Blogging for the Messenger
The mighty Mezz, the fabulous Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I worked for almost 10 years, and from where I retired 3&1/2 years ago, and the best job I ever had, wants me to blog for their web-site.
I was a little leery at first — I think the world of that newspaper.
A LITTLE HISTORY
—My stroke was October 26, 1993, and suddenly ended my 16&1/2 year career of driving transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester.
It was a fun job at first, handling large equipment without incident.
And fiddling a clientele that could be dangerous.
But I was tiring of it.
I had successfully driven every new challenge, including buses better suited for the Orient.
Living 45 minutes from work, I could no longer work the schedule I could work when I lived five minutes from work.
This meant no schoolwork, which was canceled when school was off.
Schoolwork meant a full day’s pay for maybe only four hours of work.
I had to switch to regular daily runs. No more time off. —Possibility of engaging wacko monsters and druggies. And seniors that blew you in for enforcing the rules, or bopped you with their umbrellas.
—During my final year at Transit, I started doing a voluntary union newsletter.
It was great fun; I was sole editor, writer and reporter. Also the paginator, the one who put it together. (Word.)
It became more than a union newsletter; and got little union participation, and no endorsement for fear of lawsuits. I had to run a disclaimer on top saying it wasn’t a union organ.
It was apparently quite successful; even management liked it, and they could be jerks.
I was writing reflections on what it was like to -a) drive bus, and -b) parry our clientele. For once these stories were getting out.
A Union compatriot also circulated my newsletter to local politicians, who had previously been told everything was hunky-dory at Transit.
They’d call up Transit, and I was accused of being a “Union activist.”
Well so be it! Everything was not all sweetness-and-light at Transit.
—But my stroke ended all that. No more Transit; no more newsletter.
Post-stroke rehabilitation began, and a counselor wondered what I could do as an unpaid intern.
I suggested something similar to my newsletter; and to them that meant newspaper.
As a result I interviewed at the nearby Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, as an unpaid intern.
The Executive Editor, Bob Matson (“Bossman”) said I seemed normal, so I was taken on; although I suppose I wasn’t.
I had an outside job-counselor at first, a lady to advocate for me, and parry management regarding any limitations I had.
Then a guy left from the paste-up department (the Messenger was pasted up at that time; not ‘pyooterized).
They needed to hire a replacement, so I suggested maybe I could do it.
Thus began my 10-year employ with the mighty Mezz. (They hired a stroke-survivor).
I had another job-counselor at first, but he was bored-to-tears.
It seemed I didn’t need any help. —I wasn’t about to use my stroke as an excuse. On Saturday nights, and early Sunday mornings, I could stay awake through complete production of the Sunday paper, and the job-counselor would fall asleep.
—The Messenger finally ‘pyooterized; no more paste-up department.
They were fixing to lay me off — many were laid off that had previously been paste-up.
But I moved on to Optical-Character-Recognition scanning (“OCR”); more-or-less figured it out myself.
I thereafter began scanning a slew of letters-to-the-editor; so many the Executive Editor thought it crazy to lay me off.
And before I was hired I began writing a weekly column for the Messenger. It was sort of blog-like, and lasted a while until I got the flag-police all bent outta shape.
End of column; but thereafter the Executive Editor had me doing a weekly column of things 10, 25 and 50 years ago in the Messenger. (The Messenger is over 200 years old.)
This involved looking at old microfiches. But mistakenly I was drawn more to the ads; 23¢ for a loaf of bread.
—As the Messenger became more-and-more ‘pyooterized, we began a techno department. One function was to fiddle the Messenger web-site.
I figured it out, and got so I could drive both iterations two and then three. I was included in this techno department — although more bottom of the totem-pole. I was probably included because I had figured out so many ‘pyooter tricks that saved time.
In the end I had gone back to part-time (I started part-time), but flying the Messenger web-site every day.
It meant I could determine how it looked; within the parameters of what I was driving.
Things would go bonkers, and it often didn’t fly, which meant parrying our web-service long-distance in far-away Ann Arbor, MI.
I’d return home and fire up this ‘pyooter to see if it had flown. Often I’d fix things from here at home.
But at the end of 2005 I retired — I was experiencing dizzy-spells.
But they were a side-effect of the blood-pressure medication (a calcium-blocker) I was taking. When I stopped that, the dizzy-spells ended.
