What a job!

The great part of my new life is there's so much variety in what I can do.

Maybe it's your turn to design three or four pages, giving you a chance to come up with a creative way to express the sports news.

Perhaps a big high school golf tournament comes around, where you can go walk the course for a few hours, witnessing the highlights of a golfer's life. Then you can write the story in an intriguing fashion.

Some days are Ohio State days, where you get to write about the state's beloved Buckeyes. It's fun to use your carry-over quotes from a Tuesday press conference and express some insight into the football team, such as a story about how Justin Zwick's reacting to the pressure after OSU's first loss to Northwestern in forever.

Sometimes oddball stuff pops up. Maybe it's a story about the local summer league college team setting up a sponsorship with a local travel baseball league to improve the quality of baseball in your area.

One of the necessary evils is answering the phones from prep calls. It's just 15 or 20 calls, taking a couple minutes to get the relevant information and write it up. It's the nuts and bolts of high schools, really.

You have to work ahead occasionally. If you're writing about someone who will have a very busy Friday and you want to put it in the paper Saturday, you probably have to talk to him Thursday.

All of this variety is fine. It just stinks when you have to do it all on the same day. It adds up to a 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. workday with about an hour taken off to eat and do a few chores.

It REALLY stinks when it's the same day your mom's in the hospital having minor heart surgery, putting a stent into a vein. I came back to Ohio to be closer to family. First day it really mattered, and I might as well have been back in Virginia.

Something will change, and soon.