This Is It

Today, it's July 7. Nine years ago today, Bernie and I arrived here in Minnesota, "forever." It struck me today in casual conversation that today, July 7, is my moving anniversary.

It's been a good nine years, very strange at times but good all in all. Let's see, I moved here to be an editor at a book publisher, which is what I did during my two years in Sacramento. Now my Minnesota book publisher experience only lasted a year, which was long enough for me, but I still have several friends in people I met at that job. So I retired from that gig and did some freelancing. Bowing to the man, I also took a part-time gig with FedEx to have medical benefits, a bit of steady income, and to get off my ass--I really loathe working at a desk.

Not long into the freelance/FedEx experiment, I decided to go to graduate school at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. This is where things got really chaotic and interesting for me. For the better part of three years, I got my tail out of bed at 530am everyday for my courier route(s) in downtown Minneapolis, went to school, and interned at several places, including the sports information department at the U of M, which sounds way more interesting than it actually was. I also helped a cat start a sport management company, including creating all the content for this website. The jewel of that company is this cycling team. Not long after I finished school, I dropped my FedEx gig and traded my working-for-free spirit for a working-for-almost-free spirt, celebrating that by taking a full-time gig at ACES, the nonprofit where I work now. I worked as a program coordinator in "rough and tumble" north Minneapolis for three years, then took on marketing and development, now I'm the executive director. The chaos continues.

I'm not sure how half of that stuff ever happened. Behind each of those endeavors is a story, for sure. Like, you'd never guess how I became interested in nonprofits, and you'd probably never guess my thoughts on working for FedEx in the "vertical market" of downtown Minneapolis' business district. Let's talk about that. Next time.

And before next time, I hope to find a pic to post here from July 7, 2001. I've seen it recently, I just can't remember where. So I'll look. For today though, happy anniversary to me!