My friend Marcy, still at the mighty Mezz at that time, suggested I blog the insanities I was posting to my family’s web-site, and also e-mailing to her.
She had a blog at Blog-Spot, so I set up an account.
I’ve been blogging ever since.
It’s a retirement schtick, sorta. A way to kill time.
Every morning I begin writing as I sit down to eat breakfast. After breakfast I key in what I wrote.
That’s what gets blogged; and also e-mailed to all the so-called “Ne’er-do-Wells,” an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to, one of whom is Marcy, now living near Boston.
I don’t fiddle our family’s web-site any more; too much negative blustering from various siblings.
So now people at the Messenger want me to “blog for the Messenger.”
I looked at previous blogs, and it seemed what I was doing was okay.
“Blogging for the Messenger” also seemed less serious than “working for the Messenger.”
They gave me the keys to upload blog-material myself, so it’s very much like Blog-Spot. I don’t have some suit looking over my shoulder — although I’d almost rather.
I’ve done this blog-gig long enough to more-or-less edit myself. They keep an eye on their bloggers, but I feel I can stay outta trouble; having worked there.
Okay, so do it. Not everything that appears on this Blog-Spot blog, but some. —Stuff that -a) doesn’t need explaining, and -b) no waving the red flag at my siblings.
• “Pagination” is to assemble all the parts of a newspaper-page in a computer.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• RE: “Pasted up; not ‘pyooterized....” —Each newspaper page was “pasted up” by sticking waxed news-gallies to a cardboard page-dummy, that when completed was photographed to make a full-size negative a printing-plate could be “burned” from. With computerization, each newspaper-page was thereafter paginated in a ‘pyooter. The completed file was thereafter sent to an image-processor, that produced the full-size negative a printing-plate could be “burned” from.
• “Optical-Character-Recognition scanning” is to produce a ‘pyooter text-file with a scanner. The software deduces what characters (letters) are scanned.
• “More-or-less figured it out myself” is more figuring out the ‘pyooter filing system, and what is happening.
• RE: “Within the parameters of what I was driving.....” —I wasn’t the designer of the Messenger web-site, but I could decide the content. I flew a lotta pictures, since it was a visual medium.
• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells.
• This blog is at “Blog-Spot.”
I was a little leery at first — I think the world of that newspaper.
A LITTLE HISTORY
—My stroke was October 26, 1993, and suddenly ended my 16&1/2 year career of driving transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester.
It was a fun job at first, handling large equipment without incident.
And fiddling a clientele that could be dangerous.
But I was tiring of it.
I had successfully driven every new challenge, including buses better suited for the Orient.
Living 45 minutes from work, I could no longer work the schedule I could work when I lived five minutes from work.
This meant no schoolwork, which was canceled when school was off.
Schoolwork meant a full day’s pay for maybe only four hours of work.
I had to switch to regular daily runs. No more time off. —Possibility of engaging wacko monsters and druggies. And seniors that blew you in for enforcing the rules, or bopped you with their umbrellas.
—During my final year at Transit, I started doing a voluntary union newsletter.
It was great fun; I was sole editor, writer and reporter. Also the paginator, the one who put it together. (Word.)
It became more than a union newsletter; and got little union participation, and no endorsement for fear of lawsuits. I had to run a disclaimer on top saying it wasn’t a union organ.
It was apparently quite successful; even management liked it, and they could be jerks.
I was writing reflections on what it was like to -a) drive bus, and -b) parry our clientele. For once these stories were getting out.
A Union compatriot also circulated my newsletter to local politicians, who had previously been told everything was hunky-dory at Transit.
They’d call up Transit, and I was accused of being a “Union activist.”
Well so be it! Everything was not all sweetness-and-light at Transit.
—But my stroke ended all that. No more Transit; no more newsletter.
Post-stroke rehabilitation began, and a counselor wondered what I could do as an unpaid intern.
I suggested something similar to my newsletter; and to them that meant newspaper.
As a result I interviewed at the nearby Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, as an unpaid intern.
The Executive Editor, Bob Matson (“Bossman”) said I seemed normal, so I was taken on; although I suppose I wasn’t.
I had an outside job-counselor at first, a lady to advocate for me, and parry management regarding any limitations I had.
Then a guy left from the paste-up department (the Messenger was pasted up at that time; not ‘pyooterized).
