I've packed up and moved

For all my fans (both of you), I've moved the blog to WordPress. Here's the site: http://zubeblog.wordpress.com/

See you there.

The other blog

I have a blog at azcentral.com where I post articles about people living out their faith. At least, I DID have a blog ...

I'm thinking seriously of abandoning it.

Whenever I post a story ... say about Obama doing devotionals on his BlackBerry, or Mormons being targeted in the wake of the Prop. 8 vote in California ... most of my comments are from haters. Anti-Mormon, anti-Islam, anti-Christian, whatever. Many comments devolve into the old "the Bible is full of contradictions" argument.

One atheist who comments there ... atheists seem to be my biggest fans, go figure ... keeps up with this line of commentary, even though I've tried to engage her and tell her of great resources for answering those objections. But she seems to enjoy the parry-and-thrust of the debate. Me, I'm tired of it.

I can understand not buying some position ... Christianity, for example, or UFOs ... but if you're not a fan, why are you spending so much time on a site devoted to something you don't believe in? I'm not spending all my time posting comments on some 9/11 Truther site ... why should I?

-Zube.

Job seeking and job seekers

A couple of things happened this week that shed a little light on my situation now.

I had an interview this week with a television station to be their Web producer. I
think it went well, I played up my strengths, I had a few ideas. But I'm only one of "a lot" of applicants for the job. So we'll see.

I also had lunch with a big group of people who all have been laid off by the newspaper. I heard quite a few tales about the difficulties of landing a job in this climate. One friend went through a couple of rounds of interviews for a job, only to be abandoned. Another friend sent out resumes, got a bite, then got stonewalled. One friend, who wasn't there, apparently is still shell-shocked over being laid off. Took him a month to leave the house.

I'm doing well, looking for opportunities, applying here and there. But it's going to be tough. The interview I got was my first. After a month and a half.

My wife asked me last night if I was OK. I guess I was being a little moody ... mainly I go silent when I'm moody. I told her I was OK. She said maybe she shouldn't have let me go to that lunch!

I'm keeping my spirits up. And I'm still trusting God. And I don't mean to say that God will give me a job, no questions asked. I'm saying I trust his plan, even if I don't land work anytime soon ... or at all. It'll turn out, one way or the other, just like it's supposed to.

-Zube.

Entropy setting in ...

I was supposed to go to a place where Web folks hang out and help each other launch projects. I will go soon, I promise.

I got busy re-reading my blog, remembering events from 5 years ago. Quite a memory trip.

The problem I have now is that I can very easily just hang out if I don't have anything on a hard deadline. I tend to just chill when I'm not at work.

I was good at what I did at the paper because I was good at deadline. When I was a copy editor, I had 2 or 3 hard deadlines a night. As a wire editor, I had those plus several more, making sure we got a certain number of pages done by a certain time. As an online producer, it was constant deadline ... get things up as soon as you can. Plus I had to populate automatic newsletters 4 times a day. And I loved it!

I'm the kind of person who is best under pressure. Take the pressure away, and I tend to relax - a little too much sometimes.

I need to impose my own deadlines for this job interim. Or else, I'll sit and surf the Internet all day.

-Zube.

A rainy day in Phoenix

Yesterday and today, it rained.

For Phoenix, that's a Godsend. For me, a little less so. I have a leak in the roof.

Whenever we get a soaking rain, a little wet spot, no more than 5 inches long and 3 inches wide, appears on the ceiling next to the outside wall near the fireplace. It's not dripping, it's not tearing. It's just damp.

I've had a roofing guy come out several times, and each time he does something, he swears up and down that he got it.

Then it rains.

I called him 2 weeks ago to come take care of it, after the last time it rained. He still hasn't shown.

Frustrating, but not the worst thing that's happened to me lately.

But still, frustrating.

-Zube.

Battle of the TV set

We as a family have only 1 television (if you don't count the old one in our bedroom on which we can't get cable because we lost the remote that would turn on the cable feed).

The upside is that we can have a say in what the kids watch. The downside is that the kids have a say in what we watch.

My daughter's watching the Teen Choice Awards right now, groaning about any result that doesn't meet with her approval and getting angry at anybody talking too long. Fun times for me, to be sure.

So I steal off to blog. Guess it could be worse. But ... is the dang show over yet?

-Zube.

Thinking about church

Today was church, as is every Sunday.

