An update

I thought it was high time that I post an update on things in my life and with all that has gone on in the past few months for those who follow this blog.

If you haven't noticed, I haven't been making my weekly posts and that is because I have left Bottineau and moved back to the central Minnesota area. I originally had accepted a part-time sports writing job in New London, Minnesota at a small paper. However, after accepting that and working my remaining month in Bottineau I came upon another opportunity with the Mille Lacs County Times.

I came back to interview for the position, making a round trip of nearly 1,000 miles in less than 36 hours to meet with two Jeffs. After this I made the move back to Minnesota as planned, leaving myself a week to unpack and find out which city I'd be going to--New London or Princeton/Milaca. After a second interview a few days into my new residence in Minnesota I was offered the job at the Mille Lacs County Times as a full-time reporter doing mostly sports, but some school/news/outdoors as well.

I should mention that in the process of finishing my employment at the Bottineau Courant, I helped pick my replacement. Shortly before I left, Matthew Seimisch was picked to be that person. During my first few weeks back in Minnesota I did layouts and helped him learn that side of the job, since had little prior experience. Since, he has become nearly as proficient as I, and he appears to be doing a great job. I keep in touch with him via email fairly regularly, and have been keeping tabs on his work as well, and I'm pleased to say I think the Courant made the right choice. To follow his work check out the Borderlands Sport Report blog he started at http://bsrbottineau.wordpress.com/. Also he started a twitter feed for the Courant sports department, and you can follow that @CourantSports.

I have now had nearly three months on the job, and made it through all of the (shortened) spring sports season and some of the summer months too. I have been slowly learning and adapting to this new job, and while things are quite different here, I feel like I'm learning everyday.

I do miss the people, the job and the community of Bottineau everyday, and I'm sure I will for a long time. However, I also enjoy being close to family and living with my friends in our four bedroom house. I do have a 35 minute commute to work everyday, and have to do a lot of driving to cover my events on occasion, but at least I don't have anymore 360-mile round trips to Bismarck for a three-hour hockey game ;)

I have been doing some golfing, but not nearly as much as I like or as I did in Bottineau. Also, I've only played basketball once since the move. Wednesday and Sunday basketball nights are one of the things that I miss most.

I still plan to post on here on occasion, and I will leave all my prior posts with the photos I took during my time in Bottineau up.

I enjoyed my more than 3.5 years in Bottineau, and I hope that I can transfer the wisdom and knowledge I gained there to my new location.

Feel free to keep tabs on me @typhoonater467 on twitter. I also have a new blog set up for my new job, and you can check that out at http://thefullto.blogspot.com/.