical knife-through-the-crap manner, "this is a boring war. We've had fights more exciting than this."
1 p.m. Friday
I'm interrupted as I write the "7 a.m. Thursday" entry above. I find myself saying, "son of a bitch," without realizing I had even said it. My TV screen is exploding in massive fireballs. The commentators have stopped speaking, like they do during sporting events when the crowd goes nuts. It's scaring the goddamn hell out of me, like it was happening outside my own window rather than on the other side of the world.
I'm now officially shocked, and awed. And reminded of how motherfucking awful this whole thing is.
Wednesday, 9:45 p.m.
Here at the Edge-of-America Beacon, we're ready for war. It's an hour and 15 minutes past the deadline Bush set for Saddam to take his vacation. Saddam has decided to stay at work, we're told, so war is imminent.
Imminent. Imminent. Imminent ... but apparently not happening yet. My design staff has one extra person tonight, thanks to the designer who volunteered to come back from a seminar at which I wish she could have stayed. I told her a half-hour ago to go on home and be ready to come back in early in the morning in case we put out an extra. She said, "OK; I gotta answer a few e-mails first."
We've put together a huge special section that is set to appear in the paper the day after the war starts. We have it ready to be in tomorrow's paper. I have to call the pressroom at 9:45 p.m. to tell them to run it or hold it.
I have the phone in my hand, ready to make the call to tell them to hold it.
10:10 p.m. Wednesday
Various upper managers are making decisions. We have a plan, but, as something I read earlier today stated so well, "A military plan is followed right up to the time bullets are fired." We're adding six -- no wait, make that eight -- no, let's make it 12 pages to the paper. It's not like we just have to fill those 12 pages, however ... the 14 existing pages will be affected, also, because the pages have to be tucked into the front of the section. Even pages that have long since been finished have to be redone -- some just to change the page number, most to accommodate stories that have to move from Page One or in some other way. The designer who came back from the seminar just answered her last e-mail.
I call the pressroom to ask if the press is running with the special section. "You told us to hold it," they said. "No," I said, "I didn't. I told the guy in the pre-press area to roll it." I said Go, they heard Whoa. "Well, I'll have to talk to my supervisor," press guy says. "Go ahead," I said. "It has to go either way."
The computer system through which we do our pages is waiting for the update from the advertising folks. We can't start on anything until the pages are ready. We wait, wait, wait, wait ... still waiting to get the signal. We finally get started on the big remake about 10:35.
TO: Designers
FM: me
DATE: Wednesday, March 19, 2003, 10:36 PM
SUBJECT: You'll find this funny
All pages must be gone by 12:20. -thanks, rj
12:44 a.m., Thursday
An Upper Manager is doing laps around the newsroom, trying to inventory how many pages have still not been sent to the pressroom. She's on her 23rd lap, and she's asking me for the 23rd time. In my mind, I say, you know, the pages aren't going to get out faster if you ask more often. It's just adding to already intense stress. By my rough count, we still have 10 pages waiting to go. The copy desk is moving stories through as fast as they possibly can. Four people from the pressroom are up in the newsroom watching us work. I wonder why they aren't in the pressroom, waiting to press the button. Maybe they're up here confirming that we're still actually working on the pages, that we didn't decide to just throw up our hands and go home. I wonder if that wouldn't have been the better decision.
Adding to the confusion: the old pages maintained their old page numbers in the system; the new numbers are lost in some system-related ether. Page 15 is really Page 5. Page 7 is now Page 19. Page 6 is now Page 6.1.
Here comes the Upper Manager again. I prepare to give her the same answer I gave her two minutes ago.
1:10 a.m., Thursday
For some reason, Page One is stuck on the designer's computer screen. He keeps hitting the Go button, and nothing is happening. The Upper Managers, the pressroom folks and one lone systems person are standing over his screen. In the interim, I catch a potential really serious error on a proof. The Upper Managers get bored with the system problem and go look for somebody to fire. The systems person figures out the problem and says, "Go." I say, "Whoa." We fix the mistake -- which would not have been fixed had the system not glitched -- and we go. Not even an hour late. I'm really happy about that.
1:50 a.m. Thursday
The papers are back from the pressroom. The Upper Managers thumb through them quickly and go home. We're coming back at 6:30 to put out a 12-page Extra. I express surprise that, in the hubbub of all that was going on, we weren't being interrupted with constant updates. "Is that all there was?" I ask. One small strike, apparently aimed directly at Saddam and his goons. This wasn't exactly Shock and Awe. The guy on TV says for the 300th time, "This isn't exactly Shock and Awe."
