A sudden, unnoticeable shift in employment

I officially became a full-time employee of Barnes & Noble today, meaning ... well, not a whole lot. In 60 days, I'll qualify for a pretty nice set of benefits. But in 60 days, I'd like to have a better-paying job that also has a nice set of benefits. Still, I shouldn't belittle what I've got. I'm sure there are a lot of folks out there who wish they had fun, easy jobs that offer health insurance, even if they don't pay a fortune.

So I'm happy.

There's been a bit of movement on the job front. After some hefty soul-searching, I turned down an interview with Rotary International for a Web editor position. It paid up to $52,000...gulp...but we just have very little interest in living in Chicago right now. We're happier than we've been in a long time, and I'm sure some equally cool jobs will come along. Plus, $50,000 in Evanston is probably about like $30,000 here in Birmingham, and getting a house would be a lot easier here.

I've applied for five or so jobs recently...writer for CNN.com, writer for Cartoon Network's Web site, project manager for a local publishing house, etc. I'm working on applications for a few other local editing jobs, and I have some freelance ideas I'd like to get moving on. And there's still the possibility of good-paying consulting work in the near future, although I'm not banking on it.

OK, I'll end this bit of miscellaneous job ramblings with a shameless endorsement: SportClips. It's a haircut place with the gimmick of letting you watch sports while you get your cut. That's not a big draw to me...in fact, I almost left the parking lot when I saw all the TVs.

But...I got a good cut, along with a free shampoo, scalp massage, shoulder rub and one of those hot towels on the face. Seriously, I didn't think anything that felt that good was legal in Alabama. So, if you have one in your area, don't let the jumbotron and batting-cage atmosphere scare you off.

Merry Christmas from Cafe Asteria

It'll be a few days before I have time to post again, so I just wanted to throw out a quick note of thanks to all of our wonderful friends and family who have been so supportive during these months of chaos and uncertainty. Without you all, especially my wonderful wonderful unparalleled sister and her equally stupendous husband, this move to Alabama likely would not have been the great experience it has been.

Wishing you all the best,

Griner

10 steps to not angering your barista

I might not have been working the cafe for very long now, but I've quickly accumulated a list of ways to avoid infuriating the guy or gal who has full access to the drink you just paid $6 for. So excuse the inherent bitterness of such a project and enjoy these simple tips.

1. Don't hover over the barista. This is my personal pet peeve, when people order their drinks and then come stand next to the counter, watching me make it. It's disconcerting, especially when there are several drinks in front of theirs. They keep saying, "Is that my grande skinny decaf mocha? Oh.... Don't forget it's decaf! Is that it? You didn't forget it, did you?" There's one exception: I actually kinda like it when parents let their kids watch me make their hot chocolates. The kids think I'm a super hero, especially when I put on the whipped cream. But everyone else needs to step off and wait for the shout-out.

2. Try not to order your drink "extra hot." Of the 700 ways people like to order their drinks, this is the most frustrating. First, it implies I don't know how to make a drink. Second, and most obnoxiously, it makes us blast an entire steam pitcher up past 170 degrees (the last tasty temperature of milk) just because you want to scald your few remaining tastebuds. One steam pitcher can make four drinks, so an extra-hot order forces me to shuffle the drink order (pushing that one to last, by the way, so I can spike the temp later) if I don't want to be lazy and make all the drinks extra hot. Most baristas would just be lazy and give torched milk to everybody. PS: I say "try not to order" that way because you might frequent a coffee shop where they just don't make drinks hot enough. If that's the case, go for it. But it's best just to specify a temperature if you're worried: 170 for drinks with whipped cream, 160 for those without.

3. If you used to work at a Starbucks, don't mention it. It doesn't do any good for anyone involved.

4. Look at your drink when you pick it up. Did you order a tall? Then why did you grab a venti? I'm amazed every day how many people pick up the wrong drink, sip from it, dump a bunch of Splenda in it, etc. Of course, I've done it, too. But still, just pay attention. I will admit, though, this is the best reason for me to re-make a drink. The customer never gets mad when I say, "Some guy grabbed your drink, put a fistfull of Equal in it, wandered around the store for five minutes, then returned it. I'll make you a new one."

5. Bus your own table. Clean up your own sugar spill. Wipe up your creamer explosion. And, if you happen to be at a Barnes and Noble/Borders/etc., don't leave your books and magazines on the table when you take off. I know, the kind of people who read this aren't the kind of people who do these things, but I'm just trying to do my part to help.

6. Don't use the adjective "Regular" to describe anything. It starts a flurry of questions. Do you mean medium? Non-decaf? Just once, I want someone to order an "irregular coffee."

7. Never underestimate the people behind the counter. The cafe crew is probably the most educated I've ever worked with, and they know a lot about a lot of things. The customers who get treated the best are the ones who respect the crew and ask the right questions. ("What's a low-carb coffee drink?" "How do you make a macchiato?" etc.)

8. The whipped cream is low-fat. Just take our word on it. You'd have to eat a few cups of it to get some serious fat content. No one believes this.

9. Tip. Even if there's no jar. Especially if there's no jar.

10. Don't ever cite the drink-making prowess of Olive Garden.

Drifting from "us" to "them"

I've been grappling with a theory lately, but I haven't quite gotten it nailed down. So I figure this is the best place to try and make sense of it.

It's not that revolutionary, but I've realized lately that I feel more connected with the real world now that I'm not doing journalism. Working at a cafe, I meet a ton of diverse people every day, and I work with folks who come from just about every kind of background.

In journalism, I feel like we get isolated with other journalists -- who are generally great, interesting people, but they often come from the same mold. They're inquisitive, cynical, and saddled by a modern tradition of feigning emotion or conservative morality. What I mean is, journalists never talk about sources or stories the same way they write about them. We tear-jerkingly portray the tough plight of some unlucky bastard, but at home, we talk about how the person shouldn't have been so stupid or gullible to get into the fix.

Journalists (and politicians....especially politicians) are probably most guilty of pretending to care about things that no real person cares about.

At work, we talk about the importance of Constitutional process, or the corruption-sweeping powers of independent audits, or the fiscal forecast of the municipal budget. But in their personal lives, I'm sure that journalists and politicians are like everyone else .... we care about the fact that there aren't any good movies out right now, and traffic is a one-way drive to sucksville, and the fact that yeah you should be jogging more except that jogging is boring and it's really cold and ooo a new episode of Project Runway is on tonight.

As I said before, none of this is revolutionary. We all know that journalists and politicians have cast themselves apart from the rest of U.S. society. But the new thing for me is living on the other side and seeing just how drastically little everyone cares about the stuff that used to fill my day. I love the broad cross-section of Birmingham I've gotten to meet by selling coffee. I love that I don't just meet customers when they're complaining or trying to rat out their city councilman/neighbor/power company/illegal immigrant gardener. I love that I don't have to worry that conversations are going to drift instantly political as people try to figure out which side of the fence I'm really on. (Although it still happens, of course, but that's a gripe for another entry.)

So what this has led me to wonder is, what will I do with this lesson if I return to journalism? How can I stay more grounded in a field that seems to revel in elevating itself above the masses and then wonders why no one respects it?

I suppose that's the part I need to figure out.

I could've if I'd wanted to. Yeah.

It's been a while since I was in a college computer lab, but that didn't stop me from enjoying this tongue-in-cheek advice column on picking up women amid the nerdiest of nerdies.

Two of the best pieces of advice:

DON'T post to a blog
I cannot stress this enough: do not let a girl see you posting to any kind of blog. You will never, ever get laid. Seriously. Take it from me.

... and this suggestion on getting out of an awkward situation ...

GIRL: Are you looking at porn?
YOU: No.
GIRL: I can see porn right there on your screen.
YOU: Then YOU'RE looking at porn.
GIRL: What the hell are you talking about?
(pause)YOU: I'll give you this free iTunes song if you have sex with me.

Zombie history has waited for the XBox360

A few months back, I mentioned that there was a zombie game in development, but I couldn't remember the title. I stumbled across a preview the other day, and I figured I'd pass on these screenshots to any fellow zombie fanatics.

It's called "Dead Rising," and the unique aspect is that you're not fighting a handful of zombies at a time; you're taking on the whole "Dawn of the Dead"-esque army.

And, like any true butt kicker, the hero is a journalist.

Oooh, pretty

I've been tackling a few funky projects lately, and one of the more rewarding ones is nearly complete.

Before I left California, I asked my friend Brian to help redesign another friend's business Web site. Brian slammed out a design and e-mailed it to me, but I hadn't really had time to look at it in the months since. The other day, I buckled down and started using the template to rebuild the site.

The site is www.mediaforesight.org, home of Media Foresight Associates. This is the consulting business of which I am officially an associate, although I haven't been able to offer many services since the big move. Rich Somerville, the president, has been a close friend since my college days, when he hired a shaggy-haired Griner to be a research associate at New Directions for News (now defunct).

