Moving On

I'm done.

The DVD for St. George's Caye Lodge goes off for production tomorrow. The process has taken three times longer than I ever expected and been ten times harder, but I'm very proud of what I've made. And considering I went from not knowing anything about this field six months ago, I think I've done a hell of a job. The clients are thrilled and I need to get a glowing testimonial from them for Not Said.

So, now the big question is: What next?

I've been trying to get a hold of as many people I can in the media/advertising industry around town to pick their brains for advice and job leads. If you are one of these people, or know any of these people you can get a hold of me here. Likewise, if you would like to send me to your foreign resort to make a DVD, the same link applies.

Never hurts to ask.

Following other leads, I met my high school journalism teacher, Mrs. Spitaleri, for coffee this morning. Yes, high school. She tracked me down a few years ago when she started working for some of the community newspapers in the Portland suburbs wanting to put me on notice of some jobs. Today, I met with her and her editors about possibly freelancing in the near future. There are certainly more exciting things to do than community reporting, but those papers sell. By the percentages, I think they do better than The Oregonian. People will never get tired of following the ol' high school football team and reading about all the kids that got arrested that week for drunken stupidity. Seriously, my roommie's parents were just over the night and her mother was recounting the latest collars.

It's amazing to me, but still more amazing to most everyone else, that my high school teacher keeps me in her thoughts. I suppose that's the kind of impression you make when you're as big an ass as I am. One of my great regrets from high school was losing Mrs. Spit (as we called her) as my partner for Senior/Faculty bowling. I left campus without her permission during class - to go home for a snack or some other silliness - and the consequence of that action was she decided not to bowl with me. She almost cried, she was so upset by the principal of the thing. I was equally upset, but she made her point. It sucks that to do that, sometimes you have to hurt yourself. The roommie can tell you all about that these days.

In preparation for the meeting, I went through all my old clips to find a few worth taking to Kinkos. Man, I have written a lot of crap in my day. That anybody ever agreed to publish it... it just doesn't make sense. My first column in college was about doing my laundry for the first time. I was a freshman, sure, but still. The other point of looking through those clips was to gather some to use in my application for Willamette Week's Screen Editor position. And I swear, if I get it, I will make myself a scrapbook of journalistic atrocities to keep me from phoning it in like I used to in college. But getting that position will be like throwing a Hail Mary to Africa.

All in all, I'm relieved to be moving on. It's scary and exciting to have so many possibilities open. I've spent a lot of my 25 years trying to make things happen and fight upstream for things. But more and more I'm finding that just being open to opportunities, having the balls to seize them and committing to deliver on your promises can get you much farther. Friends have said they're jealous of my odd ability to just have weird things fall in my lap. And I suppose I'm finally ready to accept their jealousy rather than tell they they're wrong.

-Thank you for reading.