A year away from a lovely paperweight

Today, as I celebrate my newly advanced oldness (it's my birthday), I also celebrate my ninth anniversary at OnMilwaukee.com. I expect that a year from today I'll be graciously thanking my co-workers for the lovely paperweight commemmorating a decade of work in what I heard was a doomed industry.

When Jon Krouse sent an e-mail asking if I knew anyone looking for a job at OnMilwaukee.com -- I worked for one of the nascent company's advertisers -- I said, "No, but I'll keep my eyes open."

Then I went to Italy and as I sat on a train watching green fields fly by, I realized I needed a change. I didn't want to come back to Milwaukee and keep on keepin' on.

So, when I returned and saw another message from Jon saying the job was still open, I thought, "Wait a minute, I'll apply!"

I interviewed with Andy at The Eastsider over a couple pints of Guinness and the deal was sealed. I figured, who knows, maybe this won't last but at least it will move me along. Hey, if I stay two years and then start looking for something else, that'll be great.

Instead, I found new friends, new experiences and helped create something that Milwaukee had never seen before. In fact, something that no city had seen before. We were the only independent daily online city magazine around; the only one that wasn't an arm of a newspaper or some other old-school media outlet.

My first day, I wrote a preview of Eric Benet's Summerfest gig and soon after a story on the Cactus Club. I remember talking to my wife on the phone and telling her that my boss just walked by barefoot and kicking a beach ball.

The mood was infectiously light -- yet driven and scrappy -- and within months, two of us and an intern or two were putting up a site that readers thought was written by a staff three or four times our size.

It's ironic. My previous jobs were at a daily newspaper and an independent bookshop; and I thought a job in the Internet world was risky. Funny how quickly the world can change.