They needed to hire a replacement, so I suggested maybe I could do it.
Thus began my 10-year employ with the mighty Mezz. (They hired a stroke-survivor).
I had another job-counselor at first, but he was bored-to-tears.
It seemed I didn’t need any help. —I wasn’t about to use my stroke as an excuse. On Saturday nights, and early Sunday mornings, I could stay awake through complete production of the Sunday paper, and the job-counselor would fall asleep.
—The Messenger finally ‘pyooterized; no more paste-up department.
They were fixing to lay me off — many were laid off that had previously been paste-up.
But I moved on to Optical-Character-Recognition scanning (“OCR”); more-or-less figured it out myself.
I thereafter began scanning a slew of letters-to-the-editor; so many the Executive Editor thought it crazy to lay me off.
And before I was hired I began writing a weekly column for the Messenger. It was sort of blog-like, and lasted a while until I got the flag-police all bent outta shape.
End of column; but thereafter the Executive Editor had me doing a weekly column of things 10, 25 and 50 years ago in the Messenger. (The Messenger is over 200 years old.)
This involved looking at old microfiches. But mistakenly I was drawn more to the ads; 23¢ for a loaf of bread.
—As the Messenger became more-and-more ‘pyooterized, we began a techno department. One function was to fiddle the Messenger web-site.
I figured it out, and got so I could drive both iterations two and then three. I was included in this techno department — although more bottom of the totem-pole. I was probably included because I had figured out so many ‘pyooter tricks that saved time.
In the end I had gone back to part-time (I started part-time), but flying the Messenger web-site every day.
It meant I could determine how it looked; within the parameters of what I was driving.
Things would go bonkers, and it often didn’t fly, which meant parrying our web-service long-distance in far-away Ann Arbor, MI.
I’d return home and fire up this ‘pyooter to see if it had flown. Often I’d fix things from here at home.
But at the end of 2005 I retired — I was experiencing dizzy-spells.
But they were a side-effect of the blood-pressure medication (a calcium-blocker) I was taking. When I stopped that, the dizzy-spells ended.
My friend Marcy, still at the mighty Mezz at that time, suggested I blog the insanities I was posting to my family’s web-site, and also e-mailing to her.
She had a blog at Blog-Spot, so I set up an account.
I’ve been blogging ever since.
It’s a retirement schtick, sorta. A way to kill time.
Every morning I begin writing as I sit down to eat breakfast. After breakfast I key in what I wrote.
That’s what gets blogged; and also e-mailed to all the so-called “Ne’er-do-Wells,” an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to, one of whom is Marcy, now living near Boston.
I don’t fiddle our family’s web-site any more; too much negative blustering from various siblings.
So now people at the Messenger want me to “blog for the Messenger.”
I looked at previous blogs, and it seemed what I was doing was okay.
“Blogging for the Messenger” also seemed less serious than “working for the Messenger.”
They gave me the keys to upload blog-material myself, so it’s very much like Blog-Spot. I don’t have some suit looking over my shoulder — although I’d almost rather.
I’ve done this blog-gig long enough to more-or-less edit myself. They keep an eye on their bloggers, but I feel I can stay outta trouble; having worked there.
Okay, so do it. Not everything that appears on this Blog-Spot blog, but some. —Stuff that -a) doesn’t need explaining, and -b) no waving the red flag at my siblings.
• “Pagination” is to assemble all the parts of a newspaper-page in a computer.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• RE: “Pasted up; not ‘pyooterized....” —Each newspaper page was “pasted up” by sticking waxed news-gallies to a cardboard page-dummy, that when completed was photographed to make a full-size negative a printing-plate could be “burned” from. With computerization, each newspaper-page was thereafter paginated in a ‘pyooter. The completed file was thereafter sent to an image-processor, that produced the full-size negative a printing-plate could be “burned” from.
• “Optical-Character-Recognition scanning” is to produce a ‘pyooter text-file with a scanner. The software deduces what characters (letters) are scanned.
• “More-or-less figured it out myself” is more figuring out the ‘pyooter filing system, and what is happening.
• RE: “Within the parameters of what I was driving.....” —I wasn’t the designer of the Messenger web-site, but I could decide the content. I flew a lotta pictures, since it was a visual medium.
• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells.
• This blog is at “Blog-Spot.”
Labels: mighty Mezz
posted by BobbaLew at 11:46 AM
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