I spent the next hour or so setting up our Extra for tomorrow afternoon.
5:30 a.m. Thursday
After a 90-minute nap, I'm headed back in to put out our 12-page Extra. I check the Web for updates; strangely, there are none. As I pilot the Oldsmobile through the dark neighborhood streets, I note with puzzlement that the news radio guys are talking about non-war related stories. I wonder why we're doing this.
7 a.m. Thursday
Apparently the Upper Managers wondered, too. The 12-page edition is now eight pages. We're doing it basically because we can. We get it out 20 minutes past the 10 a.m. deadline. I get some marching orders for the rest of the day, one of which is, "Go home and get some rest." At a little before noon, I take The Boss up on that.
5 p.m. Thursday
The crew is in. We're back and ready to put out another edition, waiting for the update that never comes. No shock. No awe. A helicopter crash, which is par for the course. We steer the huge edition home basically on time. I go home to get some much-needed sleep, knowing that my grip on reality is tenuous.
11 a.m. Friday
The Wife notes, in her typical knife-through-the-crap manner, "this is a boring war. We've had fights more exciting than this."
1 p.m. Friday
I'm interrupted as I write the "7 a.m. Thursday" entry above. I find myself saying, "son of a bitch," without realizing I had even said it. My TV screen is exploding in massive fireballs. The commentators have stopped speaking, like they do during sporting events when the crowd goes nuts. It's scaring the goddamn hell out of me, like it was happening outside my own window rather than on the other side of the world.
I'm now officially shocked, and awed. And reminded of how motherfucking awful this whole thing is.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Call me paranoid
Check out the ad at the top of this page, the one I'm too cheap to pay $15 to get rid of. Damned if it isn't searching this site and making itself seemingly relevant to its content. I've noticed that it has recently featured several Texas-themed businesses. Last time I looked, it was shilling for "Music for Babies."
Avid readers know this forum frequently refers to Texas, music and children, among many, many other things.
Google recently bought the little company that created the software that powers this forum. I wonder if, all of a sudden, Google is watching me.
I may be completely wrong about this. But I'm going to be watching that ad just the same. All hail the power of Google.
Check out the ad at the top of this page, the one I'm too cheap to pay $15 to get rid of. Damned if it isn't searching this site and making itself seemingly relevant to its content. I've noticed that it has recently featured several Texas-themed businesses. Last time I looked, it was shilling for "Music for Babies."
Avid readers know this forum frequently refers to Texas, music and children, among many, many other things.
Google recently bought the little company that created the software that powers this forum. I wonder if, all of a sudden, Google is watching me.
I may be completely wrong about this. But I'm going to be watching that ad just the same. All hail the power of Google.
Monday, March 17, 2003
BULLETIN
No, this particular post is not that important. I just need to get myself accustomed to seeing that word repeatedly over the next several days.
It appears this might be our last pre-war post for a while. We've given our official F- you to the United Nations. Soon -- perhaps as soon as Wednesday -- bombs will start falling over one of the cradles of ancient civilization. Perhaps as soon as Friday, some wacko group will retaliate with a terrorist strike in the United States. Soon, all the anti-war bleating won't matter any more, not that it ever did, I guess. Soon, I'll have to put my search for inspiration on hold for a little while while I and my co-workers spend every waking hour telling you about the war.
I'll put down my tiny little protest sign now. Time to start wondering what happens next.
No, this particular post is not that important. I just need to get myself accustomed to seeing that word repeatedly over the next several days.
It appears this might be our last pre-war post for a while. We've given our official F- you to the United Nations. Soon -- perhaps as soon as Wednesday -- bombs will start falling over one of the cradles of ancient civilization. Perhaps as soon as Friday, some wacko group will retaliate with a terrorist strike in the United States. Soon, all the anti-war bleating won't matter any more, not that it ever did, I guess. Soon, I'll have to put my search for inspiration on hold for a little while while I and my co-workers spend every waking hour telling you about the war.
I'll put down my tiny little protest sign now. Time to start wondering what happens next.
A friendly reminder as we head off to war
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Keep this in mind as the drums of battle start to get louder. It's part of what we're allegedly going to be fighting for. It also makes it OK to disagree.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Keep this in mind as the drums of battle start to get louder. It's part of what we're allegedly going to be fighting for. It also makes it OK to disagree.
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Woo-hoo!