Rich then moved out to California, where he hired me to be his city editor while he was editor of The Union. Rich was a great boss, and I was excited to see his consulting business take off at the beginning of this year. When I left The Union, he hired me on as a consulting associate with the firm, and we hope to make it more than a ceremonial position in the coming months.

Anyway...on to the pretty stuff.

Here are some before-and-after links so you can see what I was able to do with Brian's design:

1. Before: Front page
2. After: Front page
3. Before: Who We Are
4. After: Who We Are
5. Before: Articles and White Papers
6. After: Articles and White Papers
7. Before: What People Say About Us
8. After: What People Say About Us

I hope you guys like the new design. I think it better reflects Rich's level of professionalism and skill, and it's a really flexible, crisp look that will work well for quite a while. What do you think?

Rich and I are also getting a blog going for him to keep folks posted on trends and news in the journalism industry. I'll obviously drop a link to it when it's ready to go. Oh, and it'll probably replace the Newstradamus feature on the front page, so don't be surprised if that doesn't look like it benefitted from the redesign.

What, no leeches?

Well, it appears I have a full-blown infection in my lungs, which has me out of commission on doctor's orders for a few days. For most people, being told not to work Saturday or Sunday would feel like a waste, but I was scheduled to work both, so...yay.

(As for the graphic, I just like thinking that any major illness would have cost me the ultimate price on the Oregon Trail.)

Last night, I got laid out by the most intense sinus pain of my life. It lasted about 12 hours, and I went to the doc this morning. After a shot in each butt cheek, a five-minute breathing treatment with some sort of inhalant medicine, two advil and two prescriptions, I was out the door! I guess it actually was worth signing up for COBRA insurance.

In a more upbeat piece of news, Karen and I were happy to find a surprise in our mailbox the other day: the title to her car! We took some of the money from selling mine and used it to pay hers off, which means we have $0 in debt!!! (We recently paid off the credit card, which had lingered at $2,000 or more for a while.)

I plan to buy my next car with cash, once one of us has reliable employment. Karen has a job interview with the local university next week, so we're both obviously excited about that. It's administrative work, which pays well but not might be a dream job. But discounted schooling would sure open up some doors to more fun jobs.

Our zero-debt approach was inspired by a finance radio show guy named Dave Ramsey. His Web site's pretty cheesed out with his promotional stuff, but I like his basic ideas. I heard him on the radio when we were moving to Alabama, and it instantly resonated with me. I picked up his book "The Total Money Makeover," which I would definitely recommend. He gives easy-to-understand, practical advice on saving money long-term.

His basic steps are:
1. Do everything you can to save $1,000 in cash as quickly as possible. (We, thankfully had quite a bit more than that saved when we decided to move.)
2. Start a "debt snowball," where you list your debts from smallest to largest (not counting house). Pay as much as you physically can each month to the smallest debt until it is gone. Meanwhile, keep paying minimum payments on everything else. When one is killed, move on to the next-smallest debt. Do this until you're out of debt. This usually takes years, but since Karen and I were a bit ahead of the game with savings, we were able to pull this off in about two months. We had the money, we just hadn't been smart about using it to pay off debt.
3. Increase your emergency reserve to $10,000, in case you decide to do something stupid like quit your jobs and move cross-country. We're still a bit short of this one, but it's a good goal. With few bills to pay these days, we're saving pretty much everything we don't spend on food or Christmas shopping.
4. Pay off your mortgage as fast as possible.
5. Set up and invest in college savings plans for your kids.
6. Invest in a diverse, mutual fund-based portfolio and max out your retirement savings.
7. Continue to expand your wealth, and focus on philanthropy.

I just think it's interesting that this guy made a New York Times best-seller out of a book that calls for a 14-year (on average), amazingly intense commitment. While we probably won't be as strong with these goals as we should be, they have helped us focus our priorities at a time of economic uncertainty.

OK, back to following doctor's orders: "Your job is to take it easy for two days." After two shots in the ass, that's a welcome prescription.

Killin time

I'm homebound today with a wicked cold, but it could definitely be worse. I could be Jonas, who spent a good chunk of Saturday morning throwing up blood (and proving once and for all that he was the dog that ate the bottle of pain pills), or I could be these poor bastards.

Jonas is fine now, in case you're concerned. The vet is pretty sure he'll avoid long-term liver damage. That bowl of bourbon we give him to help sleep every night probably won't help in the long run, though.

So as I try to find a way to kill time today, I figure I'd share some good Internet pastimes:

• The Perry Bible Fellowship - This PG-13 comic appears in some alternative newspapers (including, impressively, Birmingham's). Not all are that hilarious, but every once in a while there's a big winner. Scroll down to Lord Gloom and Schlorbians Again for two of my favorites.
• The Secret Satan video - In case you didn't see it when it was posted on fark.com. Gets the holidays started right. It's long, but be patient. There's a nice little breakdown scene near the end.
• The hockey name generator - Were I to pick up the stick professionally (um, you know what I mean) then apparently I would be called "Bob McGrinerchuck" (if Canadian) or Denis La Grinereau (if French-Canadian). What about you?

What would Olive Garden do?

Woke up this morning to the dual panic of my sister realizing that A) her flight to London today apparently was never really booked and B) one of our dogs ate a big bottle of pain pills. After some fun last-second ticket shopping and vomit-inducing, everything seems to be OK.

However, it's still up in the air which dog actually at the pills, which were Rimadyl chewables for my sister's oldest dog's back pain. Because high doses can be toxic for the liver and gastro system, both Loki (the oldest dog) and Jonas (my mutt) have to take Zantac pills for two weeks. Odds are good that Jonas was the one who ate them, since he's the biggest shithead, but we have to be safe. Only one dog, the puppy Picasso, was ruled out because we induced vomiting and found only his breakfast. Sorry, buddy. The other two dogs apparently have a strong stomach for hydrogen peroxide.

Anyway, moving on...

I previously mentioned that I was the second oldest worker at the cafe, after a fella named Rick. I've worked with him a few times and went out for drinks with him last night after closing, and sure enough, he's a pretty interesting guy.

Rick's primary job is in hiring at UAB, which is cool, since that's where both Karen and I are considering working. But he works at Barnes and Noble as a side job, and he loves it. He seems to share my love of getting to meet so many different people in a day, even if the interaction is limited (which can, of course, be a blessing).

I've decided to start keeping track of the random comments I hear sometimes when I go out to clean the lobby. You pick up unpredictable little tidbits of life, like groups of religious teens talking about peer pressure, or the awkward attempts at conversation on a first date. As I get some good ones, I'll post them on the blog.

The only other interesting day-to-day thing to track is the strange requests people make. I'm used to the "half-caf skinny caramel machiato no whip affogato style" kind of stuff, but then there are the things that just confuse me.

I stopped in today just to buy a cup of coffee (hard to beat the 50% employee discount), and a woman was lecturing one of our best baristas about how she wanted him to steam the milk and espresso together. (Normally, you drop the milk on top of the espresso.) Now, this isn't incredibly rare or strange, but her logic sure was. It consisted of two points:

1. "When you don't steam them together, you burn the milk."
2. "That's how Olive Garden does it for me."

Just when you're trying to get your head around the burning milk aspect, your brain comes to a screeching halt. "Did she just say Olive Garden?"

In case you care or can't figure this out yourself, putting espresso in cold milk and steaming it will not magically change the scalding point of milk (which is about 180F). But apparently at the Olive Garden, the espresso acts as some kind of safety valve, and when the milk starts to get too hot...I don't know, maybe the whole thing changes color or starts to smell like pistachios.

Yeah, I can take all manner of rudeness and ignorance, but amazingly flawed logic (coupled with a that's-not-how-they-do-it-at-Olive-Garden attitude) is just the best.

Olive Garden. Christ.

Thoughts amid the tornados

Life continues to move forward at a sometime-rapid, sometime-plodding pace as I continue my effort to figure out what I'm going to do with myself in the New Year of 2006.

Today was one of the first in a while where Karen and I have gotten to sleep in (about half an hour, but I'll take it) and hang out with each other all day. I work my first 6-close shift tonight, which should be interesting but not too crazy. Tornados have been sweeping across central Alabama all afternoon, and I'm guessing that'll keep people at home on a Monday night.


It's been interesting finding out who else ends up working at a cafe at Christmastime. Most are recent or upcoming college grads just filling their time and pocketbooks with the extra work. All but one or two have a college degree or will soon. Demographically, I've heard I'm the second oldest (not counting the cafe manager). Tonight, I'm scheduled to work with the oldest, a fella who used to be a fifth-grade teacher. Some of his former students have stopped by since I've been there, and that left me curious about his story. Did he get tired of it, or is this just a semi-retirement thing?

