Hi.

I wish I could be more welcoming.  Gush over your arrival. Make you feel comfortable, get you a cookie.  But I can’t.  Not now.    After two years as the National Project Manager for KPMG in the Records Risk Management group, it appears my time may be at an end.  No clients to be had and no spending to be done by the firm.

There are going to be personal losses for me, most particularly the ability to lead the RBI team through to the All Star Game that is here in St. Louis this summer.  I have been developing the plan and building the tools to manage about 450 shifts over a five day period.  I have managers in place and was really beginning to understand how this was going to work.  Negotiations for housing, food and transportation are underway and the volunteer collection was about to begin.  After 2 Encore Awards (one is the highest the firm can give) and a nomination for the Chairman’s Award for Excellence in Volunteerism for RBI, I see that all of it means nothing.  No doubt like most of corporate America, the proof is in the bottom line and those who managed to stay deployed as our client base vaporized will be the ones left to run my program.

I assure you that almost no one will give it the kind of love or ownership that I have given it – and that hurts.  Not for the hubris that comment intones, but for the 15 team of 8 to 13 year olds that are coming here from around the Nation to experience a once in a lifetime experience.  Baseball has always been more to me that just another sport, it has been a lifeline for me.  I was one of these kids.  I can still recall the smell of the fields after an afternoon rain.  The smell and feel of the scratch uniform.  My heart beating uncontrollably as I step in and it slowed as the first pitch was wound…and delivered.  That is what hurts.  I wanted to be the giver of that experience, the deliverer of that dream.

So, a new blog for me.  I publish several others on photography, but this change is intensely personal and it warrants a new start.  Your invited to come with me for my journey through this hard time.  I will discuss everything from resumes to finances to keeping myself sane.  We will also discuss this strange world of social networking that has become so much a part of my life.  Pretty much no holds barred.  Hopefully you will find it useful and there  will be some good things to see.  Think of it as an extended interview with people I have never met.  Because it is.

To my fellow travellers, hang in there.  Don’t be afraid to cry.  Don’t make any snap decisions.  Call or IM me if you want to talk.  I am on Twitter and all manner of things.  You are loved and you are valued.  Its just a turn in the road and we can make it together.

A man falls down a hole on a street and he can’t get back out.  A doctor walks by and the guy yells, “Hey Doc, can you help me out?”  The doctor writes a prescription, tosses it down the hole and moves on.  A priest walks by and our guy yells, “Hey Father, I’m down in this hole. Can you help me out?”  The priest scratches out a prayer, tosses it down the hole and moves on.   Finally he sees a friend and he shouts up, “Hey Joe, I’m down in this hole. Can you help me out?”  Joe jumps into the hole with him.  Our guys says, “What are you nuts?  Now we’re both stuck.”  Joe says, “Yea.  But I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.”

One of us knows the way.  Hang in there and lets find the way out.