I haven’t been in a plane in quite some time (can’t remember the last time), and so I have that anxiety that comes when air travel is not a habit. I am trying not to pack too much. For a few hours yesterday, I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn’t bring my camera. But, I decided to fuck it and bring it, because I really feel lost without it.

I just finished a book by John Robison, which was actually a gift I had given to Matthew for Christmas. I borrowed it from him after he quickly finished it post-Christmas. John Robison is the brother of Augusten Burroughs and lives in Amherst. He grew up in Shutesbury, just around the corner from where I work right now. The book is his first and it is about his life with Asperger’s. It’s a quick and engaging read; I highly recommend it. If you do get it, consider the hardcover edition. The paperback edition that I purchased removed expletives so that younger people could read it and learn about Asperger’s, or just growing up different (and all the bullying that comes with it).

Now I am between books and don’t know which one to start. I’m thinking that I’d like to switch to fiction, so I am considering Andre Dubus III’s latest The Garden of Last Days, which I received as a gift. I also received two nonfiction books that are en vogue right now–Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. I heard about them at JBo’s tea party in December and put them on my Amazon list.

I also got Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, but I have already decided against reading it next. Something about reading Obama while in Chicago seems awfully cheesy.

I think I’ve settled on Ande Dubus III. I don’t know anything about the book. A perfect escape.

I won’t have any computer access for a few days as far as I know. Back on Friday night.

Check out my flickr profile here.

There were papers to sign, but there was no real need to prove that we’re worthy of a marriage license. They didn’t even ask for any identification, a fact that chilled Matt and me to the bone.

Fact: We are the 100th couple to declare our intent to marry to the city in 2008.

We were way more prepared than I thought we’d be so that may have contributed to the quickness of the experience. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts no longer requires a blood test, so that wasn’t necessary. We did have to raise our right hands and swear that what we wrote down on the application was true. I think I said yes. Matthew confirmed later that he had replied “yup.”

In sum, we signed some papers, raised our right hands, paid $25 and left.

In my hyper blogging days, I may have photographed the experience in its entirety, stopping to snap a shot of the application, but to be honest I was a bit nervous about the whole thing and didn’t want to draw too much attention. It was only after we had walked out of the City Clerk’s office that I brandished my Nikon. Matthew and I took some time to admire the building, and stopped to check out a ward map of the city posted in the hallway. I pointed out how our house offers the fantastic Three Ward View.

Me: Are there any new trends you’re seeing in the blogging world that bother you?

Tony: Most of the new trends I love: Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed, SocialThing, because they are helping bring back the idea that the individual bloggers’ lives matter and those tools make it easier for people to share their experiences with their readers.

The only trend that bothers me, as you say, is the ongoing obsession with people trying to make money off their blogs. I am speaking of the popularity of the Make Money Blogging blogs. These blogs don’t tell the truth about blogging which is: less than one-tenth of one percent of blogs make any real money. You’re better off playing the lottery or OMG getting a second job (or a better primary job) than thinking you can either tweak your blog into some sort of money-making machine.

There are over 100 million blogs out there and about 500 people making money blogging. You have a better chance being a starting quarterback in the NFL. So if you want to blog, blog and forget about the money. Do it because you want to express yourself. If you wanna make money: get a damn job.

Me: Does your new job ever make you feel like a sellout?

Tony: To me, selling out is doing something simply for money that you really don’t love. Working for the LA Times is a dream come true and a job I’ve been wanting for a very long time and I love it. I can’t even really believe I have this job. There have been two Pulitzer Prize winners who have sat at my desk and typed on my keyboard. So damn cool. Me having this job is probably a lot like how Theo Epstien feels about being the GM for the Red Sox – outsiders who always loved this Old School iconic thing, and somehow we get to work for it in a major way due to our New School beliefs and ways.

Working for the love of things is the polar opposite of selling out. It is what people should be doing more of.

