12/12/2024

DAMN!!

A few weeks ago, I up & left this site to rot as I perused an exciting opportunity to run production of a local newspaper in a town an hour away.

I was so frikkin’ stoked! I had reoccurring dreams about working in a newsroom again. This seemed like the perfect fit for my skills, and for the first time in many years, I actually enjoyed my job again. The excitement of deadlines, paired with he challenge of wrangling a small newspaper into eye catching, easy-to-read design – it felt like I was home again!

So anyway, I got fired yesterday. I did a good job, but it wasn’t enough. Ad sales were a joke, and we had a massive lag with our writers that ran the last run hours late for press deadline in Las Vegas, where all Nevada newspapers go to print nowadays. The price tag on overtime for them hit the pocket book of my boss so hard, she had to make some tough [on me] decisions. Since I was the only paid employee, I got kicked to the curb.

I loved my new job for 3 weeks it existed. It made me feel useful and skilled, which is something I haven’t felt since Dennis Hof was above ground in 2018.

Now I have been fired from being a drafter for the military industrial complex, a community health worker for the ‘MOST’ insane people of Lyon County, and now from doing the one job I felt I was good at.

I sat in my room for about 2 hours last night, afraid to walk into the living room to give my hard working wife the bad news. When I finally did, there was no shock from her, but there was definitely plenty of stress in her eyes. It’s only 11 days until Christmas, and we borrowed from the money she was saving for gift shopping.

I’m not really mad at the newspaper’s owner. She took a leap of faith that I could work magic on their ad revenue, and it ended up costing money instead. While it’s not my fault it went that way, It’s the giant pile of bullshit dumped at my front door. As my favorite Buddhist teacher would say, “Start shoveling that shit to the back yard to fertilize the mango tree.”

Back to obsessing on this website! Perhaps I will use this to compete with the newspaper and other local media, and go for that ad revenue myself! If I can’t join them, I might as well beat them, right?

Giving up is never an option when I’m a husband to the sweetest woman in the world, plus the father of the 5 most awesome humans ever made.

Sorry, haters… I ain’t dead yet.

GAME ON!!!