Not too many people seem surprised that a 28-year-old would be working a near-minimum-wage job with a college degree and management experience. People seem to end up at Barnes and Noble either because they want to be there or they just want a transitional filler in their lives. I'm obviously the latter.

In other news of transitional filler, I got a nice e-mail the other day from the journalism head at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. On a hunch, I had sent him my resume with some comments about my willingness to help teach any newswriting classes. I didn't really expect to hear back, but he wrote back quickly and said he was impressed with my background. He said he might have an opening in December or January, as the new semester nears.

What motivated me to send the note, other than the general need of employment, was my sincere desire to try out academia and see if there's anything rewarding there for me. I enjoyed the teaching aspect of being a city editor, but that was really just something you squeezed into the small gaps between the daily workload. Karen's applying for some full-time jobs at UAB, and if she got one, it might be a good chance for one or both of us to pursue a master's. The only thing standing in the way is the fact that neither of us knows what kind of degree we would want.

Is there ever a point in your life where you stop wondering what you'll be when you grow up?

The game of Life

Remember that board game Life? I loved that as a kid. But what always confused me about it was the fact that you spun the Wheel of Fate and randomly landed on your career track, which determined your income and lifestyle for the rest of your days.

I bought the other randomness of the game ... the number of kids, the house fires, even that square that makes you buy a helicopter ... but your career is the one area of your life where you actually do have control over your destiny, right?

This whole get-up-and-leave-California thing has left me doubting that. Suddenly, after a decade of devoting my life to journalism, I'm working at a cafe in Barnes and Noble. And the really weird thing is that I love it. I'm appreciated, I'm having fun, and I really like going in to work each day. I get to meet a lot of people, and I get the added perks of working in a gigantic book store.

Assuming no other good job offers emerge, I'll likely talk to the book store people about their opportunities for me after the holidays. They've been practically orgasmic about having me around, but that doesn't mean they're going to throw a living wage at me.

As for journalism, I've had some strong and largely negative emotions lately. In a word, I just feel bitter. But I also recognize this isn't a logical way to feel. With most of my friends happily employed in the journalism world, it seems silly to say that there's no place for me. But it has seemed like each experience of mine highlights the hypocrisy of journalism: Newspapers want to capture young audiences with fresh, exciting ideas. But they only want to hire managers who've been around forever and cling to stale, outdated philosophies that belong in the dustbin of history.

Just once I'd like to be turned down for a job because they went with someone more youthful and excited.

Any thoughts? Any words of inspiration from those of you still in the biz? I'm still looking at journalistic job opportunities, but it's more out of necessity than true longing.

Good thing I like making coffee

Well, I heard back from Athens, and it wasn't good news.

I have to say, I'm not as crushed as I might have been a few months back. Yes, it makes our future even more uncertain, but we've had a great time in Birmingham these past two weeks, and we are seriously talking about staying.

There are a few job openings of interest here. Birmingham is home to the Southern Progress magazine empire, and Karen's thinking about getting a job with Blue Cross (where my sister works) to help with the benefits while we look for dream jobs.

Thankfully, the cafe gig is going well, and it will at least help cover the cost of our Christmas shopping. I have to say, at least I've reached my goal of having a job where I'm excited to go into work again.

My calling

"Fill the light base to the first line of the plastic cup, fill it with ice, drop it into the blender, then add the three shots of caramel and blend it on the 2 setting," I called to another barista while steaming a grande decaf soy white chocolate mocha.

"No seriously, how long have you worked here?" one of the other trainees asked.

"Um, what time is it?"

For years, I've said, half jokingly, that the best job I ever had was when I worked at a coffee shop after college. The pay was crap, and you had to stand all day, but I was good at it. And it was just fun.

I've always wondered how much of that was just me remembering that time without thinking about the obnoxious bits. But after my first day behind the counter at Barnes and Noble's cafe today, I'd have to say I was right. This really is a great job. Now if it only paid three times as much...

It didn't take me long to pick the barista gig back up. B&N has a super streamlined approach to making Starbucks stuff, so it only took me an hour or so to get caught up on the basics. The cafe (like the rest of the store) is stocking up on pre-holiday workers, so I worked with two other trainees and a manager today. Everyone was great, and I feel it's worth noting, everyone had a college degree.

So it's nice to know that if I am going to have a part-time retail job during the holiday rush, it will at least be somewhere that I enjoy. I work the cafe again tomorrow, then train in the bookstore the next day. But because of my barista experience, I'm guessing they're going to keep me in the cafe. That's fine with me. A lot of the employee training is focused on stopping/preventing shoplifting, so at least that's one thing I don't have to worry about when I'm brewing coffee.

Oh, fine, I'll get a job.

At 8 a.m. tomorrow, I will tap on the glass of the Barnes and Noble down the road and start my new career in retail by shadowing the manager as she opens the in-store Starbucks.

Yes, after a five-year hiatus plagued by journalism, I'm back in the coffee shop smock, brewin java.

I dropped off a few applications today and heard back from Barnes and Noble about half an hour later. (On a side note, if you're looking for part-time work, now's the time.) The guy practically hired me before asking how to pronounce my name. I'll start at $7 an hour, which is less than a third my old wage, but still better than their starting wage of $6.25. They gave me some credit for "related experience."

Oh, somewhere my pride is stinging a bit from dropping from news management to retail grunt, but:

1. I actually look forward to working without being a manager. There's something zen about simply taking orders and clocking out.
2. This obviously is temporary. The Athens paper said today they expect to make a decision in the next two days. I can't say I'm overconfident I'll get it, but it would be nice. I'm also supposed to be receiving a packet to do a critique of the Poughkeepsie, N.Y., paper. If they like it, they'll fly me out to interview for assistant city editor.
3. It's not so bad to say you work at B&N. That's one of those places that seems to hire hipsters and down-on-their-luck intelligentsia. Plus, I get a 30% discount and can borrow any book to read at home for free.
4. There's one thing that's a lot more shameful than taking on a retail job: Not doing a damn thing and waiting for a magic pot of money to land in your lap.

So anyway, I'm pretty stoked. If nothing else, I get some more coffee shop experience for my eventual business endeavor. And I can apparently catch up on some reading.

What, me work?

Two small bits of job news. Bowing to the pressure of my readers, I dropped off an application at the coffee shop this afternoon. I asked about openings, and the kid behind the counter said, "If you worked here, you'd be a manager." He hadn't even looked at the application I handed him. I guess not a lot of 28-year-olds apply to be baristas.

In a potentially bigger update, I got a call from the Poughkeepsie, N.Y., newspaper about an assistant city editor position. It's a bit far north for me, and probably not too affordable, but you never know. In case you want a bit more information about the town and paper, read this. The editor had already left when I tried calling back, so I'll get ahold of him tomorrow. If nothing else, it's always good to have people interested for leverage, right?

More soon as job stuff develops. Soon I'll tell you about my exciting new plan to escape debt forever.

A new home, with lots of booze and video games!

With obvious apologies for the delay in posting, I should note that yes, we did make it to Birmingham. In fact, things went on with nary a hitch until I backed the empty moving truck down the driveway. Because of the angle of the street, it wedged the hitch of the truck into the asphalt, and the truck wouldn't go forward or back. With the help of a random neighbor and his two hydraulic jacks, we eventually got the situation under control.

My days have been quick, fun and random since Saturday. In case you don't remember, I'm staying with my sister and her husband, and they've been great about encouraging us to relax this first week and not worry about being productive. But we've still tried to offer some help around the house in return for the free rent.

The animals are getting along famously, with one exception. Loki, my sister's Brittany spaniel, loves the cats a bit too much, and he's willing to chase them around the house to prove it. We've set up a gate at one wing of the house, giving the cats free rein in the guest bedroom, computer room and bathroom. They adventure out into the main house once in a while, at their own peril.

Jonas, our dog, loves having two other dogs to play with all day. In fact, he sometimes asks to go behind the cat gate just so he can rest...without the other dogs making fun of him, I guess.

Of course, we're squeezing in lots of video games to make the most of our free time. Mostly we've been playing Civilization IV, which lived up to the hype and has been a pretty great game.

I'll check in more soon, but for now I'd like you folks to weigh in on this: With no definite idea of when I'll hear back on the Athens job, should get a part-time job (coffee shop, most likely) to help bring in a bit of income? I think it's a smart move, but my sister thinks it would be rude to take on a job and quit right away if I hear back on Athens.

Your thoughts?

Days 4 & 5

(Dateline Columbia, Mo.)

Don't have much time to write....we're getting ready to hit the road Friday morning. This is it! The last day, unless we run out of steam around Nashville or Huntsville, Ala.

