A quick update from the Edge of America
I'm here. Settling in for Phase One of this adventure, the time when it's Just Me. The rest of the family remains in Texas while we attempt to sell the house. (Won't somebody please buy our house?)

The middle of Florida is just as I remember it -- clear blue sky, mild temperatures, occasional sea breezes. I missed out on the humidity, and I'm told it hasn't rained much in the past three years, which has been a problem. Seems the lakes are all drying up and stuff.

But I'm here. I'm OK, so far. The job's OK, so far. Need to get the family back together, though, and fast.

Well ...
... it's official on all ends. I'm leaving behind the Very Large Metropolitan Newspaper, all its greatness and all its flaws. I'm soon to be The Misplaced Texan.

I received an offer from the Medium-Sized Metropolitan Newspaper on the East Coast for which I formerly worked that was too good to pass up. I'll be heading to Florida this weekend to begin -- resume, I guess -- my work there.

When we say it's time for a change in our house, we mean it's Time for a Change. We're not much for sitting still. Our tolerance for unhappiness and/or boredom is practically zero. We're lucky that when we see Unhappiness or Boredom approaching, we have the ability to simply turn and walk away from it.

That's what we're doing here. Many question the validity of this Change as a career move. I say, screw them. It is, in fact, a step up in responsibility, balanced by being a step down in market size. But this is not just about the career. It's about the quality of life outside of work. We had said Quality in Florida, in droves. Granted, we only had one kid for most of that time, so we're a different family now. But I trust we'll find that Quality, in the streams and lakes, at the beach, at beautiful wooded state parks and wildlife preserves. We'll find that Quality in a place where it can be 85 degrees any day of the year, where I could sit on my back porch at 2 a.m. in January wearing shorts and toting a beer.

Nothing's guaranteed. We're living, walking, moving examples of that. I guess the Three-Year Itch flared up again. I'll concede that. And I'm making no guarantees that come 2005, we won't be searching again.

But I'm also excited about my job for the first time in a long, long time. That means something to me. I'm also excited about the fun my children and The Wife and I are going to have among the manatees and the seagulls (and the palmetto bugs, and the lizards ... )

I leave to pursue The Change this weekend. The rest of the family will follow soon.

Said pursuit will take me away from this forum for a while. It will return soon, in a new and hopefully improved form.

Thanks to everybody for their support. Check back periodically; we'll have Reports from the Edge of America ready soon.

Brevity rules
It's funny: I can't help but notice that as my posts get shorter, the reaction I'm receiving increases. (Thanks, by the way.)

Of course, it also may be that I'm getting reaction simply because they're so cryptic. (The e-mail with the subject line, "Huh?" might be a hint.)

Whatever, I'll take it. We'll return to regular programming soon.

I'm too honest
It's probably cost me a lot of money and who knows what else. But I try to be completely honest with everybody at every turn. It makes me a terrible negotiator, because I'm pretty quick to show my hand.

I'm sending out a plea to the world at large: Please return the favor.

The bad thing about the world
Here in the house, we trust each other. We know nobody's trying to put one over on anybody else, and if anybody tries it, he or she gets called on it pretty quick. It's hard for the kids to weasel something past Mom or Dad. The Wife and I know we're looking out for each other's best interests, even when those interests conflict with what we think we really want.

But the trust line apparently ends at our front door.

I don't know whom to trust.

Who's looking out for me, if anybody? It's getting kind of exhausting, having to look out for myself all the time.

Something cool and different
Some people spend all day searching Google for their ex-girlfriends. I killed some time recently searching Google for favorite musicians I haven't heard from in a while.

I ran across the site of the lovely and talented Maria McKee -- you might remember her from Lone Justice, whose videos received some MTV-play in about 1986. Or you might not. The astute Dixie Chicks fans in the audience will note that a Maria McKee song, "Am I the Only One," was the second-to-last track on Wide Open Spaces.

On most musicians' web sites, the "letter to fans" section is usually a pretty lame recount of what's going on with the latest tour or whatever, and it's updated about once every two years. Ms. McKee's site hasn't been updated since July, I'll grant, but the approach lends a feeling of authenticity that no other site I've found can match. Check it out, if you'd like.

Cowboys 13, Rams 10
A game neither team deserved to win. What an awful display of football on both sides. But: The Rams are 0-4; basically you can say goodbye to them. Pretty good chance now that many people's NFC champion pick won't even make the playoffs. The Cowboys are 2-2. Yeah, pretty good chance they won't make the playoffs either. But I wouldn't have taken odds they'd be 2-2 at this point.

