The front page of yesterday's Anchorage Daily News boasted a picture of pack of walruses basking in sunshine. The story touched on these notoriously panicky animals and their propensity to crush each other to death in a stampede when spooked. The problem is melting sea ice, their preferred summer resting place. The lack of it has caused the huge sea creatures to haul out on the north coast of Alaska in huge numbers, and the terrain means that a low-flying plane, a nearby boat or a lumbering polar bear could cause a massive panic resulting in the deaths of thousands of young and small walruses.
Meanwhile Alaska's largest television station covered the continuing race to fill the state's open senate seat. The race pits a Tea Party newcomer against Alaska's senior senator who narrowly lost in the primary and who is now running a write-in campaign. At issue: state rights and federal spending for Alaska, a state in need of an identity beyond the riches of Prudhoe Bay's once-rich oil reserves.
News is a a rich older uncle in this state. People love their 20+year veteran anchors, and everywhere I go I hear ADN.com, the web site of the local newspaper. News is big, and issues are bigger. Politics are the strangest kind of interesting, while nobody can resist a good dog story or a well-framed picture of a moose in fall color.
In some ways it's all very familiar, and in some ways, it's a whole different country, which is how Alaskans like to refer to their state.
I think I like Anchorage, and I'm sure, given the time, I will like Alaska too.
Tim
Showing posts with label newspaper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newspaper. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Are you ready for the next adventure?
The phone call came at a little after 2 p.m. on the Monday before Labor Day. I glanced down from my computer screen to see my boss's name flashing across my phone's small display in large digital type.
It was at that instant I realized something was wrong. My boss often had meetings on Mondays and rarely came in. In fact, I realized she was in the office before I was that day. Like puzzle pieces falling into place or a mystery about to be revealed, I watched something flash before my eyes.
I picked up the receiver, and she said, "Can you come to my office, we want to talk to you."
Sheer dread as I laid the receiver down.
I grabbed my notebook and a pen just for appearances, then everything went numb, the lights dimmed a little, and a sort of low-grade buzz developed in my ears. Probably high blood pressure, or so I'm told.
I didn't hear much of the actual layoff. A few words. Your position, luxury, cutbacks, budget, sorry. Whatever.
Just tried to hold still and breathe through it like you do on the first drop on a big roller coaster.
It's strange to just let go of everything you were working on, a load that is almost unbearable at times is now a pile of useless rubble, as there is no one else in the world who could possibly pick up where you left off. Or so you tell yourself.
Cleaned out a few things I wanted on my computer, handed over my key card and my company credit card and walked out.
A brief conversation with a former co worker in the parking lot got me thinking about this job as my past for the first time, and by the time I started the car and dialed in my wife's phone number on the cell phone, I had a handle on the fact that I was just laid off.
Thanks God for kids, a wife and a mortgage. When you are forced out of a career that is so much more than a career, it's good therapy to have to consider others over yourself.
My mind raced as I waited for my wife to pick up the phone. In those split seconds I was analyzing my reaction, the few questions my former employers asked and the future all at once. I saw it all go down again, but this time I was sitting on the window sill watching the boss and her layoff assistant struggle between pity and remorse. Or maybe I just thought that.
I found myself thinking about opportunities and excuses all at once. Some sort of apology I could give my wife for my failure before she would have a chance to think it.
I was beyond feeling sorry for myself and not once did I feel the embarrassment some thought I should feel. Bewildered but not surprised, I reached a conclusion that I had known this all along and that I had not planned accordingly. Whatever one needs to tell one's self, I guess.
"Hello."
- Hi babe, how are you?
"Fine."
-Are you ready for the next adventure?
It was at that instant I realized something was wrong. My boss often had meetings on Mondays and rarely came in. In fact, I realized she was in the office before I was that day. Like puzzle pieces falling into place or a mystery about to be revealed, I watched something flash before my eyes.
I picked up the receiver, and she said, "Can you come to my office, we want to talk to you."
Sheer dread as I laid the receiver down.
I grabbed my notebook and a pen just for appearances, then everything went numb, the lights dimmed a little, and a sort of low-grade buzz developed in my ears. Probably high blood pressure, or so I'm told.
I didn't hear much of the actual layoff. A few words. Your position, luxury, cutbacks, budget, sorry. Whatever.
Just tried to hold still and breathe through it like you do on the first drop on a big roller coaster.
It's strange to just let go of everything you were working on, a load that is almost unbearable at times is now a pile of useless rubble, as there is no one else in the world who could possibly pick up where you left off. Or so you tell yourself.
Cleaned out a few things I wanted on my computer, handed over my key card and my company credit card and walked out.
A brief conversation with a former co worker in the parking lot got me thinking about this job as my past for the first time, and by the time I started the car and dialed in my wife's phone number on the cell phone, I had a handle on the fact that I was just laid off.
Thanks God for kids, a wife and a mortgage. When you are forced out of a career that is so much more than a career, it's good therapy to have to consider others over yourself.
My mind raced as I waited for my wife to pick up the phone. In those split seconds I was analyzing my reaction, the few questions my former employers asked and the future all at once. I saw it all go down again, but this time I was sitting on the window sill watching the boss and her layoff assistant struggle between pity and remorse. Or maybe I just thought that.
I found myself thinking about opportunities and excuses all at once. Some sort of apology I could give my wife for my failure before she would have a chance to think it.
I was beyond feeling sorry for myself and not once did I feel the embarrassment some thought I should feel. Bewildered but not surprised, I reached a conclusion that I had known this all along and that I had not planned accordingly. Whatever one needs to tell one's self, I guess.
"Hello."
- Hi babe, how are you?
"Fine."
-Are you ready for the next adventure?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)