Yesterday, we made it through the worst part. Kansas. It was about 12 hours of driving with nothing to look at. Not a great time. But it's behind us, and we were able to stay the night with my good friend Liz, who I actually made this same trip with back in the 1990s when we were in college.

OK, gotta run. I'll post some final thoughts tomorrow, I hope.

Days 2 & 3

(Dateline: Denver, CO)

Well, I would say we've made it through the vast stretches of nowhere that make up so much of the United States, but there's still Kansas...

So far, the trip is going amazingly well. Days 1 and 2 went exactly as planned, with us ending in Ely, Nev., on the first night and Grand Junction, Colo., the second. Today is our easy day, with only a few hours of driving this morning to get to Denver, then plenty of socializing for us and our dog as we stay with a friend of Karen's.

A strange side effect of the journey: The animals are bonding. I mean, don't get me wrong, they still seem to get pissed at each other all the time, but the dog and both cats climb onto the bed at night and peacefully coexist. My best guess is that this is because we are now their sole remaining piece of "home." But it might just be because they're cold and tired.

Griner luck seems to be working for us. Tonight and tomorrow, heavy snows are expected to hit the Sierra, which we just skated through two days ago. Denver is expected to see a little snow tomorrow, but most will go north and west of us. After Colorado, it should be smooth sailing.

We've revised the schedule a little bit. We're hoping to make it to Columbia, Mo., tomorrow night. That would put us into our final destination on Friday night. It's a lot of driving in two days, but it sure would be nice to get all this done in five days, instead of six. Plus, since Columbia is my college town, I should be able to snag some free lodging.

Well, back to drinking beer and having fun.

Day 1 (Truckee, Calif.)

I'm stopped at a coffee shop in downtown Truckee. OK, OK, I haven't made it that far. But we got a late start this morning, and I went ahead of Karen so she could handle some last-minute errands and catch up with me on the interstate. Right now, I'm just waiting for her to pull up with the dog. The cats are exploring the rental truck cab.

Probably because of the frantic nature of our exit, I wasn't exactly saddled by sorrow in leaving. It's not that I dislike Nevada City in any way; it's just that I'm so excited about starting the next chapter of my life. Karen is amazingly excited, too, which makes it that much better.

A funny thing about starting a massive moving project on Oct. 31....it's easy to forget that it's halloween. So I keep wondering why there are so many people at coffee shops with pink hair, or why the bank manager was wearing a black leather jacket and matching chaps. Ending Day 1 in Nevada should be an interesting experience on Halloween, too.

Oh, one other bit of cool news. I put my old, clunky, 15-pound laptop on eBay, where apparently these things are still popular. I ended up getting $220.50 for it! That's half a tank of gas in the rental truck! Woohoo!

All my worldly possessions in one yellow truck

A few weeks back, Karen and I began debating whether we should hire movers to help pack our stuff into the rental truck. We didn't want to pay the thousands to actually movers take it cross-country, but we're not so hot at the loading part.

At the time, I was against the idea. We have friends with strong backs and plenty of time.

I was very wrong.

Today, the movers saved our ass. They packed 2,000 gallons of crap into a 1,000-gallon box. Meanwhile, we were able to clean. And clean. And clean some more! Why is that a good thing? Because that's that much less cleaning to do tomorrow. And plus, my fridge is immaculate. Now that there's no food in it. There's still five beers and a half-empty can of cat food, though.

Tonight we'll grab some dinner with friends and relax a bit before waking up in our barren home and scrubbing it clean. So far, everything's on schedule. Strangely, I've been most stressed about getting the truck loaded. (I took a wild guess on the truck size, but there was no going back.) With that done, the only other challenge is getting over the Donner Pass, then the Rockies, at a time when there's already snow falling in the high elevations.

Sometimes I think the only thing harder than moving would have been staying put.

It is done!

Not that we wait until the last minute or anything, but Karen and I are finally...FINALLY certified massage therapists. We finished our 55 hours of out-of-class practice this week and got our certificates from the instructor last night. Which is good, since it's the last time we'll probably see him for a good few years.

If you had told me three years ago that I would now be a massage therapist, I would have either A. doubted your prognosticative powers or B. rethought my planned move to California.

It's still a hard thing to explain to people who don't know us well. Hell, for that matter, it's hard to explain to close friends and family. I largely did it because it was part of my jujitsu studies, but I could have put it off until I was further along in my training. Most schools in our system don't seem to teach massage until the student is advanced in the martial side of the art.

But ask yourself this. What's a more likely scenario:

• I'm surrounded by armed thugs in a Hong Kong marketplace, and only my secret ninja powers will save the day.
• A friend gets a sore back.

Don't get me wrong. I'm so ready for the marketplace thugs, but I just have a feeling that my massage training will come in more useful in the course of my domestic life.

The gratuitous move update of the day:

It's packin' day! Of course, we've been packing for weeks, but we load the truck tomorrow morning, so everything needs to be done today. We've been up since 7 a.m. getting the place stowed, and it's actually going pretty well. Tonight we'll probably just get some drinks with friends and relax as we get the last stuff done.

Here's the rough schedule:

• Saturday: Load truck
• Sunday: Clean house from top to bottom
• Monday: Start the trek, hopefully making it to Ely, Nevada.
• Tuesday: Make it to Grand Junction, Colo.
• Wednesday: Get to Denver and spend half the day visiting friends.
• Thursday: Get to Kansas City.
• Friday: Get to Nashville.
• Saturday: Arrive in Birmingham by mid-day. Unlock truck, tell family not to scuff the nice furniture, and go eat nachos while they unload it all. OK, OK. I might share the nachos.
  

Update no. 2 (two in one day! what a deal)

Dateline: Athens, Ga. Corner Coffee (open 24 hours)

As I continue to kill time before my killer flight back home, I realized I forgot to mention that I SOLD MY CAR!

The girl who first expressed a strong interest dropped out a few days later. So I rushed out an ad in the newspaper and on Craig's List. As I was putting the "For Sale" sign up in my car window, my neighbor Neil walked by. I joked that he should buy my car, and he actually stopped for a minute to look at it. He said, "Yeah, this could work."

We were leaving for San Francisco just then, so I told him to think about it for a few days. He was already pretty excited. When we returned, he test drove it and (halfway through the drive) said he would take it for the list price of $13,500.

Yeah, yeah, some people have emotional attachments to their cars. I loved my car, but I can't say I loved the idea of dragging it cross-country, paying the gas to do so, or hanging onto it just to watch its value continue deteriorating. Plus, I probably would have only gotten $10,000 or so for trade-in value, so this is like making money. Most importantly, it gives us a big fat financial cushion for our move. So yeeha.

I suppose I should mention the great time we had in San Francisco, where we took our last California vacation. We took Jonas and let him run wild and free at the beach and in the massive SF dog park. We also did a lot of aimless driving around neighborhoods and stopped in some wonderful little restaurants. My personal favorite was a little French place called Baker Street Bistro, where we sat under a heater on the chilly patio, eating lamb stew and warm goat cheese salad. But "The Carnalicious" pizza at Giorgio's was pretty incredible, too.

Mmm, I'm hungry.

Update from Bulldog country

Dateline: Athens, Ga. Walker Pub & Coffee

Well, my two days of interviews for the student newspaper adviser position at the University of Georgia are done, and I'd say it went pretty well. The students were a tough bunch to win over, and they tossed out some great questions about how I would help them and the paper.

The big thing that struck me is the amazing building that houses The Red and Black. It's a huge, new site built just for the independent paper. Between that and their abundance of full-time positions, it's obvious the paper is doing pretty well financially.

It sounds like I won't hear back from them for two weeks or so. Another candidate is coming out soon, although it hasn't been scheduled. So it was good getting in early and making a strong impression. I'm leaving feeling that this would be a wonderful opportunity for me and a place where Karen and I would be happy to settle down for a while. Obviously, the college atmosphere is great, and the accents aren't too indecipherable.

Now I head back to Atlanta for a lengthy sojourn back to California. I picked up a new GBA game, Rebelstar, to help pass the time. If you have some hefty flying time coming up, I recommend the game as a good hour-killer.

As excited as I am about getting back home, I have to say it's daunting to think of all the work ahead of us in the coming days. Of course, I'll keep you all posted.

A few fun things for you

OK, before I dive into blah blah updates on my exciting cross-country adventure, here are some great movies that folks have sent me lately.

• The "big ad" for an Australian beer.
  
• A preview for Stanley Kubrick's heart-warming new film.
• The trailer for Stubbs the Zombie. You know I can't get enough of zombies. Speaking of which, I can't remember the name of a game that's coming out where you fight through hordes of zombies in a shopping mall, a la Dawn of the Dead. I read a preview a while back but now can't remember it. I liked that the focus was on sheer quantity of zombie. Stacy, get to the Walgreens, stat.
• A great new ad for electronic birth control.