The bright spot for the Cowboys: Roy Williams looks like a legitimate top-10 draft pick. He knocked Kurt Warner out of the game; he knocked the crap out of everybody else who came near him; and he got his hands on a few passes. Remember the name. You'll be hearing it a lot.

All things are basically equal
And that is what I have to work with as I continue to ponder the solution to the mid-career crisis.

One option: Go back to a place I've already been -- a place I liked a hell of a lot, and was very comfortable, and that has changed a lot over the last three years, largely for the better.

The other option: Stay at a place where I've always wanted to work, a place that has frustrated me greatly over the last year, but one with a hell of a lot of potential and (finally) some interest expressed from above in making some changes.

In a crappy economy, I have a choice of two very, very good jobs. I can't complain about that at all. But I'm faced with a decision, and it's time to decide.

Back on the ground ...
... and, suddenly, faced with a big career decision. A really big career decision. As big as they come.

Not ready to tell yet. But I will be soon.

All right, then, make something happen
They call them the "winds" of change. In our house, the weather phenomenon it most closely resembles is a dust storm.

The Change is hanging over our house. It's leaving residue everywhere. We're consumed by it. All our thoughts are about The Change, and what it might mean, and how we would handle it logistically. We can't go about our normal day-to-day with any level of competence, because we're thinking about The Change.

I noted earlier that come October, my life is going to be vastly different than it is now. I'm still not completely sure in what form The Change is going to manifest itself. But I'm talking proactive measures. (Or is that pro-active? Copy editors, help me out here. I'd look it up myself, but I'm too busy thinking about The Change.)

I'm not going to go into great detail. This isn't the forum, at least not yet.

Pursuit of The Change will take me away from this forum for a few days. Until I return, keep the cards and letters coming.

I'll fly the flag for this
Take a look at what makes America great. I agree with very little of what they're saying. But I will defend to the death their right to say it.

The addiction
(There's no greater point to this story, and probably, you'll lose some respect for me after you read it, for which I apologize. And, it's being delivered after a hearty knock on my pressed-wood desk.)

It's dangerous. It's illegal. It has cost me a lot of money over the years. It provides a rush like nothing else.

My drug? Speed.

Not the kind they make in clandestine laboratories in the Ozarks. The kind produced by a violent meeting between air, spark and gasoline under a not-so-gentle nudge from my right foot.

Letting loose on an open road is one of my stress relievers. When you're running down a two-lane at something approaching half-again the speed limit, you don't -- can't -- think about anything else other than keeping the car on the road. Your mind narrows with your field of vision. All other thoughts are thoroughly ground into dust. Few things accomplish that for me.

It's my guilty pleasure, and over the years, I've had to use the word "guilty" a lot.

Law enforcement agencies all over the country know me. My rap sheet goes something like this:

7 speeding tickets in 18 years of driving, the most recent being issued by a not-so-friendly officer in McAlester, Okla., two years ago.

I've been caught by six different law enforcement agencies in three states.

I received my first three speeding tickets in one 30-day stretch in the spring of 1987, when I was 18. I received the second on the way to pay the first. Let's just say I'm a slow learner.

I received my fourth less than a month after those three went off my record. (That means I've only had three in the last 12 years!)

A total of $567 in fines, plus God only knows how many thousands extra I've paid in insurance.

None of my tickets was a spectacular flouting of the law: The average over-the-limit was 17.5 mph, and the fastest speed recorded was 78 mph.

All of my tickets save one were written in broad daylight.

I've never really been able to contest one of my tickets. I was caught dead to rights every time. I probably talked my way into a couple of tickets; at least two of the infractions were minor enough to merit only a warning if I had kept my righteous teenage indignation to myself.

In my very weak defense, I got my license in 1984, when the 55-mph speed limit was still filling the coffers of small-town America. But, yeah, I still view the increased speed limits as merely a guideline.

Further in my weak defense: I've never owned a particularly fast car. I never was stopped in five years of riding a motorcycle. I don't drive dangerously -- really, I don't. I don't pass people on the shoulders or tailgate or engage in road-rage sessions. I don't zip in and out of traffic (although I enthusiastically go with the flow on Texas freeways, which is about 80). I slow down in bad weather. I don't speed with the kids in the car.