Just in time to break my doom-and-gloom mood comes this: a huge victory for RER in a national journalism contest. The Cousin Who's On TV is taking home a Best in Show in the National Headliner Awards -- a damn prestigious contest, a very small notch below a Pulitzer or a Murrow -- for exposing the half-truths found in South Carolina's political ads. The fact that politicians are liars isn't news. But RER's reports did more than simply call names; they pointed out the half-truths AND the complete truths, and educated viewers on the visual tricks that can take a truth and twist it into a falsehood. Go here to see for yourself.
This is incredibly sophisticated reporting, and, I'm sure, incredibly time-consuming. As the judges said in the citation, it's what all journalists should be doing every day. But RER took what we should be doing and did it better than everybody else.
Just in time to break my doom-and-gloom mood comes this: a huge victory for RER in a national journalism contest. The Cousin Who's On TV is taking home a Best in Show in the National Headliner Awards -- a damn prestigious contest, a very small notch below a Pulitzer or a Murrow -- for exposing the half-truths found in South Carolina's political ads. The fact that politicians are liars isn't news. But RER's reports did more than simply call names; they pointed out the half-truths AND the complete truths, and educated viewers on the visual tricks that can take a truth and twist it into a falsehood. Go here to see for yourself.
This is incredibly sophisticated reporting, and, I'm sure, incredibly time-consuming. As the judges said in the citation, it's what all journalists should be doing every day. But RER took what we should be doing and did it better than everybody else.
Monday, March 10, 2003
Impending doom
I can't get past the feeling that today begins the last week of our lives, or something. It might be because I was only 22 and working in sports at the time, but I don't remember the buildup in 1990-91 to Persian Gulf I being quite this excruciating, or lengthy, or fraught with visions of homeland hell. Of course, at the time, we could still say, "what, you think a bunch of whacked-out Arabs could simultaneously hijack four airplanes and crash two of them into the tallest buildings in the nation and less than 30 minutes later slam one into the Pentagon? You watch too many Schwarzenegger movies, dude."
Yeah, those were the days.
March 17. That's a week from today. My kid's spring break starts that day. Good chance I'm going to be with her for none of it, if the president and his henchmen have their way. Of course, 300,000 of us are facing a far worse March 17 than am I, being that they're going to be in the same time zone as Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction.
I guess I should clarify my position on the whole war thing. I know I've been going back and forth. A quick run through the archives reveals I've been going back and forth since August. So, for what it's worth (and considering it's my forum, it's worth whatever I decide it is), here's where I stand:
I fully believe Saddam Hussein and Iraq is in possession of some quantity of chemical weapons -- just like pretty much every other developed nation on the planet.
I fully believe Saddam Hussein is an evil leader who does awful things to people in his country who disagree with him.
I fully believe Iraq has violated the provisions of every UN resolution since 1991.
I fully believe the world would be a better place if Saddam Hussein was, well, dead; or failing that, in a heavily guarded retirement home somewhere in the United Arab Emirates.
I fully believe Saddam Hussein poses no imminent threat to me or mine or the United States in general. I believe Iraq is our punching bag (see Bombing, effort to distract from impeachment by, 1998). I believe when somebody pisses us off, we go beat up on Iraq to make ourselves feel better.
I believe my family and I face a greater threat from North Korea and its well-known nuclear program. I believe my family and I face a greater threat from whatever remains of al-Evildoer. I'm starting to believe my family and I face a greater threat from our own leaders.
I understand this: Sometimes you have to stir up the hornets' nest in order to eliminate the danger posed by the hornets. I'm not ready to carry a sign and chant peace slogans. For what my support is worth, I fully support the folks whose job it is to go over and take care of this thing.
But we're a week away from wall-to-wall CNN, and I'm still pretty sure war is a bad idea.
The fence on which I'm standing is pretty long. I hope it's wide enough for me.
I can't get past the feeling that today begins the last week of our lives, or something. It might be because I was only 22 and working in sports at the time, but I don't remember the buildup in 1990-91 to Persian Gulf I being quite this excruciating, or lengthy, or fraught with visions of homeland hell. Of course, at the time, we could still say, "what, you think a bunch of whacked-out Arabs could simultaneously hijack four airplanes and crash two of them into the tallest buildings in the nation and less than 30 minutes later slam one into the Pentagon? You watch too many Schwarzenegger movies, dude."
Yeah, those were the days.
March 17. That's a week from today. My kid's spring break starts that day. Good chance I'm going to be with her for none of it, if the president and his henchmen have their way. Of course, 300,000 of us are facing a far worse March 17 than am I, being that they're going to be in the same time zone as Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction.
