A comprehensive update

It's 7:31 a.m. in central Minnesota. The temperature outside is 18 below zero, and it's not expected to get much warmer. The sun is poking its head up over the eastern horizon; it appears as if it's trying to decide whether it really wants to come up or not.

My first start-to-finish project with my new company is scheduled to launch on Monday. So far, everything's on track and in order. I've been lucky enough to have been working with very skilled people on the customer side. If everything goes as planned -- and there's no reason to think that it won't -- a small newspaper in central Minnesota will be using a computer system that I installed, starting Monday.

This for me has been the culmination of a wild, wild year. Eleven months ago, I was sitting on the other side of the computers, doing the same thing I had been doing for all of my adult life and a good chunk of my late adolescence. I was bored to tears, tired of the constant second-guessing that goes on at every level of a newsroom, and frustrated with the thought that, because I had devoted my entire life and what little formal education I had to the pursuit of journalism, I wasn't qualified to do anything else.

Then this thing fell into my lap. I was given the opportunity to use what I knew about how a newsroom works in conjunction with what was arguably my best natural skill -- manipulating the technology -- to help design, sell and install that technology in other newsrooms. It gave me a chance to make good on one of my frequent grumbles: "When I design my own computer system, it sure as hell isn't going to work like this one ... "

Well, OK, I'm not exactly designing it, but I'm getting a chance to contribute. My newsroom experience has gained me much respect inside the company and with customers. People don't second-guess every decision I make. I don't second-guess every decision I make. In short, career-wise, it so far appears that I've made a perfect landing.

I pointed out last year, when I was deciding whether to do this, that it's a volatile industry. And it still is. We're hiring a bunch of people right now. A lot of those people might be let go if business takes a turn. I might be let go if business takes a turn. Our company is one of the smaller players in the industry; the chance of being bought out is very real, at least in the medium term. A lot of uncertainties are attached to this gig.

But one thing is certain: So far, it works for me. Right now, I'll take that.

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The new career has meant a new lifestyle for the family. After nearly a decade and a half of working at night, on weekends, working a non-set, uncertain schedule, having to drop everything and come to work to cover a major news event, I'm now leading the normal life of a 9-to-5er.

Well, almost. I'm also on the road most weekdays and a few weekends. If we have to work for a client on Monday, we have to travel on Sunday night. So it's not perfect.

But it's better than the previous arrangement. My weekends have largely been free to spend with the family; to let The Wife pursue her pursuits without worrying that she's going to get a call at 2 p.m. Saturday saying I have to go to work because a terrorist was found in the Middle East. We're able to have weekends with the kids and explore the wonder that is Florida. I have friends in our neighborhood, friends outside of work. We spend weekend nights with them, drinking, talking, basically just doing what humans are supposed to do in their time off: relaxing.

I'm home for dinner most nights. We have what's called "Circle Time" at dinner, which The Wife devised as a way to give the kids a forum to report on the events of their days. The Old Daughter lists hers off methodically. The Boy breathlessly speaks of the latest book he's read or the five or six people he played with at recess. The Young Daughter stretches out her time by reporting what she's done, then repeating it. I usually say, "I helped people with their computers." What I'm doing is not nearly as important as what they're doing.

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The travel is rough sometimes. I enjoy being out and seeing new things and meeting new people. I don't like being away from the family for extended periods. But the perks are good.

The Wife and I used those perks -- a bundle of Delta SkyMiles and Marriott Rewards points -- to spend her 34th birthday in beautiful downtown Manhattan. The Wife has always wanted to see a Broadway show. So last Saturday, we went to a Broadway show.

It was weird to think that it was almost as easy for us to go to a Broadway show on Broadway as it would have been to go to a Broadway show in St. Petersburg. We left Friday night, went to the show Saturday and came home Sunday. Spent $400 on food, transportation, show tickets and stuff.

We ate lunch Saturday at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. We ate lunch Sunday at an Italian joint in Little Italy. Both would rank near the top in our experience of those restaurant genres, although neither was ranked high enough in the eyes of travel-guide writers to merit a mention. That's part of what makes New York fun: The ability to discover great stuff just by looking for it.

We saw Wonderful Town at the Al Hirschfeld Theater on West 45th Street. Brooke Shields played the lead. She's actually far more talented than her career credits would suggest. Live theatre seems to be her niche, and she has a much-underused gift for physical comedy. The music was good without being cheesy. The seats were comfortable. The company was great. It couldn't have been a better evening.


This is not the kind of thing we'd be able to do if I wasn't doing what I was doing. It doesn't take all of the sting about being away from home, but it helps a little bit.

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Life's not perfect. It never is. But mine right now is basically a sequence of perfect moments. That's about as close as you can hope to get in this less-than-perfect world. I didn't just change careers on Feb. 4, 2004. I changed everything, and I dragged four people along with me for the ride.

Risky? Yeah. But so far, worth it. The lesson: You're never bound to something that sucks unless you choose to be bound to something that sucks. It takes more than a finger-snap and a decision, but really, in the broad sense, not that much more.