Hello Blogger/Blogspot!

I'm starting a new blog on this site due to the fact that Yahoo! is shutting down its 360° site. I'm going to try to post whatever moves me to write blogs, whenever I have time to do them.

Let me give you a little background about myself, if you haven't read my old Y360° blogs: I am 36 years old, currently live in the house I grew up in, mainly because I had to help out with the care of my mother. Now, she's in a nursing home in an Alzheimer's unit due to her aphasia being too far advanced for my brother, father and I to effectively care for her. I have a BA in Liberal Arts, majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication, from the University of Iowa, where I graduated December 1995. I currently work as both a Pizza Hut delivery driver and a sports correspondent for the Cedar Falls Times, the latter of which I hope to get back to full-time status. The regional editor of the media group, Anelia Dimitrova, had been trying to get me on full-time with the Cedar Valley Daily Times in Vinton, but the recession hit hard right when I was going to be hired. She's been trying to find a position for me since.

Prior to my current situation, I worked as a reporter for the Cherokee Daily Times, which now is called the Chronicle-Times after a merger with its former competition, a reporter/copy editor for The Messenger in Fort Dodge, reporter for Newspapers of Fayette County, which included at the time the Elgin Echo, Fayette Leader, and Hawkeye Booster, and sportswriter for the Britt News-Tribune and Forest City Summit.

You'd see in my profile, I have a bunch of varied interests. I am a fan of the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Blackhawks, and Iowa Hawkeyes. View my profile for the rest of my interests, which I may touch on in the future.

Personally, I am dating a wonderful woman, named Jenny. She's a registered nurse, and works at both St. Luke's Medical Center in Cedar Rapids and Sunnycrest Nursing Home in Dysart, where she lives. We've been going together officially for five months, but we've been virtually together for another three months prior through texts, calls and e-mails. We met through Match.com, and she said it was a fluke that we got together. She just had been laid off at Principal Financial, where she was a case specialist in the health insurance division. She has a dog, named Toto. He's a Cairns Terrior, and bears a striking resemblence to the dog in "The Wizard of Oz." His picture is below:

Excuse the quality of the picture. It was taken on my cell phone, and it doesn't have any good autofocus. He's wearing a John Deere cap and a T-shirt that says: "Squirrels: They aren't just for breakfast anymore." I do have a picture of Jenny, too, but she doesn't want me to publish it or show anyone else.

I guess that's about it in a nutshell for now. My next post will be about something in the news.