I guess I should clarify my position on the whole war thing. I know I've been going back and forth. A quick run through the archives reveals I've been going back and forth since August. So, for what it's worth (and considering it's my forum, it's worth whatever I decide it is), here's where I stand:
I understand this: Sometimes you have to stir up the hornets' nest in order to eliminate the danger posed by the hornets. I'm not ready to carry a sign and chant peace slogans. For what my support is worth, I fully support the folks whose job it is to go over and take care of this thing.
But we're a week away from wall-to-wall CNN, and I'm still pretty sure war is a bad idea.
The fence on which I'm standing is pretty long. I hope it's wide enough for me.
Sunday, March 09, 2003
Saturday, March 08, 2003
Hi. I'm rj and I'm a workaholic
I took a day off today. I don't feel bad about it. Really. I don't. I promise. Today's work hiatus wasn't entirely voluntary; The Wife took Champion Dog 2 down to the South Edge for a show. Brought home ribbons, a fairly nice paperweight and winnings of $4.50. More importantly, folks who know about dogs were impressed with her dog. This, I'm told, is very, very good.
And anyway, when the war starts (not "if," Mr. President, "when"; you don't fool me), I won't be putting the words "day" and "off" together in any sentence for a while. So I went against my nature and enjoyed the semi-break I gave myself from working today. Here was my 6-step program (hey, remember, it's a day off; I'm allowed to half-ass if I want to):
1/Baseball with The Boy. He's in a league for kids born after Jan. 1, 1999. Any resemblance it bears to actual baseball is purely coincidental. But it's a lot of fun for all involved, so far. If I see any Little League nightmare parents in this, I know the apocalypse is near. We have a "game" Saturday. Today's lesson: Holding on to the bat when swinging it.
2/Reading with the Young Daughter. I start the sentence, she finishes it. From memory, of course.
3/Installing a garbage disposal. By myself. This is a fairly dramatic feat. I'm not what you'd call "good around the house." Nor do I have any particular desire to be. But ... well, let's just say much hinged on getting the old dead disposal out and the new good one in. So I'm addicted to my modern conveniences. Make fun of me.
4/Buying a new coffee maker. My coffee maker is one of the most important appliances in the house. It'd probably be high on the list of things I'd grab from a fire. It was more of an inconvenience to be without a coffee maker than it was to be without a garbage disposal. I got one of these black-and-chrome jobs just because I thought it looked cool. Plus, it promises to keep the coffee warm for four hours without a hot surface. (One of these "thermal" things.) Anyway, when The Wife saw it tonight, she said, "You did notice that we have no other black appliances anywhere in the house?" Yeah, I did notice, after I got the thing home and out of the box. Oh well.
5/Taking the kids to a drive-in hamburger joint. One, because I was too lazy to cook (despite having a newly clean kitchen) and two, because this particular drive-in joint is for some weird reason one of their favorite places. We had one close to our house in Texas. The Old Daughter asked a few weeks ago if there was a location in Florida. We said no. Turns out there is, which was a cool surprise for the kids.
6/Doing some work. See, you say, you're no recovering workaholic. You're using again. Well, yeah, OK. But I had some stuff I need to do, and for a while, I had the perfect environment in which to do it: The aforementioned kick-ass Mac laptop; a completely dark, quiet room, instead of the usual chaotic atmosphere at the office; and a cold beer at my fingertips, rather than bad vending-machine coffee.
If one must work -- and I must -- that's the way to do it.
I took a day off today. I don't feel bad about it. Really. I don't. I promise. Today's work hiatus wasn't entirely voluntary; The Wife took Champion Dog 2 down to the South Edge for a show. Brought home ribbons, a fairly nice paperweight and winnings of $4.50. More importantly, folks who know about dogs were impressed with her dog. This, I'm told, is very, very good.
And anyway, when the war starts (not "if," Mr. President, "when"; you don't fool me), I won't be putting the words "day" and "off" together in any sentence for a while. So I went against my nature and enjoyed the semi-break I gave myself from working today. Here was my 6-step program (hey, remember, it's a day off; I'm allowed to half-ass if I want to):
1/Baseball with The Boy. He's in a league for kids born after Jan. 1, 1999. Any resemblance it bears to actual baseball is purely coincidental. But it's a lot of fun for all involved, so far. If I see any Little League nightmare parents in this, I know the apocalypse is near. We have a "game" Saturday. Today's lesson: Holding on to the bat when swinging it.
2/Reading with the Young Daughter. I start the sentence, she finishes it. From memory, of course.