Me: As someone who has worked for a small web site within a large company for several years now, sometimes I feel like we’re always chasing the next big thing in new media. Do you feel any pressure at the LA Times to be the trendsetters?

Tony: The Times has not earned its reputation by setting trends, but by being credible and delivering news in a timely fashion. So trendsetting is not a pressure that I think anyone here has ever felt. We have other pressures, like competing with new sources of news like Yahoo, CNN, and those 100 million other blogs.

Do you pay the LA Times bloggers?

Tony: Yes. Even our interns get paid here. It’s quite a different world, in that respect than most of the blogosphere.

Me: What section of the newspaper do you typically take with you to the bathroom?

Tony: The best thing about working at a newspaper is you can carry the paper with you and no one knows you’re headed to the john. I like to bring Metromix in there because a) it’s fantastic and b) I like to leave it in there as a passive-aggressive way of sharing it with my cohorts. Metromix is owned by Tribune Corp but doesn’t always get all the love that it deserves. It’s sorta like the (hot) red-headed stepchild, I feel.

Me: Did you go to your senior prom? What do you remember about it?

Tony: I did go to the senior prom. Even though it was a long time ago, I remember everything, in vivid detail. I went with a junior named Claudia who had dated one of my closest friends, Mike, but he broke up with her a month or two before prom. I wanted to go with my quasi-girlfriend Mary but she had moved and her parents wouldn’t let her fly back to me because they had found out that my mom was going to be out of town that weekend.

I remember clearly how I asked her to prom. I was very superstitious back then and I said to myself, if a good song comes on the radio I will ask Claudia to prom, if not I will beg Mary to go with me one last time. The Kinks’ “Come Dancing” came on and I asked her, she said yes, we kissed, and I thought all would be well.

When Prom came, she looked great (she eventually was Homecoming Queen the next year), I put the corsage on her, etc., but when we got to the dance she didn’t wanna dance. She said she was “sick”. She didn’t seem sick to me, so I was pissed and me and all of my friends, like Mike all danced together in front of the band. I didn’t even kiss her goodnight when I dropped her off.

Turned out it was that time of the month for Claudia, but because she was 16 she didn’t really know how to share that info with me, since we really didn’t know each other all that well. I felt awful. So what I learned was, if a woman says she’s sick, be super cool, cuz it might mean something that men couldn’t fathom.

Me: Favorite songs right now?

Tony: Lil Wayne “I’m Me” and The Ting Tings “That’s Not My Name”.

How not to brand/market your site/newspaper (via Jeff)

Speed Up Windows XP (can’t remember but prolly via Jeff)

Adding blogs and multimedia to your newsroom (via here)

When I have more I’ll add them here

Uploaded using facebook photos plugin. Check out my facebook photo galleries here (imported using the fotobook plugin). I am into the facebook plugins, because I already use facebook to upload my photos and I like the idea of having an integrated social network where I can share photos, but also communicate with my friends in other ways. I think this is why I’ve resisted flickr and other photo sharing sites.

And to think we all used to use a phone to organize our social lives.

My old site was sans serif, but I’ve taken the serif plunge. I guess as I’m getting older, this big Georgia font is easier for me to read.

Over last weekend, Amy and I went to Nikon School in Manhattan (Our instructors were Reed Hoffman and Bill Durrence). It was a fantastic experience and we learned a lot, much of which we tested out on a short excursion in Amy’s Astoria neighborhood the next morning. There are galleries on our facebooks and I will try to post some of the photos here. Not incidentally, the photo that is my banner above was taken in Astoria while playing around with white balance settings.

The trip was a battery refresher. I had a lot of time in the car to think and listen to podcasts and music and reflect on my life, since I feel like I’ve been too busy to do that lately.

2007 has taken me on many new paths and I’ve been thankful for all of them. To recap, I bought a house, became a landlord, ended a long-term relationship, met someone new and got a promotion. All in that order. The brightest highlight has been meeting someone new, with whom I have packed so much life into the past three months. I am grateful for the way my life has turned out, but really could not in any way have predicted things would be this way just six months ago.

