- 30 -

I had the weird experience this afternoon of cleaning out my office at the P-I, more than 10 months after I last did any work there. I left it alone for the longest time, thinking I might go back to my old job, and then when I was finally ready to talk about going back there was no job to go back to. Since then I guess I've been lazy or procrastinaty about it.

Something about chucking old files and turning in my keys gives a real feeling of finality to my time there, even though I've known for a long time that it was over. It was odd too just to be in the building today after so long away from it.

The P-I's not the best paper I ever worked for, but I loved it there, for a while at least, as much as anyplace I've ever worked. This photo will always be special to me: Gina and Franny, at an age that struck me as perfect for them, visiting me in my new, cool, Elliott Bay-overlooking office in my cool new role as city editor shortly after Michelle and I returned to Seattle from LA. Seemed like a pretty good time.


For our readers who aren't journalists, by the way, the headline of this post refers to an old newspaper convention that's now as extinct but used to be as real as a bottle of rye in the bottom desk drawer. Back before computers, when reporters typed their stories on paper and editors literally cut and pasted pieces together, they marked the end of their stories with " -- 30 -- " so there was no confusion about whether additional pages remained.

You'll sometimes still hear someone refer to "30" around a newsroom, but it's just a jokey, nostalgic way to say "the end," it's not real like it was when I first started in this stupid business.

Anyway, I don't know if I'll ever work at a newspaper again, and that makes me kind of sad. It's really all I've ever done or know how to do. So, for now at least ...

-- 30 --