Maybe I’m too old to understand this

I don’t get the appeal of ‘Facebook.’ Or ‘Twitter.’ Or even what is by Inter-Google standards the old standby, ‘MySpace.’
Full disclosure. I have a ‘Twitter‘ account, set up by the Sports Blogs Nation tech gurus to promote my football site, Big Blue View. I also joined ‘Facebook’ the other day, again just to promote my [...]

Never underestimate the power of a blog

Many of the best political blogs gained acceptance years ago. Sports blogs are not quite there yet, but they are catching up.
I was reminded of this by something I posted earlier today at Pinstripe Alley,where you may know I write about the New York Yankees. I dropped in a quick line about ex-Yankee Bernie Williams [...]

Blogging is taking over my life

I began blogging about three years ago as a simple hobby, just a way to express some opinions and fill some empty evening time with something other than television.
It has become an obsession. Hours spent each day scouring for items about the New York Yankees or New York Giants, about whom I do most of [...]

Surprisingly, I have become an expert

I started blogging about sports maybe three years ago. I am a former sports writer, I have opinions about the sports and the teams I love, and blogging was a simple way for me to write about things I enjoyed in my spare time.
I had no idea when I started that it would become an [...]

Consulting career hits a snag

So, it seems that my plan to make a living by freelancing, doing consulting or project work, and continuing the blogging I love has hit its first major pothole.
I signed a contract almost four weeks ago now to build a series of user guides for a company I am familiar with. In fact, it is [...]

Sorry, but I have to rant a little bit

Pardon me while I rant just a little bit today.
God, I hate the New York State Unemployment Office! Having to sit home and collect unemployment is bad enough. Having a question about your benefits, though, and actually trying get through to a live human being to ask it, is beyond frustrating.
It’s damn near impossible.
Over the [...]

Incorporate? Get a DBA? What to do?

I met recently with some folks at a company that helps place freelance technical writers like myself in a variety of short- and long-term positions.
Since I am out on my own, the suggestion was made that I incorporate myself as a business. It sounded like a good idea to me, so I spent a little [...]

What makes a good user guide?

I have freelanced in the past with limited success, never able to do better than earn a bit of secondary spending money.
Right now, I know two things.

In this market, I am going to have to do better than that to make a reasonable living.
It’s a jungle out there.

There are job boards all over the place [...]

How did I get here?

So, how did I get here anyway?
That is a question I have asked myself many times since I left the newspaper industry in 1998, and I wonder about it even more lately since being laid off two weeks ago.
How did I wind up in this situation, basically starting over — again — at the age [...]

When life stinks, blog!

Sometimes life stinks!
For me, this is one of those times. Last week, I became one of the hundreds of thousands of Americans victimized by the drastic downturn in our economy, as I was laid off from my job as a Technical Writer.
For me, that is twice this year. I was fortunate to quickly land a [...]