The daunting reality of my career path

This is a very unfortunate time all journalists are dealing with. I am not opposed to the online transition, but we need to find a way to make it work effectively. I am lucky - for now - that I work at a privately-owned weekly newspaper in Los Altos. I count my blessings....

California Newspapers Feel the Pinch//
^By Thomas S. Mulligan and James Rainey=
^(c) 2008, Los Angeles Times=
At the San Jose Mercury News, reporters have been instructed to wait at home on the morning of March 7. If they don't receive a phone call by 10 a.m. telling them that they've lost their jobs, they should head into work.
Long the oracle of Silicon Valley technology and the go-to spot for government and community news in Santa Clara County, Calif., the Mercury News has pared back coverage on several fronts as its news staff has shrunk to about 200 from twice that number in 1999.
What's happening in San Jose is being repeated to a greater or lesser degree across California. Buyouts and layoffs are being imposed at newspapers all over the country, of course, but California is especially vulnerable because of the severity of its real-estate downturn. Along with real estate, advertising in related categories such as home furnishings, hardware and even big-box electronics retailing has been slowing, newspaper executives say.
Friday, the Los Angeles Daily News will say goodbye to 22 more editors and reporters, paring its newsroom to 100 people from nearly twice that many a few years ago. Editor Ron Kaye gave the news in a tearful address to his staff on Wednesday.
Employees at the Los Angeles Times have until Monday to respond to a voluntary buyout offer aimed at eliminating 100 to 150 jobs, 40 to 50 of them in the newsroom. If not enough people volunteer, layoffs will make up the balance.
Experts say the American appetite for news is as strong as ever. Even big-city papers that have suffered sharp declines in print circulation in recent years have seen their total audiences grow, when viewers of their Internet sites are included. Political candidates, corporations, even churches find that they can lure more traffic to their Web sites by slapping on a headline news ``ticker'' or a digest of wire-service stories.
The problem is that few news organizations have yet found a way to make the kind of money online that they had generated from print.
``Citizen journalists'' -- unpaid volunteers, mainly --have stepped into the breach here and there, but research by the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism shows that most of what they are producing so far is commentary and discussion rather than eyewitness accounts of news events or meat-and-potatoes coverage of school board meetings and the like.
``If a newspaper reduces staff by 20 percent, some portion of that community is going to be operating in the shadows in a way it was not before,'' said Project for Excellence director Tom Rosenstiel.
Although specialized outfits such as Bloomberg News in business and TMZ in celebrity news have sprung up profitably at the same time that newspapers have been cutting back, their turf is narrow.
Sam Zell, chief executive of Chicago-based Tribune Co., corporate parent of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers and TV stations across the country, visited the Times's Washington bureau on Tuesday to deliver a message about priorities to the news staff there. It was a fractious meeting.
If Zell's point is that the real money is in local news, the recent experience of the Daily News, the Orange County, Calif., Register and the regional daily newspapers ringing the San Francisco Bay Area -- all more locally-oriented than the Times -- has been a discouraging counter example. Their inability to keep ad revenue from falling at double-digit percentages year-over-year has led to staff reductions that further hobble local news coverage.
The Mercury News is part of the Bay Area News Group, a chain of 23 daily and 12 weekly newspapers owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group, which also owns the Daily News, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the Torrance-based Daily Breeze and other papers in Southern California. MediaNews claims total paid daily circulation in California of 1.1 million, making it the state's biggest news operation in that category.
At Bay Area News Group's East Bay, which includes the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times, all but a handful of the approximately 1,100 employees have been offered a voluntary buyout with a maximum of six months' pay. The group hasn't announced how many staff reductions it wants to achieve, but if it can't reach its internal target through voluntary buyouts, it will resort to layoffs that come with only three months' maximum severance.