I feel very much at home at this church. I volunteer there and have grown close to many people there, from staff to regular attenders.

Church has become a big part of my life now, and gives me comfort and meaning. And, what's more, truth is spoken there. Biblical truth. Check out evbc.org to see.

One big passion at my church lately is church planting - providing the expertise and money to start churches elsewhere. Today, we sent off a group to east Mesa to start ChristChurch.

My prayers go out with them, including the prayer that the truth will be spoken there, too. Biblical truth.

-Zube.

Alone again, naturally

My wife reported for duty at her school today. Me, I'm alone with the dog and a sleeping college-age daughter.

At least I'm getting to watch old college football games on TV.

I'm going to have to adjust to this. I'm glad my wife got a job, but I'm going to miss her around the house. Makes me think of the promos I've been seeing for a new reality show, Hollywood House Husbands, or something like that. I still have to be trained on the dishwasher and various other appliances.

Once, when my daughter was little and my wife took off for work, I made her cinnamon toast. But I did it wrong. My daughter said, "It tastes kinda dumb."

That's what I'm up against!

Bitter? Me, bitter?

No, not me. I'm good.

I have seen former colleagues lately, very bitter about the layoffs at The Republic. I just don't get why one would waste all that time and energy and emotion being bitter.

That's not to say I haven't had strong feelings about this. But there's nothing for me to do except get on with my life. As a sage philosopher once said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Of course, soon after he sang that, John Lennon was dead ...

-Zube.

Our story until now

I got laid off at The Arizona Republic after 20 years.

I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. I'm more at peace now than I was waiting for the ax to fall. I was always in fear for my job, what with the faltering economy and the faltering newspaper industry. Now, I don't have to worry about losing the job ... I already did!

It surprised me how much my job loss has touched my colleagues ... I guess they're more friends than colleagues ... moreso than I knew. I told them not to be mad for me, because I'm not mad. I'm good with this, and I'm trusting God.

Now, my wife is going back to work and I'm developing an idea or two, volunteering for my church, and looking for full-time work. Matter of fact, I found 3 jobs to apply for today. I think things will be good.

And losing my job has freed me to explore my interests and passions ... and my biggest passion is my faith in Christ. And I'm pretty passionate about Disneyland and Christmas music, too, but no jobs there!

I'm looking forward to what God has in store. And I'm letting myself rest for awhile.

-Zube.

... And we're back.

OK I'm going to reclaim my blog. It's been too long. Plus, I'm too unemployed NOT to write a bit.

Hope anybody sees this ... :P

Back from vacation, and work news too

Disneyland was great!

It wasn't too hot, it wasn't too crowded, etc.

I always love going there. I know I'm a big geek, but I feel like I'm home when I go there. And I hate leaving.

I can't imagine, tho, being an annual passholder. I wouldn't like treating a visit to the park like a trip to the mall. I think that's why so many of those guys set up websites to complain about the place, because they see it so much they start nitpicking things that once-a-year visitors wouldn't see. I saw somebody complain once that a show that was running at the park needed to be changed out because it was old and stale. It was less than one year old!

So I love the place.

---

In other news, the shakeup is over at work. I got the job I wanted, and I'm going to the online staff, working basically a wire editor job there, but it's technically a producer job.

I'm looking forward to it and I'm nervous, all that. Wish me luck.

-Zube.

New blogger site

I hate that I had to migrate my blog to the new Google site.

I know it's not a big deal, but they present you with a page when you sign on that gives you the option ... then you realize there IS no option. You HAVE to move.

AAAArgh.

I was going to post about something else, but now this made me forget.

-Zube.

FW: fw: Fw: LOL! FW: Fw: You gotta see this! FW: FW: FW: FW: I don't usually send these, but ... FW: Fw: Fw:

I got a chain-email from a friend.

I'll forgive him.

It was one of those that tells you something about your friend's life. I liked learning more about him, and I went ahead and filled it out and sent it back. I only sent to him tho, instead of the 5 or 10 or whatever friends. I don't like to send stuff out that I don't like to get myself.

Instead, I'll post it here!