My father was seriously injured in a car accident. I have a well-developed respect for the bad things that can happen behind the wheel.

If you're a passenger in my car, I won't scare you in the least. But if it's just me and the tunes and sunshine and a dry, open road, I'm opening the throttle.

I will grant that, with maturity and time and all of the added responsibilities of my life, I don't take chances like I used to. Most of the time, I keep the speedometer needle where I can see it.

But I've been facing that "What do you want to do?" question a lot lately. My answer is simple: I want to be a Professional Driver on a Closed Course.

The Mid-Career Crisis, continued
It's escalating. (At this point, I would bring you the lyrics to "Crossroads," but my knowledge of the lyrics is something like this:
"I went down to the crossroads/
ben my numashuma on me bine."
Can't understand it when Clapton sings it, can't understand it when Robert Johnson sings it, couldn't understand it in the Skynyrd version. Sorry.)

Any-hoo ...

We've finished the latest fake newspaper project. The next fake newspaper project, to which I referred below, has been scuttled. This leaves me in an uncomfortable position. I have nothing to do.

Basically, I'm back to here (and I note with some dismay that this post is dated Dec. 29, 2001).

Bottom line is this: my life in October 2002 is going to be radically different than my life on Sept. 15, 2002.

I just don't yet know in what way. I'm listening to guidance.

The Befuddled Texan
Item: Election chaos reigns in Florida, yet again. The Texan says: Say this for the Soviets -- they knew how to have an election. They even knew who was going to win before the polls opened. That's efficiency. No deadline problems for newspapers getting the results from those elections. One would think those Floridians might have tested those machines sometime before Election Day.

Item: President lays out his case for war against Iraq. The Texan says: Thanks, Mr. President, for the help on this one. Seriously. I'm not convinced enough to pick up a weapon and head for Baghdad, but I have a better understanding of what has transpired since 1991 -- and what was supposed to have transpired. It's amazing what speaking to the United Nations can to do a politician. Because his audience is largely non-English speaking, Bush was forced to abandon his political idioms and cliches and doublespeak to make things easier for the real-time translators. This was not a message he wanted lost in the translation. It was clear enough even for me to understand.

Item:I was ready for some football ... The Texan says: ... but then I watched the Cowboys. Gag heard on sports-talk mouthpiece, worth repeating: "Why doesn't Fort Worth have a professional football team? Because then Dallas would want one, too."

Resolve
Love. Hope. Build. Preserve. Nurture. Cherish. Bond. Connect. Appreciate.

Peace.

There are vegetarians. Then there's me
It's lunchtime in the Very Big City. I mull my meal choices. I think back to my last two meals: Mostaccioli for dinner last night, grilled mahi-mahi for lunch yesterday. No red meat for two consecutive meals.

Woo-hoo. That entitles me to a BARBECUED BEEF SANDWICH TODAY!!

The doctor was checking my cholesterol level during my semi-annual physical two years go. She noted that it seemed a little high for somebody of my diminutive size. She asked me, "How many servings of red meat do you eat in a week?"

"Well," I replied, counting in my head, "there are seven days in a week, so we'll start with seven ... "

She sighed, shook her head and pulled a blank death certificate out of her desk drawer.

I ran out of fingers for counting. I pulled off my left shoe and sock. I stopped counting for a second. "Does bacon count as a red meat?"

She sighed again, clicked her pen and started writing.

My mother-in-law is a vegetarian. Her idea of a hearty meal is tofu. Her meals come in many colors: green, yellow, orange, bright red, a little purple if she mixes in eggplant or cabbage.

My preferred color is a little pink in the middle, thanks.

That's so Sept. 10
You get what you pay for. I wonder if the non-free Blogger would have just spontaneously deleted my last post. That's OK; it was all about football, and I suspect I'm boring you with football talk.

As we've been reminded ad nauseum, we're approaching an anniversary. Allow me to divert your attention to another anniversary: One year ago today.

It will go down as the last "normal" day of most of our lives. The last day in which our country wasn't at war against terrorism, whatever that means. The last day in which you could say to somebody, "You know, some crazy Arabs could hijack a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center," and somebody would reply, "They would not. You're an idiot. Where do you come up with crap like that?"

It was a day for shark attacks in Florida, for Gary Condit, for Barry Bonds chasing the home-run record. It was a day at work in which we chased a story about Blockbuster phasing out VHS tapes in favor of DVDs. It was a day in which we dove to the bottom of our feature-story barrel for the big hit on 1A.

