On a Saturday in early June 1994 I graduated from Cal Poly SLO with a degree in journalism and a passion for newspapers. Two days later I started work as a reporter at the 8,000 circulation, 6-day paper The Lompoc Record. For the next 15 years, I did almost everything you can do in a […]
You know this sort of thing is going to happen, but let me assure you that I do feel an overwhelming amount of schadenfraude over the event.
Back when I was in high school, a friend of mine named Matt Sobke spent about $3,000 on a car stereo system. Now, this was the late ‘80s, so figure that a similar system nowadays would be somewhere in the $10,000 range. Matt played bass clarinet in the band and liked to drive up and […]
As many as you may know, I’m currently unemployed. The day after my last day of work, I went to California’s Employment Development Department Web site and filled out the forms to apply for unemployment. Approximately 10 days later, I received a “Notice of Unemployment Insurance Award” confirming my eligibility for unemployment insurance. That document […]
I'm going to be doing some under-the-hood changes/upgrades for the next however long it takes. The right sidebar may have things missing or moved around for the next little while. UPDATE Hoystory.com is now upgraded to the latest version of WordPress. We have also added the Hoystory twitter feed to the right rail. Why? Because […]
While I'm not sure whether I want to continue in the daily newspaper business when my tenure with the Union-Tribune is up this Friday, I continue to look at the journalism job sites because that's where my training and experience is. As someone who thinks that the recent talk of government bailouts of the newspaper […]
On a personal note: I'm still looking for a job. I've got some solid leads, but I'd really like to have some more options before I move forward. On that note, I think a government job might be good. As Jason Pye over at QandO notes, President Obama has said he has "created" 150,000 jobs […]
I'd been joking around for the past few months that the San Diego Union-Tribune newsroom was like a hospice ward -- people were just waiting around to die. Well, I was more right than I knew. Today, I found out I was one of the people dying. So, if you or someone you know is […]
Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist and friend of Hoystory (the latter being much more important and impressive than the former) Steve Breen is working on a new photo/cartoon blog called "Bad Hamster." It features stuff like this: The site is currently undergoing a "soft opening," and I'm officially the first blogger to link to it. Breen hopes […]
It's the holidays, and it's time to show your favorite bloggers how much you appreciate them. For those of you interested in getting something for yours truly, you can find my Amazon.com wishlist by clicking on this button: For some of you, times are tough and you're limiting your holiday purchases to family, I understand. […]