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. frozen yogurt seller
2. clothes drier repairman (a one-off job)
3. 7-11 clerk. Overnights. Next to a bar.
4. Journalist

Four movies I have watched over and over (& can't> get enough of):
1. That Thing You Do!
2. The Blues Brothers
3. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
4. It's A Wonderful Life

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. M*A*S*H
2. Mythbusters
3. Frasier
4. Drake & Josh (my kids got me hooked)

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. LA-Anaheim
2. San Diego
3. Flagstaff
4. The Arizona stretch of Route 66

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Kung Pao Chicken at Pei Wei
2. my wife's Apricot Chicken
3. Tamales
4. Coffee. Is that a food?

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Disneyland (you could see that coming)
2. San Diego
3. Browsing a used-cd store
4. Browsing a used-book store

Four people I would love to meet:
1. Roger Staubach and/or Troy Aikman
2. any living Beatle
3. Any Disney Imagineer who could tell me some secrets
4. George W. Bush, just cuz it would annoy so many other people

-Zube.

I can blog again!

For some reason, my blogger site doesn't work well from work now. So I haven't been posting, as you can tell. I found a workaround.

So they're dropping my job here at the paper. I have to apply for a new position ... in a new spot. It's stressful, yes, but I'm supposed to still have a job here SOMEwhere. I'll keep you posted.

-Zube.

My Christmas Obsession

I've been at it again, buying used Christmas music. I've gotten some good stuff, including this album that is out of print and selling for ridiculous prices ($50-$70 on ebay). I got it for $6.

But the real damage this year is from downloads. I got an ipod earlier this year, and now have been scouring the internet for downloadable songs ... and I've found a ton of Christmas. Some great sites for such content -- mostly blogs -- include this and this and this and this and this and this. The best to find stuff is this site, which has links to many of the above and many, many more.

Hope you find great Christmas music out there.

-Zube.

I haven't posted in awhile.

And now I have.

-Zube.








OK, I'll post.

Interesting days at work. Layoffs. 20something companywide, only 8 in the newsoom, only 3 in my newsroom (5 from the bureaus).

I say "only" but don't mean to be crass. 8 people DID lose their jobs. But in the newspaper world of late, that's not bad. Recently, Philadelphia laid off 40 newsroom positions.

People don't read newspapers like they used to. I read an analysis about that, blaming it on the shift to a white-collar economy.

Back when we were all blue-collar, everybody went to the factory from 8 to 5, came home, read the afternoon paper for an hour to catch up on what happened in the world while they were working, then had dinner.

In a white-collar world, we go to work earlier, stay later. More than 40 hours a week. We can keep up to date on our cell phones or Blackberries or Internet or television. And nobody has an hour to kill reading the paper anymore. That's why afternoon dailies died, and morning dailies will follow.

A friend and I were discussing this right after the layoffs. I told him we're making buggy whips and buttonhooks here. We're obsolete.

Sigh.

-Zube.

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

We're losing a guy from the area of the newspaper I work. ... At.

That's 25% of our staffing. But of course, we're not going to hire to replace him.

So my hours and days off may shift to accomodate. I'll start working 1 hour later (which will cost me some time with my kids and wife), and I probably will have to occasionally rotate to a Tuesday to Saturday shift.

It's not horrible, but it does change what had been a dream schedule for me for several years now: Monday through Friday, 11 to 7. I guess it had to come to an end eventually.

Sigh.

-Zube.

Woof!

We got a dog.

There was a story locally about way too many dogs being euthanized because of lack of space at shelters, so we decided to go take a look for one, since the kids have always wanted a dog, but we didn't really have the room for one.

We had gotten on the net and found a great looking dog, and were all pumped to see him, but when we got there and he was brought out, he was indifferent to us and the kids. We were a little disappointed.

But my daughter had already spotted another dog nearby that was very friendly and looked like fun. We had her brought out, and she took up with me and the kids and my wife right away.

She's a border collie mix, don't know what with, but she's a pretty thing. Gonna be 2 in December, if I remember right. She came from animal control, and already had a name, Whistle.

She's great, she's already acting like our place is her home. She's chased birds out of her backyard and barked a lot at a car that parked in front of our house.

I think we made a great move.

-Zube.

My Disneyland box redux

By the way ...

It's up to 20 discs now.

2 for Main Street USA, 2 for Adventureland, 1 each for New Orleans Square, Bear Country/Critter Country and Frontierland, 1 for Fantasyland and 1 for Fantasyland/Toontown, 5 for Tomorrowland, 4 for parades and shows, 1 for Christmas and a "Bonus Disc" of music from Club 33 and Disney Gallery.

Sad, huh?

-Zube.