Wah! Woe is me.

When this job (reporting) is good, it’s hard to imagine a better job. Last summer in Chilliwack there were times I had to pinch myself and realise I was being paid to hang out on the beach looking for cute girls to photograph or attend a concert or being curious about something and it being my job to investigate it and phone the people who could best explain it to me.

Today I spent the afternoon racing around a little lake in the sun on airboats – swamp boats with big fans on the back. It was a nice change from my windowless office. I start with this story to point out I’m in a pretty good mood at the moment and the complaining I’m about to do is not about a bad mood.

My main problem is my old boss, isn’t it always? He aspires to running a shopper or the Town of Hanna’s PR newsletter or anything other than an actual newspaper where he might risk offending someone…or making them think.

Every story that could approach controversy has to be vetted by those involved, i.e. the Mayor gets to read stories about him before we publish. The boss prefers photos over stories and if we have to do a story he prefers the short single source story.

For photos he prefers old people, preferably not doing anything…literally! The other day he said we were short on sports pics and I should run to the golf course where the senior’s league was playing. He actually said, I don’t want a shot of someone swinging or anything, just get a shot of a bunch of them standing around. This was his idea of a 'sports shot,' old people standing around!

The only other reporter in town is based in Drumheller, 50 min away. I tried to complain to her the other day about not having much to do – I did 1 almost real story last week, 3 or 4 embarrassingly short & simple stories and a dozen or so pics & small odds & ends. She said she did about 20 full stories and was working furiously till 2am one night – so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

Prairie

Yesterday the rain broke for a few hours so I headed for a walk. I figured I should immerse myself in the prairie and maybe I’d start appreciating it. I drove to the longest, flattest, straightest, quietest stretch of dirt road I knew of, parked the car and started walking. I figured I had 2 or 3 hours so I’d just walk for an hour or so and see how I felt, then turn around.

At one hour I felt pretty good so I kept going. Throughout my entire walk 3 cars passed, all 3 stopped to ask what was wrong. After an hour and 45 min. I stopped and turned around, and no shittin you – there was my fuckin car! It was small and distant, but my entire walk was simply there between us.

I checked afterward and I’d gone just under 12 km, then I had to walk back…looking at my car, my destination, the whole time…it was hell. It was the most frustrating thing in the world, to have to see my destination for the hour and 20-min it took me to almost jog back, cursing my stupid idea and vowing never to do anything like that again. By the time I got to my car it was pouring rain and I really felt like shit.

Anyway I’m mostly just bored and lonely but things could be much worse. Drop me a line and I’ll try to keep this up and next time I’ll have some positive things to say.