OK, on to the old update-o-rama:

This Sunday, I'm flying out to Athens, Ga., for a second round of job interviews (the first was just with the publisher while he was visiting Reno). It's an intensive interview schedule, but I think I can ace it. Wish me luck.

I've got a tentative buyer lined up for my car. She called an hour after I posted the ad on cars.com. She's been dying for an Impreza sedan and wants to come up this weekend to claim it. I have to say, as much as I'll miss my car, $13,500 is some good walking-around mon

Sigh

I remember the heady days of unemployment, those many days ago when I could relax, play some video games, spend hours teaching the dog to say "I love you."

Sadly, my life of leisure already has descended into a life of unending productivity so we can get the hell out of Dodge. I've spent each day packing, sorting, selling, donating, and mailing. Today, I even put my car up for sale. I've decided that, ideally, I'll get $13,500 or so for it and then be able to pick up a dog-friendly Impreza Wagon used in Alabama, where they're probably a bit less in demand.

It's funny that my life has never been so unpredictable and uncertain, yet we're both more excited than we've been about any move. I figure the best way to ensure I get a job quickly is to get really excited about spending time unemployed with my family. If the Athens, Ga., gig works out, my trip to Birmingham might just be a quick stopover. But I've been getting great feedback from potential employers lately, so I'm feeling pretty hireable. Karen, too, has amassed an impressive set of skills and references by being a manager at a nonprofit. I think we'll be fine.

On a related note, my moving scam of the week (in my favor) is media mail. The other day I made some joke about just shipping all our crap to Alabama, which would cost a small fortune. Then I remembered that a friend used USPS media mail to truck his entire library cross-country. Sure enough, I was able to mail off about 55 pounds of books for $20. I'll likely ship off another 150 pounds or so, which will be money well spent. I have a feeling space is going to be at a severe premium in the moving van. We're already shedding furniture like crazy, but it's still just SO MUCH CRAP.

Well, back to the grind... of, you know, sitting around in pajamas and catching up on Tivo while I pack kitchen sundries.

It was the right decision. Right?

Well, I called the Virginia paper Friday and told them to take me out of the running for news editor. They were asking me to fly back out for a second round of interviews (I was one of two finalists), but I just wasn't excited about the job.

It would be a late shift, coordinating wire content and tweaking headlines. That's the kind of job where you show up for your first day at work, turn around, and you've been there 20 years.

I felt a little bad because they've been so great about keeping me in the running, and it is a great paper, but I'd rather tell them now than after I fly back out, interview again and then get offered the position.

In related news, the interview with the Athens, Ga., student paper publisher went well. Sounds like I'll be flying out there soon, although I doubt I'll beat the clock and get the job before we move. Oh well.

Otherwise, we're just wrapping everything up and getting ready to move. It's going to be a crazy few weeks, but we're both really excited about picking up and starting over. And I'm pretty motivated about the job hunt now that I've already been a finalist for two. It's not off to a bad start.

OK, it's 8:41 a.m. and I'm unemployed, so I've got to go get drinking. Take care.

For I am mighty

In case you doubt my ability to identify headless women, I thought I'd point out that I was right in my guess that Jessica Biel was the actress being slowly revealed, body part by body part, over the past six months in Esquire magazine. This month's issue reveals she is the "sexiest woman alive," which obviously means Angelina Jolie died shortly after receiving the same title from Esquire last year.

I can't say that the new photo gallery persuades me to buy into the Biel bandwagon. When one of the selling points is her posture ("She could hold an apple between her shoulder blades"), you know they're reaching a bit.

To me, sexy is a pretty tough trick to pull off -- in a movie or otherwise. I can only think of one example where Karen and I agreed that an actress actually came off as hot as the filmmakers intended (pictured).

Funny note on that, too. When I was home sick once, I watched Resident Evil with the cast commentary. Near the beginning, in a scene where Milla Jovavhvashavich's character is in the shower, she says on the commentary, "Here's my obligatory nude scene. I have to have at least one in every movie I do." The director quickly chimed in, "That's not what your agent said."

Nightmares

It's weird, the last few nights I've been having work-related nightmares. What's especially strange is that I never had them when I was actually working.

Last night, I dreamt I woke up at 1 p.m. on a work day and had to decide whether to scramble in or call in sick. The night before, I dreamt that I was at work and didn't have any local stories for the next day's paper. I realize these are minor as far as nightmares go, but I did wake up all stressed and sweaty. It's funny, though, to wake up from a dream about running late for work and say, "Oh thank god, I'm unemployed and it's only 7 a.m."

So why suddenly have these kinds of dreams now? It doesn't really take a psychiatrist. There's obviously some part of my brain that feels I'm being a slacker and not a productive member of society.

Yeah, well tough shit, brain. I've earned a chance to relax a little, and I'm getting a lot of stuff done. Who are you trying to convince? What do you mean? I'm not trying to convince anybody, I was pointing out ... I'm just saying, maybe it's not your subconscious that's frustrated. Maybe it's your conscious. 'Conscious' isn't really a noun. Hey, who's the brain here? Oh, just stuff it before I go slam you into an open cabinet door.

Diary of a Man of Leisure: Day 1

First day of unemployment got off to rocky start.

5:30 a.m. Dog pukes. I clean. No more real bones, no matter how happy they make him.

7:30 a.m. Dog whines to get out of crate. I walk him. Make coffee.

7:45 a.m. I watch the sugar episode of Good Eats. The bananas brulee look pretty good. But being a Griner, I generally shy away from melting sugar at a temperature that rivals the sun.

8:20 a.m. I wake up Karen. She has to be at work in 40 minutes.

8:45 a.m. Getting my life of leisure started right, I play a half hour of the Sims 2. Watching my one unemployed sim sit around while the others go out and make money is mildly depressing. I switch to hockey on the PlayStation. I lose three games, but the player I made in my own image is able to shrug off a broken nose and get back on the ice in two days. I feel empowered.

10:15 a.m. I exercise the dog with the laser light. For him, it's already almost qualifying as the best day ever. Except for the puking.

10:30 a.m. I shower. Take my time, use up all the hot water. This is how I stick it to the man. Wait, that sounds kind of gross. Never mind.

11:15 a.m. Time to get productive. I pay some bills, set up an oil change, find a body shop for my dented car, confirm my job interview Friday (woohoo!), and drop my cell phone plan from a goliath (and unused) 800 minutes to 400. Just saved myself $50 a month. Being jobless might be the most profitable thing I've done in a while.

12 p.m. Lunch with Karen, who seems impressed with what I accomplished this morning. We eat leftovers, which we're going to have in spades now that I'm cooking dinner every night.

1 p.m. Walked downtown to deposit our fat stacks from Saturday's garage sale. Realize too late it's Columbus Day. This seriously detracts from my feeling of uniqueness. Somewhere, thousands of bankers are being shiftless layabouts, too. Yeah, but who will be laughing tomorrow?

1:33 p.m. Finished writing blog entry about my day. Getting excited about the fact it's only halfway done. Feel I should promise not to write blog in this format every day. Oh well, it's not like people are paying to read this.

My last day

Wow, today is my last day at The Union. After two and a half years here, most better than not, I'm done today.

My feelings on this unpredictable transition have changed day to day, but in general I'm tremendously excited about heading back east, being closer to my family, and really focusing on finding my next job.

There's a lot I'll miss -- the weather, the skiing, the wine, the friends. But we've made good use of our time out here, and we're definitely leaving with a lot of skills we didn't have before. We both have management experience, we learned to ski, oh, and we have a dog.

Do you remember that "Wear sunscreen" speech that gets circulated around graduation every year? There's a line that I never appreciated until I moved out here:

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

I think of that when I hear people saying that California is the only place they could ever live. Sure, it's great, but what you learn from moving around is that each place has its upsides and downsides. I've enjoyed living in Alabama, Virginia, Missouri, Arizona, Indiana and California. There's been something memorable about each one.

And now, for probably the first time in my adult life, I'm feeling homesick. It's not that I miss Alabama, necessarily, but each visit to my family in recent years has reminded me how much I'm missing by being a full continent away from them.

Well, the good news is, wherever we move, it will be closer to our families. East is east. Now if we can just beat the snows...

The two plans

OK, so we've got two plans here:

Plan A: I get hired by Athens, Ga., we move to Athens by the end of October, and everyone's happy.

Plan B: I don't get hired by Athens (or Virginia for that matter), but we move at the end of the month to live with my sister in Birmingham, Ala. (Hope you weren't kidding about that offer, Stace!)

Why move?

1. Another month of rent, heat, water, electric, etc., would put a big hurt on us. That's money we could use toward the move.

2. If we wait more than another month, we risk being trapped in the high Sierra, Donner Party style. We barely squeeked through some major storms when we moved out here, and every week after October is a big risk.