3/Installing a garbage disposal. By myself. This is a fairly dramatic feat. I'm not what you'd call "good around the house." Nor do I have any particular desire to be. But ... well, let's just say much hinged on getting the old dead disposal out and the new good one in. So I'm addicted to my modern conveniences. Make fun of me.
4/Buying a new coffee maker. My coffee maker is one of the most important appliances in the house. It'd probably be high on the list of things I'd grab from a fire. It was more of an inconvenience to be without a coffee maker than it was to be without a garbage disposal. I got one of these black-and-chrome jobs just because I thought it looked cool. Plus, it promises to keep the coffee warm for four hours without a hot surface. (One of these "thermal" things.) Anyway, when The Wife saw it tonight, she said, "You did notice that we have no other black appliances anywhere in the house?" Yeah, I did notice, after I got the thing home and out of the box. Oh well.
5/Taking the kids to a drive-in hamburger joint. One, because I was too lazy to cook (despite having a newly clean kitchen) and two, because this particular drive-in joint is for some weird reason one of their favorite places. We had one close to our house in Texas. The Old Daughter asked a few weeks ago if there was a location in Florida. We said no. Turns out there is, which was a cool surprise for the kids.
6/Doing some work. See, you say, you're no recovering workaholic. You're using again. Well, yeah, OK. But I had some stuff I need to do, and for a while, I had the perfect environment in which to do it: The aforementioned kick-ass Mac laptop; a completely dark, quiet room, instead of the usual chaotic atmosphere at the office; and a cold beer at my fingertips, rather than bad vending-machine coffee.
If one must work -- and I must -- that's the way to do it.
Friday, March 07, 2003
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Jobs I wish I could have
As mentioned here previously, I have been in the newspaper industry for half my life. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to sell typewriters. I work in a medium that is rapidly losing its relevance in a more immediate, more glossy, less structured world.
However, I'm stuck with it, because I'm not qualified to do anything else. I can dream, though. Some things I wish I was qualified to do:
Computer security. Hacking for a living. Preventing others from hacking for fun. I want to be a guy who digs around on hard drives finding things some poor sap thought he had "deleted." It would suit my nosy tendencies.
"Professional driver on a closed course." Drive as fast as I want in a completely controlled environment. I really can't imagine a cooler job.
Car designer. This was the first career I seriously considered. I was 10 at the time. My lack of natural art talent -- and my lack of discipline necessary to develop what little skill I had -- were impediments to pursuing this. But I'd still love to be the guy who decides where to put the taillights and whether the license plate bracket goes on the bumper or on the trunk lid.
Writer. The only actual talent I have. Not enough of it to actually be lucrative, however.
Musician. If I had been a traditional young person, I might have chased this dream a little longer. However, I saddled myself with debt at a young age. Debt is incompatible with non-regular paychecks.
Historian. I always wondered how "historians" feed themselves. Yeah, I could sit around and do research all day, every day. I can't think of many things I'd rather do. But, what would I do with it? Who'd pay to read it?
Long-haul truck driver. I like to drive. I like highways. I like being alone, sometimes. I like seeing the country. I handle large vehicles fairly well, although my experience with large vehicles is limited to driving U-Hauls. I don't like flannel shirts or wallets on chains, and no matter how much truck-stop food I ate, I'd never weigh enough.
Writer for a car magazine. Wonder if I would get bored with cars if I spent that much time around them.
I love newspapers, and I love the news business. And I've had opportunities to try something different within those parameters. But I've always come around to shying away from the risk. I've seen too many people go into new business ventures that crashed and burned. I don't have a fireproof savings account. And I can't imagine my kid saying, "Yeah, I have to share a room with both of my siblings, but that's OK, because my daddy's a risk-taker."
There's no room in my budget for career redevelopment. Keep that regular paycheck coming.
As mentioned here previously, I have been in the newspaper industry for half my life. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to sell typewriters. I work in a medium that is rapidly losing its relevance in a more immediate, more glossy, less structured world.
However, I'm stuck with it, because I'm not qualified to do anything else. I can dream, though. Some things I wish I was qualified to do:
I love newspapers, and I love the news business. And I've had opportunities to try something different within those parameters. But I've always come around to shying away from the risk. I've seen too many people go into new business ventures that crashed and burned. I don't have a fireproof savings account. And I can't imagine my kid saying, "Yeah, I have to share a room with both of my siblings, but that's OK, because my daddy's a risk-taker."
There's no room in my budget for career redevelopment. Keep that regular paycheck coming.