Things I really hate hearing ...

I was very disappointed to hear tonight that my friend Doug MacGregor was laid off from the Fort Myers News-Press last week as parent company Gannett cut 700 jobs (that's Doug on the right - I hope he doesn't mind I lifted the photo from his website).

I think it's safe to say that Doug, who had been the paper's cartoonist since 1988, was most high-profile person at the paper when I worked there, and that was 12-plus years ago (1990-98).

Meanwhile, I just found a story that the Tucson Weekly did last May about the 65 people let go when my second newspaper, the Tucson Citizen, folded "among the 16,500-plus journalists laid off nationwide since January 2009."

How many had found journalism jobs? Five.

Steve Rivera, our outstanding UA men's basketball writer for 19 years, spent six months unemployed "before becoming an assistant manager at Rillito Nursery and Garden Center, having been trained by the company in all things desert gardening."

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/where-are-they-now/Content?oid=1972991

Good luck guys, and everyone else.

Time for a break

I'm exhausted. I know a lot of it has to do with being under the weather (two fulls weeks now), but I just kind of feel it's time to take a step back and get away from things for a while.

I'll start with a weekend (what's that?), spend a good part of next week at a conference, and come back and work the following week before going on vacation.

On the good news front, I'm done proofing the Triviology books. Next up for me in that regard is opening the box of my copies, probably in about two months. Also, I should have a good feel for the future of the Huddle Up series next two weeks, so please keep your fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, Tuscaloosa continues to clean up and recover from the tornado. It's funny, because I drive around and I see progress, but if I showed the same scene to someone not from here they would be totally horrified. It's like if you look at the photo, which I took the day after, and removed most of the debris but what's left of the house and car are still there -- that's kind of where a lot of Tuscaloosa is right now with lots and lots of piles of rubble that are getting a little smaller each day.

Like I said, progress.