3. I miss Alabamy once again, and I think it's a sin.

End of the line

Friday will be my last day at the paper. I met this afternoon with my boss and the publisher, and we've reached a deal that makes all of us happy.

I leave in a relatively comfy position, and I leave early enough for them to transition quickly toward a new city editor.

I wrote a lengthy version of this blog entry, describing my real feelings and all the crazy backstory. But I realized that A) the Internet is a bad place to air these kinds of things and B) it's not as bad as I was making it sound.

What's important is that I have time and resources to really focus on finding my next job and making sure it's an opportunity Karen and I will both enjoy. Also, I leave on good terms with the publisher, who said he will never forget what I accomplished for a paper.

But if you know me, you know that this has been a difficult and often frustrating arrangement for months. Ending it is a good idea.

Now, with four days left, I wonder how I'll feel next Monday, the first time I will have been unemployed since January 2000.

Something tells me I'll feel pretty good.

My guess, for the record

I'm not sure if any of you are as into Esquire as I am, but they've had a pretty cool feature running the past few months. Each month, they've slowly been unveiling a picture of the "sexiest woman alive." As a journalist, I have to say this is a great trick. It infuriates some people, but it's a talker, and keeps people coming back.

I especially like that they gave that title to Angelina Jolie a few months before they started this project...so the new one must only be like three months old, right?

They've been dropping hints each month, most of which have been too obscure. But I think I've got it figured out now.

And the winner is....Jessica Biel? Who is Jessica Biel? Apparently someone obscure enough to warrant this kind of committment. Anyway, the pieces add up, in my opinion. Check it out yourself and let me know if you have a better idea. I'm sure the photo I've included here will remove all doubt from your mind.

Well, this was unexpected

Last night, I noticed a job ad for the editorial adviser at the student newspaper in Athens, Ga. Luckily, it was e-mail only, so I shot off a cover letter and resume this morning.

A short time later, I got an e-mail back from the publisher. It was a form letter letting me know that they had received a ton of applicants and didn't expect to get back to me for a few weeks.

So a few minutes later, I get another e-mail from the publisher. He had just read the slideshow from my presentation in Chicago and jokingly said "YOU'RE HIRED!" Yeah, if you ever want to give a job applicant a heart attack, say that. Then say, "just kidding."

I called him at lunch and we chatted for a while. He'll be visiting Reno soon, so I'm going to go out and meet him for a face-to-face talk. He hopes to fill the position within a few weeks.

This is a rare position, but it sounds like a great one. I'd be a full-time adviser (but non-faculty) to the staff of an independent student paper. I'd be close to home, paid pretty well and able to work on a master's in my offtime.

So yeah, that came out of nowhere. But very cool.

Now my resume looks faked

The year was 1996.

I had hair encroaching on my shoulders, I was picking up guitar for the first time, and I was racing to make up for 18 years of not drinking beer.

I had a few newspaper writing clips, and they weren't terrible. I had been an entertainment writer for the student newspaper for my first semester, then became the entertainment editor. It wasn't exactly a sprawling resume, but I suppose it was better than some.

Then, armed only with some crappy feature articles and a highly negative review of the new Bond movie, I got a little cocky. Or lazy. I'm not sure which.

I applied for three internships: one at each of the major dailies in Alabama. This doesn't sound that daring, perhaps, but these were pretty hefty papers for someone with no real experience to speak of.

My hometown paper, The Huntsville Times, shot me down quick and dirty. The Birmingham News never responded. That left the Birmingham Post-Herald, which actually interviewed me, then said they'd call back within two weeks. Two months passed, and I prepared to spend the summer selling plasma and enjoying the revival of Jackie Chan movies.

But in the end, the Post-Herald did pick me up, and I was soon wearing a shirt and tie while suffering through abysmal heat, humidity and pollution.

It was a great job.

No, seriously.

At 18, I was covering plane crashes, multiple homicides, tax measures (woohoo!) and the new Mercedes plant. I was even assigned to track down a former FBI informant in the Ku Klux Klan, but that's another story.

That summer actually made a journalist out of me, for better or worse, and it was solely because the Post-Herald treated me like any other reporter. They didn't pad the intern's assignments with fluff. They didn't pull their punches when I screwed up. I spent each day trying to meet their expectations, and I was on the front page just about every other morning.

No one else will ever get to experience that sensation, though.

Last weekend, the Post-Herald published its last issue. Long a morning paper, the Post-Herald was forced by the competing paper to switch to afternoon while I was there. We lost tens of thousands of readers in a day. I realize this switch might sound strange to you folks outside journalism, but this is just part of the modern life of "joint operating agreements," corporate ownership and readership decline.

When I worked at the Post-Herald, the circulation was estimated at 65,000. When it closed, it was at 7,500. I'm just amazed they held on as long as they did.

So join me in raising a glass of Abita Turbo Dog (or whatever you were drinking in 1996) to the Birmingham Post-Herald, my first real employer and one of the best papers I've ever worked for.

Here are a few related links (in reverse chronological order):

• A former cops reporter I worked with there shares his memories of the Post-Herald's "guerilla journalism"
• A sports editor points out, among other things, that "the newspaper's death was inescapable from the day in 1996 when the Post-Herald and The Birmingham News switched morning-afternoon cycles."
• A photog's thoughts from my hometown paper.
• The corporate CEO explains what happens.
• The press release announcing the closure.
  

Wait, yes, another job update

Sounds like they'll be flying me out back to Virginia in October for a final round of interviews, assuming I make the cut of the final three candidates. That sounds like pretty good odds, though. I also got an e-mail from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asking me to send them an application for a section editor position they have open. A friend of a friend there had put in a word for me. So that puts me in pretty good shape for some job negotiations.

OK, I promise not to make this a Griner job update board...but it's obviously eating a lot of my mental energy lately. I just want some sense of finality on where we're headed, and when. It's making it tough to plan for holidays or even weekend trips, since I don't know when or if I'll be flying for an interview or moving. But hey, I'm in better shape than I was a few months ago.

Oh, and if you haven't heard Ambulance LTD, give them a shot. I've been pretty addicted to their debut album recently. Hard to describe the sound, but there are clips on their site.

Hey, the job exists...

Well, there are a few little updates on the job front. The managing editor I interviewed with in Virginia has been promoted to editor, which I assume is good news for me. We seemed to share a lot of the same ideas on where journalism is headed. Also, an editor I had a great chat with out there got promoted to the managing editor spot.

Also, they finally got around to posting an announcement about the job I was being looked at for. It basically just said they're adding a news editor spot to oversee the wire editors and make the big calls late in the night (do we scrub in a late-breaking story, are the headlines good enough, etc.).

Obviously, I'll keep you all posted. I should be hearing back in the coming weeks, at least to be told what's next. I might still need to fly back out there, or at least do some follow-up interviews over the phone.

Oh, and if you don't care about any of that, here's a cool preview of Civ 4. It sounds like they've put a lot of work into the multiplayer...which I doubt I'll ever use. Oh well, still sounds cool.

Aye, that's the rub

Well, Karen and I officially have completed our six-month massage class, but we still have about 15 hours of practice (each) to finish before we get certified. Still, just being done with all the tests (and boy, were there a lot of them) has helped alleviate the stress of getting it all done.

I'm going to try to write a newspaper column about my experience with the massage class. But I'm not quite sure what I'm going to say. The question everyone asks is, "Why'd you get into that?" And I'm still not really sure. It's not like we're ever going to do this for a living, although it might be nice money if one of us ends up jobless.

I asked my instructor once why he doesn't charge anyone for treatment. He said it was partly because he didn't need to (he has a full-time job doing some kind of tech thing), partly because it would involve business logistics, and partly because it would take the fun out of massage. It would become a job, and it's hard not to dislike your job a lot of the time.

It's ironic that we seem to enjoy things least when we're paid to do them. But it makes sense, if you think about the mental formula it creates. You're giving your creative energy, and in return you're getting money. Most times, when you give creative energy outside the workplace, what you get in return is enjoyment. It's hard to imagine getting both, but I suppose that's what we all shoot for.

What does this have to do with me and massage? I'm not quite sure, especially since no one's exactly jumping to pay me. But I think it gets at the root of the idea of why I learned it. It has been a tremendous mental and physical challenge to get here, and I like the fact that it's a road that goes on as long as you're willing to take it.

Each massage we do shows us more about the human body and how different people react to different things. In that way, it holds a lot of the same intrigue for me as martial arts. Each time you think you're starting to figure something out, it seems to just open 100 new doors. In the same way that martial arts isn't about beating people up (unless it's kempo), massage isn't about rubbing muscles.

So what is it about? Obviously, I don't know, but I'm interested to see what I find out in the coming years.

