Tl;Dr
Monday - Back in the swing
Tuesday - Will this hell never end
Wednesday - A new blow
Thursday - Unpleasant alarm call, industry rant
Friday - The long weekend awaits
The alarm going off was expected but still a shock. The jetlag had just about worn off but it’s still unpleasant even if you know about this. The walk into BART for the commute felt familiar but still slightly odd - part of me expected to pop into a nice pub for a fry up.
After so long away my desk was a mess of stuff that need clearing before getting down to work - a vacant desk gets all the rubbish. My gift of Thorntons toffee seems to be going down well too, at least with the Americans. Toffee like that seems rare over here and at the end of the day one put the bag back on my desk and asked me to keep him away from it.
The week before I’d come back the site had broken a major exclusive that brought in literally millions of readers. That’s great for bringing in ne readers, but we’re all now looking around for the next big thing to keep the readers who are new to the site coming back.
To add to the ennui of a return to the working life the Bay Area rainy season appears to be kicking in. Going to work in the rain isn’t fun but we need the water - it has been a very dry winter and, after the wildfires north and south, we should be thankful water is falling from the sky at all.
I’ve only been out here nine years now but it does seem the rains are getting later. November used to be the start, but in recent years they seldom come before Christmas. That is hurting the Tahoe ski resorts - a couple of winters ago they had no snow until January - and long term it’s not going to refill aquifers.
Owing to some opdd rules farmers can use as much water as they like if they drill down into the aquifer and pump it up. This has led to very water-intensive but profitable crops like almonds to proliferate. But as a result we’ve now down ot dangerously low levels of subterranean water in the state.
The early week’s rains will help a little, but not as much as they might have. Two days of hammering rain dumped around a fortnight’s worth of rain down, but much of it ran off the hard earth and into the sea. The mountains, our reserve water supply, got a good dump of snow but still way down on what it should be.
Pitchforks at the door
The rains had eased off on Wednesday evening as I made my way home. A goodish day, some interesting stuff written and a couple of good longer term leads. I filed my last story under embargo so that it would run in the UK early afternoon.
Embargoed stories are a pain in the backside, but much beloved by certain sections of the industry. In a few cases they make clear sense - you’re making a coordinated announcement that can't go off before a certain period, maybe for legal of financial reasons, or to coordinate the news of a new security vulnerability.
But the vast majority are embargoed because someone has decided that this is the best time to get news out, or so a vendor can play favourites by giving some hacks the early scoop. But it’s largely an embuggerance and leaves an extra door open for Mr Fuckup, and so it proved to be.
Thursday morning began in an unpleasant fashion. Not ‘angry mob or armed SWAT unit breaking down the door bad, but with an unexpected phone call at 6:30am. I know parents out there will laugh at such untrammeled luxury of a long lie-in but for a chap used to waking later it wasn’t fun - not to mention the dread.
Early morning calls are almost never good. There’s always the fear that someone has died, you’ve been unexpectedly fired or something very bad had happened. Thankfully in this case it was just an anxious PR. The story under embargo had gone live, but one of the parties involved had made a mistake and set the deadline for publication a day early.
While it’s possible to take stories down, it’s a pain in thew arse and isn;t always warranted - after all, we followed the instructions to the letter. In this case though we came to an agreement and sorted it out. Never would have happened without an embargo - just saying.
The weekend has landed
Friday felt good, if pressured. There were lots of stories to do but also a lot of admin. Next week is a long weekend and then I’ll be a away for a week. There’s a security conference down in the Valley on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I’ll overnight down there. Then it’s back home for a night and fly out to Washington DC until Sunday.
The weekend left us curiously lazy. The last of the trip washing was done, cooking ensued for the forthcoming week, but we didn;’ get out that much, other than for shopping runs and chatting with the neighbours and catching up on local gossip.
Winter makes for slow weekends. THe wind’s either not strong enough for sailing, or way too strong, and the weather makes hiking less fun, The recent rains will have turned Tillden into a mudbath.
Still it’s a long weekend thanks to Dr King and a time for reflection. I want to stay off politics but the president's verbal timing couldn’t have been worse. I’ll leave you with some wise words from Ronald Reagan - not a phrase you hear every day.
Today in 1987, Pres. Reagan spoke on #MartinLutherKing's birthday:— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 15, 2018
"If someone, even a friend, uses an ugly word referring to another's race or religion, let's make it clear we won't put up with it... There is no place for them in a democratic and free America." #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/OQzd4zvqs6
No comments:
Post a Comment