I just hope that I'm still in a newsroom 20, 30 years from now (hopefully, some form of retirement is in the cards in my 70s), imperfectly aiming for and demanding better for you. And me. And for those who are yet to come.
It's not perfect. It never was. Our brains have a funny way of making a lot of the past seem rosy, innocent, pure. A place to which we should return. I don't know what the future holds. Perhaps we have passed a peak after all. But can't stop trying for something better. And demanding it.
I've seen many good journalists leave the industry due to low pay, job cuts and inane corporate changes to try to keep the money flowing. Newsrooms suffered, and flaws were exposed and amplified. And exploited. But some of us stayed in or joined in the fight for what was left with what was left.
On March 12, 2006, I moved to Petersburg and started my career the day after. Cracks were starting to show in the industry then. The internet somehow caught many owners off guard. The ad sales that nearly made what the newsrooms produced an afterthought were drying up.
I can say, from living in Virginia virtually my whole life, I've seen weirder.
"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."
— Bruce Lee
Q: Elliott, how have you handled [gestures to everything] over the past 20 years?
A: "Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
I hope this inspires him to spit some bars.
Tonight, I got to tell Tim Reid that I did a horrible job of interviewing him when I was a young reporter. He graciously told me he didn't remember.
RVA Votes sticker with a possum filling out a ballot
It's the first day of early voting. I got the possum sticker, so today's a good day.
He was 24. Married at 16 and three kids by 18. He went out drinking on a Thursday night with friends, and the driver hit a railroad crossing at the foot of a bridge at 90 mph. A guy wire split the car. He lingered in the hospital for nine hours. My father barely remembered him.
Even when one of your grandfathers dies 29 years before you're born, the A1 story about the car crash in is a tough read.
I, for one, completely forgot that Richmond's DPW conveys information on Blogspot.
Elliott, a native of the 757, wearing a hoodie that says, "seven. five. seven."
Seven. Five. Seven.
My mom in December saw a second-generation college graduate walk across the stage, and in a few days, my niece starts at a job in her field. We're getting her a photo of my mom to put on her desk.
Two years later, Grandma's funeral was on March 13. She grew up on a farm and lived through the flu pandemic, the Great Depression, Prohibition and two world wars. And saw a grandchild graduate from college and get a job in his field. I keep a photo of her in my office because it's her office.
20 years ago yesterday (on my grandmother's 96th birthday), I got the call that started my non-collegiate journalism career. I was supposed to start March 6 but pushed my start date at the Progress-Index a week to go on a road trip to Florida with a friend from high school.
A Dollar General in Google Maps that has "Absorbs Into Your Skin Quickly" as its description.
Dollar General Absorbs Into Your Skin Quickly
Wife (with a sprained ankle): We didn't get the blizzard, but I still slipped on ice
Me: ... It's like ra-i-aaaaain
I don't understand why she is mad at me.
We have a vendor whose name in the payment system is truncated to "National Ass." I'm waiting for the new CFO to ask me precisely what in the hell it is.
The very 1980s cover of the Night Flight compilation album.
This album of some of the bangers of the early 1980s takes me back to my parents cranking the radio up while I tagged along for a grocery run.
I'm devastated to learn that I'm going to miss the Egyptian Lover playing in Richmond.
ICYMI live wamu.org/story/26/02/...
Breaking: The Supreme Court of Virginia said Friday plans to hold a ballot referendum on the new maps April 21 could go ahead for the time being as it hears a legal challenge to state Democrats' efforts to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2026 federal midterm elections.
I guess this also means I'm no longer "That idiot took a selfie from the rim of the Grand Canyon and didn't understand why his wife was mad after he told her a full year later" years old.
I would love to hear Spaghetti Forever on Brown's Island.
I didn't know it was an age, but I am "your life insurance company tries to upsell you" years old.
This evening was the first time since the snowstorm that I did not have to traverse ice to get to my door. I'd forgotten what it was like.
This is making me miss my Dodge Neon and the roof of the half-empty parking garage in downtown Hampton.
