I cometh with my words

A mistake, sometimes, can be seen miles away. You still head that direction because you're too wishful to allow the reality of what you're seeing ahead to stop and turn around. Once you get to that mistake, you've built up your psyche around this mistake and you refuse to see that Grand Canyon-size hole in front of you and you leap.

That impact on the ground is the first sensation of regret when the mistakes are big ones. Like changing jobs, for instance.

Since I quit my reporter job seven years ago, I've never thought it a good idea. Not once have I looked back and thought that it was a smart career and personal move for myself.

Deep in the back of my mind before I quit, I knew it to be a mistake, but was too wishful. Some may call it wishy-washy.

That is what you call regret because it was a poor decision that resulted in poor results. I walked away from a potential dream- albeit a few years down the road- of writing magazine-esque features full time on mostly outdoor pursuits, to pursue some lame business idea in a place I hate. That's another story.

Fast forward to today and I can say that I've learned a lot from this mistake. I've also learned that a career move like this one- I quit and started a doomed family business 700 miles away- will beget several more poor moves. I don't necessarily regret any of those, because they wouldn't have happened without this one. Beside, leaving one shit job for another shit job doesn't count.

It does make life hard. Harder than it could be. Much harder.

So after a long series of various jobs, one at least was part time media work, blogging now seems like the best way to restart my writing in a Web 2.0 world. Be it grad school or commercial writing or as a reporter or using the discipline to write a novel, blogging should be good for me. If anything, it could be a healthy form of expression. Beats barbacking or sales with thievish unscrupulous bosses.

I have a lot of shit to sling and I don't mind cussing.

I've had dreams fulfilled and I've had dreams die and I want to revive the some of the dead ones. Because when I quit that Truckee, Calif., newspaper seven years ago, I quit most of those dreams.

Soon thereafter, I realized it and it crushed me. My dreams are all I ever wanted to work for.

Maybe in some small way, this will help to right that ship.