First day of school

I couldn't sleep very well last night. I kept getting up in the middle of the night, checking the clock, just to make sure I wasn't late. When I got up, I couldn't decide what I was going to wear. I wanted to make a good first impression and start things out right. I even rehearsed in my mind a couple one-liners to answer inevitable questions about my move: "No casualties, that we know of yet" or "It was more fun than a root canal!"

It was really like the first day of school all over again. It's a baffling feeling that I haven't had in so long, trying something different and wanting to do it well.

Here's the biggest surprise from my first day on the job. My boss came in to check on me around 5 o'clock, to make sure I was planning on going home. It still seemed early to me, but then again I need to be back there at about 6 a.m. tomorrow. Much to my surprise, the newsroom was deserted at what would've been the busiest time of day at any morning paper.

This is a very different world I'll be living in. When I came home, I had time for a nap. And to finally watch "Vertigo," which I've had out from Netflix since last October. And to run out to BW3's for a "You Survived Your First Day" dinner and chance to watch the first half of the Hall of Fame preseason game.

I think I could learn to like daytime hours.

The people I work with seem genuinely nice and friendly. Quite a few people ducked into my office -- I actually have an office, with a door, that I share with one sports writer -- just to say hi. Five of us went to lunch together, and I'm told the group's usually seven or eight guys. In comparison, I never went to lunch with more than two work people in my two and a half years in the last stop.

The job itself is going to be a challenge. The space is pretty limited (two open pages for me to do tomorrow morning, vs. our typical five a day in Virginia). The bar is set frighteningly low on some things. I'm pretty much being thrown to the wolves, as everything I know about their system I taught myself today. [Ever try to set up your 0wn e-mail account on a system you don't know? When in doubt, try combinations of pop.yourdomain.com, smtp.yourdomain.com and mail.yourdomain.com. Sooner or later, you'll find something that works.]

Tomorrow's the real challenge... designing on a new system, figuring out how to find stories on a very stripped-down version of NewsEdit and trying to do all this at 6 in the morning. The payoff, of course, is another one of these wonderful nights.

The interesting thing about the comparisons to the first day of school is this: I always thrived in those school situations. We'll see if that continues.