Call off the dogs

The job hunt is over. I am now working for the Man.

I don't know if you have heard, but my father-in-law was in the hospital when I was in D.C. in early October. He had been confined to a bed after a heart attack in late April. I had not heard from Amy all day the Friday of the APME conference, so I thought he might have died. I knew it would be soon. It turned out he hadn't.

Between the time I got back to the hotel after I left you guys at the bar and the time I arrived on the metro platform at Reagan, he had died. Now Amy's mom lives alone in Alexandria, and Amy wants to be there to get through the first year. Not long after she expressed this, the newspaper in Alexandria -- where I had interned this summer -- called me about a reporter's position available there. So I took it.

The editor knows that I do not want to stay in Louisiana for long, so he is not hiring me with an expectation of a long tenure. That made me feel better about taking the job. Turns out, it is hard to get a good job on the East Coast if you don't already live there or have some kind of experience beyond internships.

We do hope, however, to be East by January 2009.