Ratiolis and rainy days

"But we all do that; we merge our myths with our facts according to our feelings, we tell ourselves our own story. And no matter what we are told, we choose what we believe. All 'truths' are only our truths, because we bring the 'facts' to our feelings, our experiences, our wishes. ...
Every worthwhile story begins with the words 'Once upon a time'..." - "Ireland: A Novel" by Frank Delaney

What a beautiful truth I came across in the Mountain View Rasputin bookstore today. That's right... Rasputin music, movies AND books. I asked the lady the first time I went where they had other Rasputin books and it turns out it's one of a kind. Let's just say that when I went in this place about three weeks ago for the first time with my friend Janet, I was in love. Their selection of books is amazing, and the used book prices are great. Well after much boasting to Aaron, we decided to go there today. Perfect day for it considering it's raining. He got caught up in his obsession - looking at DVDs, while I got caught up in mine - books.

It's funny. We both feel we can never get enough of these things, no matter how many DVDs he has yet to open or book spines I have yet to crack. I figure, one day, down the line... this is something I will want to read. It's like finding a treasure. So I went to the $1-2 book selection and found "Ireland." Not the country, but the book. =)

I admit, I initially gave the book a chance and transferred it from the shelf to my hands because, well, I'm Irish. Seems kinda superficial. But then I read the premise... and then I read an excerpt and then I read a page... and another, found a chair to sit down in and continued to read 12 pages. What a steal... what a hidden treasure. I love used bookstores. I love the smell of old books and the thought that someone else was holding this book in a different place at one time. Where were they, who were they and how is their journey through life? It's hard not to get caught up in the history... or at least for me. So I bought the book along with Gregory Maguire's "Son of a Witch." I read "Wicked" and was absolutely captivated, especially because "The Wizard of Oz" has to be one of my all time favorite movies.

On another note...

Took the bratty ratty twins to the Cupertino Animal Hospital this week. I had become increasingly concerned because they were itching more than usual and Peaches has always sneezed on a pretty regular basis. Turns out they have a parasite, so the vet gave them medication and I have to give it to them again in two weeks. The itching hasn't seemed to decrease yet, but I am keeping an eye out for it. Rumor has it, I am a worry wort. so I may be making a big deal out of nothing. We will see. Then I got insanely paranoid - I know, I already am - because it's really common for rats to get tumors and, as the vet put it, "It's not a matter of if they will get a tumor, but when they will get a tumor." You can get them fixed and it can decrease their chances but what I want to know is, by how much and will this procedure cause them a lot of stress? Guess there's only so much I can do... I play with them quite a lot, clean their cage every week and spoil them... just bought them a new toy that they absolutely love.

Well, time to lay down, listen to raindrops hitting the window and cars driving by on the slick streets. What soothing noises...

Aaron's "Very Merry Unbirthday"

"Imagine, just one birthday every year. Ahhh, but there are 364 unbirthdays! Precisely why we're gathered her to cheer." - Alice in Wonderland

When I was a kid, I was always fascinated by surprise parties. I attended a few, but never had one thrown for me or threw one myself. Well, at the age of 23 I have now had the opportunity - and success - for throwing one, and what a very merry unbirthday it was.

Three years ago to the day Feb. 17, my boyfriend - Aaron - was in brain surgery to remove a tumor the size of a softball. Thankfully, the surgery was a success and it is now the size of a small pea. He goes in for CyberKnife radiation surgery - a non-invasive surgery three days this week. I am nervous, but it calms me down knowing he isn't.

Because I didn't know him at this time in his life, I decided to throw him a party to celebrate his life... the day he was reborn... last Saturday. And even though I had never thrown a surprise party, it was a success! There were a few kinks along the way: he convinced me to go to a work party just two hours before we were supposed to be there, but I convinced him we had to meet up for a friend's birthday party. Thankfully, our friend Gabe called him a couple days before to invite him to the "birthday" party. Needless to say, he was surprised. I figured it was the least I could do given how happy he makes me and the journeys he has guided me through.

It's funny to think how first impressions represent nothing of how a person really is, but are very telling... When I met Aaron walking home from E&O where I worked as a hostess, I immediately noticed how confident he was. I didn't notice that there were some very minor side affects from his brain surgery until he told me. But all of these "quirks" combined - from both his development over the years and his unbirthday - make him the unique individual he is today.

Thank you to everybody who helped make the party a success!

[PICTURES TO COME]