Happy and Sad Scale

September 8, 2008

Just back from my journalism conference in Atlanta, I’m sipping tea and taking measure of my situation. This means I’ve created a quick list of things I’m happy about, sad about, puzzled about and positive about. Positive might sound a little vague, but these are the things I’m sure of and instead of using ‘sure’ I figured I’d go with the alliteration and use a P word.

Sad – that the Society of Professional Journalists annual conference is over. #spj08 is the tag for it in Twitter. I met a bunch of great people and I was on a writer’s high the entire time there because of the energy, information and promise that the world of journalism still holds for me – even after 20 years. But I’m bummed it’s over and I won’t have another similar conference event until next April. OH, also sad that my dryer is broken and that I have to unpack and I have so many things to do that I might not be able to ride my scooter today or tomorrow. Sad the Dolphins lost.

Happy – that my oil burner is being serviced today. I took a year off from servicing my oil equipment and I think it may have impacted the efficiency of my home heating last winter. This year we’re going to get frozen and slammed with snow (so says Jeff’s Almanac), and I want to be in the best shape possible before winter hits. Also happy that my fantasy teams SEEM to all be doing well. Happy that my Dolphins won’t have to face Tom Brady this season.

Puzzled – at how my cell phones can’t get a signal when in an airplane. I know you’re not supposed to turn them on when you’re in flight, but I wanted to see if it would work. Nothing, nada, nope. Which also makes me wonder how the people in the September 11 flights got their phones to work. And if there really was a cover-up of the DC area plane’s situation. Also puzzled about how people will respond to my new home phone situation (still on phones – maybe they’re really puzzling), you see I have replaced my home phone with an iPhone BUT I don’t plan on using it as a phone, just as a Web-access device. So I want to see if people take heart and leave me messages on that voicemail. Especially after I have urged people for years NOT to leave a message on my other cellphone because caller-ID was developed to allow people to see who was calling.

Positive – in knowing that the stuff I learned this week will immediately make me more marketable and skilled in my profession. Also, I know that home-brewed tea and home-cooked eggs are better than anything you can get at Stuckey’s. And I’m sure that my yard sale this weekend will draw about ten billion people because I put an ad on Craigslist yesterday with the first two words being “NO EARLY-BIRDS”. Guess how long it took for me to get a digital early-bird. Right, 14 minutes.

That’s it for now. More stuff at Jeff Cutler dot com detailing my conference and showcasing my mad skillz.

More to come…