It was a day on which I was anticipating the release of the new Robert Earl Keen album, due out the next day. It was a night I watched the Monday Night Football season opener, Denver beating the Giants, 31-20. Ed McCaffrey had his leg practically torn off in that game, as I recall.

There was no Monday Night Football game the next Monday.

I wish I had some neat, pithy way to wrap this up. I wish I could say that everything really is back to normal in my/our world, the way it seems to be. In most ways, it is. But I went to bed that Monday night after the football game and thought not one second about terrorism. I haven't been able to do that since. I wonder if I ever will again.

Choices
Avid readers will remember the death of my aunt back in March. It was a difficult time; she was 52 and recently married, and she and her husband had moved from his home in Virginia and were carving out a new life in Arkansas, relatively close to my mother. She was my mother's only sibling, and my mom justifiably felt cheated out of the opportunity to finish rebuilding her relationship with her sister.

I met my aunt's husband -- I guess that would actually make him my uncle -- for the first time at her funeral. That's not a good place to meet somebody for the first time. I felt terrible for him. He was putting her in the ground when he should have been making plans for their first anniversary, which would have been the next week.

I asked my mom if he had any relatives or friends or anything. He had none. Parents dead, no siblings. My aunt was all he had. My aunt's children, both adults, are serving their country in various ways overseas. One's in Germany, one's in Thailand.

My mom checked in on him periodically by phone, and visited his house, some 50 or 60 miles from hers, a time or two, helping him and my cousins with some logistical matters. He was doing about as well as one could expect, in his situation. It's difficult to go through this life with no real connection to anyone.

On Saturday, he decided it was no longer worth the effort. The medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.

I'm struggling with this one. My mother is driving herself mad, wondering what more she could have done. I can't imagine she could have done more. She didn't have much time to establish a connection of any sort with him, and a family connection doesn't just happen by way of a marriage certificate.

I can't say with any certainty what I would have done had I been wearing his shoes. And I can't imagine being in those shoes; I have a large, loving family, both immediate and extended. I do a fair job maintaining the bonds with the extended family, although I could do better.

Hearing this news was a reminder that I must do better. I said a little prayer, in my way, for comfort for the soul of this man, and my mom. I'd be grateful if, in your way, you'd do so too.

Exclusive In-Game Blog!

Texans 10, Cowboys 0, 8:17 remaining, 2nd quarter: Holy crap, Quincy Carter is gawdawful. Which one of these teams is the expansion team?

Texans 10, Cowboys 3, halftime: Should the Cowboys come back and win this game -- and one suspects that's a possibility, as David Carr starts looking a little more like a rookie quarterback and Houston looks a little more like an out-of-sync expansion squad -- should the Cowboys come back and win this game, all 45 guys on that roster should write thank-you notes to that stupid Texans d-back who whacked the Cowboys receiver with the ball already 10 yards past the play. Then all 45 guys should write thank-you notes to Jermaine Lewis, for dropping that beautiful pass from Carr three yards from the end zone. Same as it ever was: Quincy Carter's awful, Joey Galloway's hurt and the Cowboys make big plays on defense mostly out of survival instinct. I waited the entire off-season for this?

Texans 10, Cowboys 3, 7:13 remaining, third quarter: Jerry Jones has descended from the owner's box and is wandering the sidelines. I'm sure that'll help. Memo to Quincy Carter: Aaron Glenn is not on your team. That's why he's wearing a white shirt, not a blue one like yours. Stop throwing the damn ball to him.

Texans 19, Cowboys 10, 2:20 remaining, fourth quarter: Pinned back on his own 4-yard line, I predicted Quincy Carter would throw an interception. I got a safety.

Final: Texans 19, Cowboys 10. Don't rush out and try to get David Carr on your fantasy team just yet. You're not going to win every game going 10-for-22 for 145 yards with two touchdowns. You will, however, have a pretty good chance to beat the Cowboys with those numbers.

North Texas airwaves in August were filled with a lot of chatter about how great the Cowboys' training camp went and how they have serious playoff potential. Normally, one can't base much on one game. But this game answered more questions for Cowboys fans than it raised. Get ready for a long year.

Bold words go here
I put myself on paid administrative leave for a day, figuring a long weekend might get me re-motivated and stuff. I instead did basically nothing, other than waste a day of my life I'll never get back. I'm a little disturbed at how satisfying I found that.