You say goodbye, I say hello

So dear readers, I've been rather neglectful in my blogging duties. But I have a good reason, honestly. I was in the process of negotiating and ultimately accepting a new job. Then, once that was done, all I wanted to do was write about the fact that I have a new job effective March 1, but I didn't want to possibly jinx things (signed offer aside) by tempting the cosmos to jerk this new opportunity away from me. I'm weird that way. Now that I'm wrapping things up on my last day with the college, I feel pretty safe in blogging about my new adventure.

It's pretty cool because while this new job will use the skills I already have, I'll also get to learn more about writing for the web, SEO and all that fun stuff that I keep hearing will be good for my career. And I agree that it will be good for me. They have a terrific team, some of whom I'm friends with (hey, it's who you know in this business) and the location is superb: Yaletown - no more commuting!

However, there's still a part of me that is kinda sad because it means I'm moving further away from my first career as a journalist. Though my ultimate love is the writing part of it, I also have to admit that I get a buzz out of the whole process of creating a story in the more journalistic sense - interview someone who has something interesting to talk about, learn more about them, find that human interest story that will make people want to read past that first sentence and finally, write.

Today, I went out with a bang. Last day working for the college, I interviewed Patrick Gallagher, a.k.a. the short-shorts wearing football coach Ken Tanaka on Glee. Super-cool guy, very down to earth. Last summer, I interviewed another successful Canadian actor, Fred Ewanuick (that's me and Fred, his new show Dan for Mayor premieres next Monday at 8:30pm on CTV, by the way). Fred was also very gracious, very much a guy you can picture having a beer and watching the game with.

Whether I'm meeting someone famous in the traditional sense or someone who becomes a community hero like the college's Olympic torch bearer, Anna Solnickova, I love meeting people and finding out what makes them tick. I'm nosy.

Of course, a huge part of my sadness is because I'm leaving a team of people I really like. But you can't stay somewhere just because you like the people. We'll still see each other and trade war stories. Indeed, our get-togethers will likely be all that much more interesting because we won't be seeing one another every day. There'll be new dirt, which always helps fulfill my nosy nature.

And yes, I'm still writing and learning, and that's the key. I write, I learn, I'm happy. If I'm really jonesing to do an interview, I can always write a freelance piece.

Cool Globe story

Just read today's Tuesday Essay, Mysterious and Terrible and Crazy in the Globe. It touches on the same topic as my post last week, Naysayers, Deniers and PITAs.

However, it goes well beyond the bitchings and criticisms of family members over who started the drunken mashed potato fight at Thanksgiving back in '78 and touches on some heavy stuff, namely Todd Babiak's struggle with whether or not to have a character burn in a fire in his sedan in his latest book, Toby: A Man. Babiak's own father burned in a fire in his sedan in 2002.

He writes, "Novelists aren't supposed to worry about what their mothers and brothers think, but I do. I worry about it constantly. If readers know some bits of the book are true, perhaps they will think everything is true. This would not bode well for my mother's reputation."

Thought for food, indeed.