Good news, everyone

Big thanks to Bill for passingon this exciting news for nerds like me:

2K and Firaxis announced today that Sid Meier’s Civilization IV will be released in October. The game was originally slated to be released in fiscal year 2006, so the announcement moves up the release date, a rare event indeed.

That puts it only a month away. So much for being productive this fall.

Well, in other news, we officially finish our six-month massage class today, assuming we pass the lengthy final. Of course, we still have 15 hours of practice left to complete. Lately, a lot of people have been asking how we plan to use the massage. The answer is, um, we're not really sure. I guess if our friends or ourselves get busted up, we'll try to fix it. Mostly, it was just something we wanted to learn, and it really has been an amazingly intense process.

Maybe I'll talk about that more when I have a little more time...for now, gotta go take a final.

The Office meets real life

Any fan of The Office has to get a kick out of this story today about the FEMA chief: (from MSNBC)

Brown's biography on the Federal Emergency Management Agency Web site says he had once served as an "assistant city manager with emergency services oversight," and a White House news release in 2001 said Brown had worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., in the 1970s "overseeing the emergency-services division."

However, a city spokeswoman told the magazine Brown had actually worked as "an assistant to the city manager."

Need some good news?

Here's one bright spot in the disaster hitting one of my favorite cities in the world...

McIlhenny Company is operating normally and the production of TABASCO® brand products are unaffected by the recent hurricane. Our New Orleans office employees are all accounted for and have been relocated to our Corporate Office on Avery Island, Louisiana.

I also tried looking for the status of the Abita and Dixie breweries...but no luck. I did find this comment on a Dixie fan site:

Dixie Rocks a Bayou 'gators ass!!!

With that level of quality, it's difficult to believe a simple natural disaster could have disrupted Dixie's production.

I also found this scarily predictive story about people who got out of the way of Katrina from the Philadelphia Enquirer:

With Hurricane Katrina poised to slam into the Gulf Coast, Dawn Salmon of Huntingdon Valley tried to find a way to get her daughter out of New Orleans. But all of the airlines and trains were booked and Liz, 19, was too young to rent a car on her own.

So Salmon, 49, went to her.

Yesterday morning, she took a near-empty flight from Philadelphia to Louis Armstrong International Airport. There, she met up with her daughter, a student at Loyola University. Together, they went to find a rental car. Poring over a map, they said they didn't know where they would go - Houston or Memphis or Little Rock or Atlanta - but they knew they would be all right if they were together.

"I'm not scared, but I would be if I weren't here and she were here by herself," Dawn Salmon said. "I'm a mom."

I haven't quite felt a sincere emotional impact from the storm yet. That's strange, since I truly do love New Orleans and can't believe that it's been all but knocked off the map. I don't doubt it will be rebuilt, but I fear it will lose much of its old-world charm if speculators and developers swallow up all this ravaged land.

It's been interesting seeing how this disaster has put things in perspective for so many people. Surprisingly, it made me feel my job was even more important. Each day that we've run stories of local assistance for the Gulf Coast (which has been every day, really), the number of volunteers and donations has almost doubled. Now I realize that might have happened without us covering anything, but the local relief agencies have credited our coverage with much of the aid.

I haven't heard about my distant family in the Florida panhandle, but I'm assuming they're OK. Other than gas prices matching California's, my family in Alabama made it out pretty much unscathed, as well.

Air time

OK, a few fun photos from the belt test...

I'm the one on the right...

A throw called ogoshi...in black is Professor Ken Eddy. On the right is my sensei, Jason Spencer.

First part of a throw...

Second part of the throw.

If anything, the test showed me how much I still have to learn about the stuff I already know. It's scary to think that I now need to learn a few dozen more moves for the next test.

As I've gotten older, belt rank has meant a lot less. But it's still an honor to get promoted. Jason doesn't move anybody ahead until they're ready. I think that drives away some younger folks who want to move up the ranks quickly, but it makes us all focus on where we need to improve.

If we move out east, it's unlikely that I'll be able to stick with this style of jujitsu. It has stayed mostly on the west coast. But hopefully I can find something that keeps me active and learning. I've talked about starting capoiera with Karen if we move, and I still might try it, but it's a little more physically intense than I think I'm ready for right now. But you never know.

Updates on job, massage, ninja training

It was a big weekend here in the Griner household. We had the Sierra Brewfest, one of the county's biggest annual events and definitely one of the most fun, and then headed to a friend's house for poker night. We each got $5 worth of chips at the beginning. Karen walked away with $10. I walked away with 30 cents. So in my book, we came out ahead.

But in bigger news:

1. I finally heard back from Virginia on the job, but there's nothing solid. The editor out there said she's still feeling strong about me, but they are going to post the job internally and nationally. Previously, they were saying it would just be internally. She said I got a 100 on the editing test, with the highest score ever being a 115. I'm not sure what the lowest score ever was, but my dear wife guessed it was 101.
2. Karen and I did well on our "practical exams" for the massage class. We drove up to Reno, to our instructor's instructor's school, and the two of them watched each person do parts of the massage. They pointed out some good things for us to work on but generally seemed pleased with how we were doing. In two weeks is the written exam, which is really going to be intense. We also have to rack up another 25 hours of practice (which means 25 massages in just a few weeks). That's going to be tough. Anybody want a free massage?
   
3. I passed my belt test in jujitsu, which means I'm now a yonkyu, or 4th rank. It's a blue belt with a black stripe, I think. Next come three brown belts, then black, so there's still a loooong way to go. Tough test, though. Karen got to watch, since it was at the same school as the massage test (it's all part of the same program). It was really the first time Karen got to see me doing jujitsu, so that was cool, too. We took lots of pictures and video.

That's about it, folks. Just wanted to keep you all up to date.

But wait...

OK, so after bemoaning the fact that I flitter like a butterfly from interest to interest without actually becoming great at anything, I read this interview with game designer Sid Meier.

It's not an amazing interview, but it does hit up that he was able to define his career in his own terms:

GameSpy: Still, for someone who's been as successful as you, it must be nice to be able to work on whatever interests you at the moment -- history, the Civil War, pirates…

Sid Meier: Oh, yeah. I've been very lucky. No one ever told me "You can't do a golf game," or "Nobody's interested in pirates." I really appreciate that creative freedom.

Then there's board game designer Klaus Teuber, who has stayed focused (mostly) on board games, but they've covered everything from clay sculpting to world domination.

One uplifting thing I heard at the Virginia interview was the editor saying, "I need an idea guy." I think too many people try to hire people who are the best at what they do, instead of finding folks like me, who just randomly throw out stuff and can still get it done. Plus, it's not like we're in a hospital. If an idea doesn't work at a newspaper, you stop running it and forget it ever happened.

On a different topic, I have two things I need to point out:

1. I had my first spam posting get through the registration feature on Blogger, so if it keeps up, I might have to add a security setting that makes you type in a wiggly word on your screen when you post. I'll try to put this off, though, because I know you people already don't like having to register.
2. Have you tried sudoku puzzles yet? These things are the next crosswords...amazingly addictive once you figure them out. We're working on a story about them for our Learning Page.

Take care.

Must...stay....focused

I've never been one to specialize, and I'm starting to wonder if that has been a bad approach to life.

When people first get to know me, they often refer to me as a "renaissance man," but it doesn't take long for folks to realize that it's really not that impressive to know a little of everything and a lot of nothing.

Right now, I'm studying massage, practicing jujitsu, and reading a book about modern dictators. But I doubt I'll ever move past the beginner massage, nor will I probably ever get a black belt in jujitsu (just like with my other two martial arts), and I seriously doubt I'll read another book about dictators. I might not even finish this one after I get past Idi Amin.

I majored in design, started my career as a writer, and quickly switched to editing. Now, looking at job opportunities around the country, I'm realizing that there are few people looking for "someone who can write, edit, design, review video games, critique bloody marys, etc." The only places looking for someone like that are papers even smaller than mine, and what they really mean is, "We're looking for one person to do everything, get paid nothing, and be found dead someday on the floor of the office."

Don't get me wrong, I take a lot of pride in the fact that Karen and I try a little of everything. We've done swing dancing, Thai boxing, and now massage together. We've gotten decently skilled in the kitchen, mildly savvy with wines, and relatively well-traveled.

But sometimes I get jealous of my friends who've really stayed focused in life. Because Bill is my most loyal blog reader, I'll use him as an example. He has two second-degree black belts and is amazingly skilled at ... um ... whatever computer stuff it is he does all day. Yet he also dabbles in hobbies like guitar, cooking, etc.

It's obvious I just don't have that level of focus. Perfect example: Just after writing that last sentence, I opened a new window to check how much we had left in the bank. I couldn't even stay focused on finishing a thought about being focused.