Out of respect for all who are involved I will say that the end of the last relationship was a long time coming. Compatibility is so important (although it’s not the only thing) and I have felt with this new relationship that I am way more compatible with this person. I can’t say that I regret anything that has happened to me. I think it would be foolish to do that, considering everything I have done in the past has led me to where I am today. I might not be in the fortunate position I am in were it not for the support of my past relationship. Same with my loving BFFs who have been so steadfast. Oh my girls (not THOSE girls).

So, in the new world life is coming at me pretty fast.

The promotion was huge and although I’d expected it for quite some time I was pleased at how much of a bump-up I got. As recently as this week the pressure has begun to increase. I find that I have virtually no downtime at work, except to run out and grab a bite to eat. Recently, editorial has experienced a number of big successes, so the professional satisfaction is all part of the package. We just need to be able to continue to perform at this heightened level. THAT’s the real challenge.

I’m not going to lie. I do enjoy the job a little less than in the past, but I suspect that will level off and I’ll find my groove again.

In just a few weekends Matt will be coming along with me to Pennsylvania to meet my family. He’s already met my father, so some of the pressure is off. I am excited for him to meet my mother and other family members and to show him the land where I am from. We plan to bring our bikes, ride around ole’ Palmyra to see the sites (ahem), and probably go to Hershey Park. The added bonus is that I went against my nature and took an extra day off of work, so we’ll have another day in PA.

I have to say that one byproduct of getting a promotion is that even though I am much busier than in the past, I didn’t feel bad about taking a day off. I think that is one thing that I should have done more of in the past but I was always worried it would reflect badly on me, that I wouldn’t be seen as a hardworker. So mea culpa and here’s to more balance. Work hard, play hard, right?

The landlording hasn’t been perfect, but overall I’m so proud to be a homeowner. Last weekend Matt and I did some mulching in the front and are now proud to call our mulch job the Patch of Grass Garden or PoGG for short. We tried to mulch around the phlox, but since the flowers have all fallen off and there is grass growing with the phlox, it just looks like 4 to 5 patches of grass. All in all though, it’s pretty freakin’ cute. I need to get the handyman here to start working on my railing. The insurance company is requiring that I install it because of how steep and slopey my front stairs are. This is on my huge to-do list. Also, a big piping problem in the basement was affecting the (let’s say) plumbing in the business part of the house, so that was an added expense. And now, let’s just say that I 1) unfortunately got to see what a (my) sub-basement looks like and 2) the smell of mothballs permeated the house for a while. When I would come home it would stink of them as I walked up the stairs. One day Matt was walking up, the smell hit him, and he yelled out “Mothballs!” Molly was standing right there, so we took to calling her Mothballs for a while. Nicknames always seem to wear off of her, though. Guess that means Molly was a good name for her.

My dad came to visit me a couple of weekends ago. It was a lot of fun! We went to the Basketball Hall of Fame, ate a lot of dinners out, took pictures at the top of Mt. Sugarloaf, went shopping for a camera and a little garden buddha (for his GF), went bowling. I kicked ass at bowling. I’ve still got it people. My dad generously bought me a nikon d40 with an extra zoom lens and 2GB SD card so I have been enjoying getting out and using it. It was his housewarming gift to me and I am grateful for it. I also got a piece of stained glass from he and his GF Maggie when I first moved in. I am trying to find the most perfect spot to hang it. It may end up in the office for now, though, because that’s the only window in the house without mini-blinds. I think it would look funny to hang a piece of beautiful stained glass piece behind a mini-blind, don’t you?

If I can be diary-a like for minute, today is going to be nuts. I have
to drop my car off at the mechanic, work like a dog all day, go into a
meeting at 5:00 (!) and in between all that I have to figure out a way
to get back to my car. I’m sure it will all work out, though.

I know that I glossed over a few parts, but I felt you deserved a proper update. I won’t make any promises, but I will at least be posting new pictures as I get them.

-kb