LAST EDITED ON 09-14-02 AT 08:11 PM (EDT)
 
Well, after a tremendous amount of scrounging through weekend papers and getting "thanks for sending your resume but" letters and generally having just about the same sort of job hunting experience as I had in Boston (except that all the rejections here are for worse jobs), I finally got a job... sort of.

I'm doing freelance reporting for my hometown's weekly paper, the Katahdin Times. "Freelance", for those of you not familiar with news-speak (which is not quite the same thing as newspeak), means I'm not actually an employee of the paper, which is why I say it's "sort of" a job. I go into the office (or call), they give me assignments, I do them, I get paid. Or they don't and I don't. But it's been presented as a sort of trial, which I can live with - sort of like temp-to-permanent work in tech fields. (Yes, I acknowledge that, much like some temp-to-perm offers in tech fields, it could just be a giant stringalong.)

It's an interesting experience being a reporter, though of course the Times, serving as it does a cluster of three towns the largest of which barely tops 5,000 in population, isn't exactly the New York Post (or even the Worcester Telegram & Gazette). Bugger-all happens here - but at this early stage, and after so long without work of any kind, even covering bugger-all has a strange sort of thrill to it.

So that's what I've been doing with my afternoons lately, in case you might be wondering.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Hey, it's great news that you finally got a job, no matter what it is! Good luck and...um...all that other stuff you say when you're happy for someone.

>Hey, it's great news that you finally got a job, no matter what it is!
>Good luck and...um...all that other stuff you say when you're happy
>for someone.

my thoughts exactly.

I Am No One, I Have No Name.
I Am Nothing, Yet I Am Everything.
I Am The Darkness, I Am The Light.
You Will Learn To Fear My Might.

Xervis

And, disguised as sort-of-mild-mannered reporter for a... well... minor rural newsrag, Gryphon fights for... truth? Justice? The American Way? Or maybe just some streetlights in his hometown...

As he implies, things could be worse... I'm not quite enjoying the job I've gotten back to, only because of the extra side "night" project they have me on and the long hauls associated with it and the very altered sleep schedules and amounts, but at least I'm pulling in a paycheck... for now. A job possibility that would have been more stable (and shorter distance and lasted for a 9-week contract) fell through due to circumstances beyond my control, but hey, I'm still working...

-- pf

So should we send a troupe of rabid crack weasels to cause unusual and newsworthy things to happen in Millinocket, to ensure that you've got work?

--
Jonathan Lennox
lennox@cs.columbia.edu

>So should we send a troupe of rabid crack weasels to cause unusual and
>newsworthy things to happen in Millinocket, to ensure that you've got
>work?

Hmm. How about the Pilgramage of the Weasels, where we meet to begin in Millinocket, travel en mass to Worcester to see WPI, the Wedge (revamped and all), Bancroft Tower, the Overpass of Death, Stoh, Boomer's, and Shamrock House, then roll back up to Millinocket for dinner (outdoor barbecue? If a venue for such could be found) and toast to good fanfic before going back to our weasel-holes. It could make a long Saturday, or an overnight if, again, a venue could be found for dossing down.

Organization of such a thing is probably beyond the bounds of reasonability, however. I mean, ave you ever seen weasels try to act in a coordinated fashion?

- CD, lacking an offical RCW number, but only because he hasn't got the attention span to think up a clever one

>Hmm. How about the Pilgramage of the Weasels, where we meet to begin
>in Millinocket, travel en mass to Worcester to see WPI, the Wedge
>(revamped and all), Bancroft Tower, the Overpass of Death, Stoh,
>Boomer's, and Shamrock House, then roll back up to Millinocket for
>dinner (outdoor barbecue? If a venue for such could be found) and
>toast to good fanfic before going back to our weasel-holes.

You do realize, don't you, that that plan involves 12 hours just for the driving? And that's only counting the plan time itself, let alone getting here from wherever the hell you are and going back again.

Going to Worcester, doing something interesting, and coming back on consecutive days is tiring enough.

Plus, I'd rather not have weasels running around the old milltown. The cops get nervous about that sort of thing, and I can't very well function as a pressman if I alienate the locals, now can I?

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

13 hours; I hadn't noticed that you'd included Shamrock House on your list of things to see. Not only is it not a terribly interesting place now that nobody we know lives there anymore, it's also in Waltham, not Worcester.

This is, generally speaking, not a very good plan.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>Organization of such a thing is probably beyond the bounds of
>reasonability, however. I mean, ave you ever seen weasels try to act
>in a coordinated fashion?

Even a single weasel has a hard time acting in a coordinated fashion. Plus I think we'd end up scaring off the locals.

"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

*****************************
Matrix Dragon, RCW#123
Current Addiction: Stuff
"Nobody likes a cliche hero."

>(revamped and all), Bancroft Tower, the Overpass of Death, Stoh,

Overpass of Death?

>>(revamped and all), Bancroft Tower, the Overpass of Death, Stoh,
>
>Overpass of Death?

I think they're talking about the Main Street Tunnel.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>>(revamped and all), Bancroft Tower, the Overpass of Death, Stoh,
>>
>>Overpass of Death?
>
>I think they're talking about the Main Street Tunnel.

Yeah, that's the one. The one that you guys zip through a few times in UF1 by making ridiculous DEX checks, and the bad guys fail their own. I still refer to Saab 900s as speedbumps, BTW. This despite my driving a 1992-body Camaro, which if anything is even more speedbumpy looking. (*For the record, my Amelia is a 1995, dark metallic green with a black cab section, and has the T-tops. I love my car.)

- CD

>>>Overpass of Death?
>>I think they're talking about the Main Street Tunnel.
>Yeah, that's the one.

Oh - it is really a cut & cover tunnel by the looks of it. A lot longer than an overpass.

You mean a RCWL Con? I had something like this in mind but chucked it due to my track record for posting ideas to forums and assosciated bad luck.

But, being the badluck mongering, gluton for punishment that I am.

RCWL Con 1: Sympathy for the weasel
Dates: TBA
Location: TBA
Rate: TBA (for Material, traveler's aide fund, and general BS)

BTW Gryph, good luck with the reporting.

Pattrick

Unemployed Henchman, Goon, Techie, and Jack of all trades.
Will hench for food.

RCWL Member# 1035

>So should we send a troupe of rabid crack weasels to cause unusual and
>newsworthy things to happen in Millinocket, to ensure that you've got
>work?
>
I think it would be better to just send the money that would be used on such a trip to Gryphon directly. A lot easier and a lot more effective.

>So should we send a troupe of rabid crack weasels to cause unusual and
>newsworthy things to happen in Millinocket, to ensure that you've got
>work?

There's a journalistic ideal I was taught in college; a newsmaker should never, ever be a newswriter.

If Gryphon reported on news for which he was the proximate cause, there's a good chance he could get in trouble with his editor.

Redneck