When I was interviewing in Virginia, one editor said he didn't think I'd move on to that level of a paper without deciding how I was going to focus my career. That left me thinking two things: One, I can't say I like the idea of focusing my career on one thing just yet. Two, how do you get good at one thing if a paper like that won't hire you to try it? This is why large newspapers end up with dozens of people who are great at the one thing they do, and that's about it. Meanwhile, small papers are filled with people who might be asked to do anything on any given day. I have to say I'll miss that level of freedom if I do bump up.

Don't hold out for a point here. I'm basically just trying to make sense of this doubt I've been feeling lately as weeks go by and I still haven't heard back on the job. I think the root of my frustration is the fact that I'm 28, and if I haven't figured out how to stay focused on something yet, I likely never will.

Oooh, look, a bird! Gotta go.

Attack of the elderly hypocrites

I was never much of an outdoorsy type growing up, which meant I had to put up with a lot of old folks saying: "You kids just sit around playing television. Try going outside so you don't rot your brain! In my day..."

You get the idea.

Well, every few years, my paper decides to punish its oldest, most loyal and crankiest readers by messing around with our TV listings. Yesterday was one of those times.

A while back, we killed the TV Book that appeared once a week. It saved us $60,000...and brought in a few hundred complaints. So we brought it back soon after, as a daily page of listings in the Features section. Once they got used to that, we killed it, moving all the listings into the weekly entertainment section and taking out the daytime info.

So all day yesterday, we got complaints from our senior readers who literally said things like, "What am I supposed to do, stay in bed all day waiting for prime time to roll around so I can know what's on TV?!"

No, I mean all day. Hundreds of these calls. "How DARE you remove the daytime listings?! How can I plan my day?!"

To be honest, I only took one of these calls, but I got to listen to our chosen punching bag respond all day. The one response she could never give was, "Stop watching so much damn television."

Yeah, I know, a lot of older folks don't have much to do. But come on, live a little. Waddle to the front porch and watch the deer and jackrabbits and such. This is Northern California, one of the most beautiful places on earth, and people are spending their last days in a dark room, pining to know whether it's "I married a midget" day on Jerry Springer.

To throw out a positive role model, may I present Karen's grandmother. At 92, she's one of the most alive people I know. She came out here the other day -- from Chicago, to a mountainous area where 20-year-olds get exhausted walking a block. She's in a book club, she's her church's historian, she plays Scrabble nightly, she uses e-mail, and she has sent me more cards and notes in recent years than most of my blood relatives. Since I've known Karen, her grandmother has visited Ireland, New York City and Maine (which was the 50th state she had visited in her lifetime).

So my bar for a senior lifestyle is set pretty high. I'm sure we'll hear more from disgruntled readers today, and I'm sure we'll still have to avoid the temptation to say, "How about you just go outside and enjoy the weather?!"

You see, in my day, TV only had 68 channels....

The rules of fame

Don't ask how, but I stumbled across this little bit of net sadness today. It's a fan forum for Morgan Webb, one of the hosts of the cable show X-Play. Karen and I have been addicted to the show for a while, but there are obviously people who are much more into it...or at least into Morgan, who is probably one of the few female geek icons out there.

If you read the first post on the link, you'll see about 742 rules for the forum (no racy pictures, no asking Morgan to marry you, etc). If these are the things already banned, it gives you a disturbing insight into the daily lives of even minor celebrities.

So just to get ahead of the curve, I've come up with my own rules for the future Griner fan forums that inevitably will arise:

1. NO pictures from Griner's poorly thought-out photo spread in SheepBreeder.
2. NO references to the Flying Lemurs show in Skokie that ended with Griner and Bill huddled in fear for their lives under the fifth wheel of a nearby semi.
3. NO quoting from Griner's college columns, like this.

And then, as if in return for giving it life, the beer repays us with the warmth of inebriation. With a tear in my eye, I pat the fermenter lovingly. "That'll do, beer."

4. NO posting Griner's picture from his college columns.
5. NO pointing out that Griner's first concert was M.C. Hammer.
6. NO pointing out that Darkie was right, and Griner should have snuck out of the house in high school to see that farewell-tour Dead Milkmen show in Huntsville.
7. NO use of direct quotes to show that Griner absolutely contradicts himself year to year on things like the newspaper industry, blogging or that Thrills album, which sounded really good at first but then got kinda boring but by then he had already told his friends about this great Thrills album. Yeah, no doing that.
8. NO talking about how much prettier his first wife was.
9. NO links to sound clips from Griner's "The future is DivX" speech.
10. NO references to his blog photo as "Homeless Griner Gets a Meal"
11. NO downer posts about wasted potential.
12. NO confusing Griner for a deceased phys ed professor, a highly regarded marathon runner, a boar hunter or a lawyer pioneering the use of "instant CDs." Griner feels a bit of personal shame when stacked against the people who, according to Google, share his name.
13. NO feet on the coffee table.
14. NO fifteenth rule.

Quick job update

OK, well, I heard back from the woman who brought me out to Norfolk, and she said she was "really high" on me. She said the big boss liked me, too, but some of the other managers thought I was *gasp* too young. Are you ever just the right age for a job? Even Hooters waitresses seem to run the age gamut.

Anyway, she said they're opening the job to internal candidates but not external candidates (other than me). That's good news, because it means there will be at least one more opening if an internal person gets it.

So I'm pretty stoked. And tomorrow's my birthday. And I'm going out for sushi with Karen in a few minutes. Life's not so bad today.

They like me, but I'm not hired yet

We just returned from our three-day trip to Norfolk, which was basically 12 hours of flying for every 2 hours of, you know, not flying.

But here's the skinny: The folks at the paper out there like me. There seems to be a general consensus that I would be a good fit. Of the 10 or so interviews I had, only one of the editors seemed a bit pessimistic about my age and the size of my paper (about 1/12th of their size).

The managing editor, however, is the big cheese, and we got along great. I gave him an honest critique of the paper, and he said he agreed completely. I stumped to get in the door as soon as possible so I can help with their planned redesign, which would be awesome.

So I fit in great, and I think I passed their amazingly intense editing test, but what's next? Hard to say. There's not really an opening for me yet. There might be, soon. Or maybe not. Or maybe in a few months. Or maybe not for a while. Yeah, it's that weird. I'm still not sure how to explain this to my coworkers here.

The problem is, I just assumed that a lot of people were flown out there to interview without a specific job in mind. Apparently not. Apparently no one understood what the hell I was doing out there. That's not necessarily bad, but it might embitter people who got their jobs the old-fashioned way. Or it might mean I have to fly back out later to interview again. And man, that's a tough trip.

But let's focus on the positive. I'll even use the flowery little icons:

• Housing prices are about $200,000 less than here. That puts them around $270,000, which is a bit more doable for us, and we might be able to get a place sooner than we thought.
• Downtown Norfolk is great. Tons of construction, new restaurants, young people. That's crazy. Every other city is watching its downtown die slowly and painfully.
• If they hire you, the newspaper moves you. I mean, a dude shows up and packs your stuff, loads it on a truck and sends it to Virginia. That would be nice.
• We already know a handful of friends out there, so there wouldn't be a lengthy friendship drought.
• The paper's staff has this great vibe of teamwork and mutual respect. It's hard to describe, but I can tell you it's rare in this industry. My bosses like to say, "This isn't a democracy," which I've always fought against. If staffers don't feel important and respected, they'll resent the manager and the paper. I'm sure that happens there, but a vibe is a hard thing to fake.

So that's about it for today. I'm still half-unconscious from the flying, but I'm excited. I wish things would move quickly, but there's nothing wrong with being a little patient for this kind of opportunity.

At least it's not meth

When I was in high school -- I think a sophomore, even -- I first played the PC game Civilization. And then, I'm pretty sure, that was all I did for the next few weeks.

I remained addicted through college and beyond as more and more sequels came out and kept up. But then I pretty much stopped after getting Civilization III, largely because I didn't want to end up isolating myself for months while Karen paced impatiently, had affairs with male models, etc.

Then one day, I had one of those moments that reminds me, "I married the perfect woman." I mentioned Civilization, and Karen asked me teach her how to play. Pretty soon after, she said, "Why have you never shown me this?"

That was a few years back, and we've been struggling through this addiction together, especially after they released the great Conquests expansion. Sure, it's a little challenging to play a one-player strategy game as a twosome, but every marriage has its battles. Ours are just against the Spanish and Germans.

So it's with excitement and a bit of fear that we look forward to Civilization IV coming out this fall/winter/whenever. It sounds like they've made some great improvements on the game, or at least not screwed anything up. But as we turn into responsible adults with management jobs and such, it's getting a bit harder to devote 12 hours of a day to a video game. But some sacrifices are worth making for the sake of your marriage, am I right?

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this teaser video for Civ IV. The old lady's line makes me laugh every time.