Well, it looks like I'll be in Provo a little longer...

Laura and I spent the summer traveling, and when we got back I decided to continue pursuing a career in writing. (My trip renewed, to some extent, my desire to go into academia, though I’ll go into that later).

I enjoy writing and have been told I am good at it (though not necessarily when I’m blogging), so I briefly explored writing opportunities in Utah. Laura, after all, has a job she really likes in American Fork, Utah, so we had an incentive to stay.

After looking around for a while, however, I decided that there just weren’t many opportunities in Utah, either for jobs or simply to make contacts in the field. I met some cool people during my search, and began writing freelance for the Daily Herald, but nothing that had any long-term prospects.

So, by mid fall, Laura and I had decided we needed to go somewhere else. We settled on New York because A) it has seemed great on our previous visits, B) there are many publications there, so even if competition for jobs is much more fierce, at least opportunities sort of exist, which they don’t really in Utah, and C) Jay-Z/Alicia Keys said that big lights would inspire us.

Anyway, after deciding that we’d go to New York I began contacting everyone I knew who lived there. Many people gave me tips and advice, and several good friends spent a lot of time writing emails about how to make a good transition. I also contacted dozens of publications about doing internships, and eventually lined some up.

By mid November, Laura and I had a lot of info on New York. Our plan was that I would move out there in January, and Laura would follow when the school year ended. This plan was actually pretty developed. I had an internship lined up at a daily newspaper called amNewYork, as well as a couple of possible additional internships at Brooklyn papers if I wanted them. I even had a place to stay through January until I found somewhere to live.

Obviously this plan had some disadvantages, the biggest being that Laura and I would only see each other through video chat for about four months. However, it was also going to cost a lot, because I would be basically working for free while living in one of the most expensive cities in the country.

Still, we were going to make it work and I took a temporary job sometime in the fall to save up additional money. (We also went into the austere money-saving mode we were in before our summer trip.)

Then, about a week before Thanksgiving, the Daily Herald contacted me saying that a job was opening up and that I should apply. Before that day had ended, I had been offered the job. It was as a full time reporter in Provo, and was really what I think of as a “grown up” job (i.e. salary, benefits, two weeks vacation, etc.) I’d never actually had a job that wasn’t hourly, so this was serious.

Laura and I discussed the job. We were really excited to move to New York, but a job offer seemed to render more internships unnecessary. Also, my internships weren’t necessarily going to get me jobs, and if they did, those jobs might be anywhere in the country. Plus, my sense is that there are probably at least 100,000 (maybe more) unemployed writers/journalists/whatever in Brooklyn where I was going to be living. I think that eventually I could have beaten those odds, but it would have taken a long time and have been very expensive.

Ultimately, I decided to take the Herald job because, after all, that is what I was working toward all along. I figured that getting a paying job at a paper I like in a place I enjoy is pretty awesome. And while covering news (my beat is courts and cops) isn’t necessarily my long-term goal (I’m shooting for something more in features), it’s pretty cool. I’m also perpetually amazed that I’ve somehow landed a fulltime reporter position without a degree in journalism while the industry is dramatically contracting. I hesitate to say something cliché like “this is a dream come true,” but it’s close. I’m very fortunate (and covering the crime beat is making me more and more aware of just how fortunate I am).

So that’s an update and, for my NYC friends, an explanation. And while we may not come out next month, Laura and I will continue to be looking for ways to get to NYC in the future.

Sweltering Suburbia

When my parents asked Laura and I to stay at their house in Cedar Hills and watch my younger siblings for a few days, we were excited.  Finally, we thought, we could get out of our AC-free house and cool off with modern climate control.  Unfortunately, we’ve been disappointed; my parents home actually gets hotter than ours (in Provo), and if we do choose to turn on the AC it requires massive amounts of energy just to cool it down to the mid 80s. 

Cedar Hills—like so many recently constructed housing developments—is a disaster for many reasons, but probably one of the biggest is the community’s utter disregard for energy use.

One of the biggest problems with Cedar Hills is the design of its neighborhoods.  For the most part, the small community is filled with McMansion style track homes.  Aside from the fact that these homes are ugly and poorly constructed, they’re also spaced just far enough apart to miss out on the (numerous) advantages of being close together.  For example, though they all have pathetically small yards, none of them actually shade each other (and obviously, because they don’t share any walls, heating and cooling from one home doesn’t benefit others).  The flaws in this design are painfully apparent when compared to old communities in southern Europe and the Middle East.  In that part of the world many towns have narrow lanes and closely spaced structures.  This design didn’t arise because the builders hated privacy or wanted quaint towns for future tourists; rather, they knew that closely-spaced buildings shade each other, thereby making them all cooler.  In the centuries before AC this was especially handy, but what’s even more amazing is that many of these buildings still stay cooler than a typical McMansion with its AC running at full blast.  Narrow lanes also stay cooler in the summer (and dryer in the winter) than the moronically twisting streets and superfluous culs-de-sac common in American suburbs.     

Related to the macro-community issues in Cedar Hills, each structure experiences an array of individual problems.  For example, even if something was shading my parents’ home, its floor plan would still make cooling nearly impossible.  The home has three floors and each one is always a drastically different temperature because there is almost no airflow.  This means that to get the ground floor comfortable the basement ends up being cold but the upstairs is still too warm.  If this problem was confined to my parents’ home it wouldn’t be much of an issue.  Instead however, vast numbers of relatively new homes are inefficient energy hogs.  In turn, they cost their owners more money and negatively impact the environment.

The American dream seems to include an almost obsessive drive to own a home.  Unfortunately, this drive has produced communities with long-term energy consumption problems (in addition to simply being eyesores).  Hopefully the contraction of the housing market will force developers to reconsider building cheap, environmentally unsound homes.  

Men’s Fashion Tip For July

If you live anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere summer is now in full swing.  That means it's time for less clothing, lighter colors, and a more relaxed look.  While that’s probably not news to most men, what may be surprising is that July and August are not designated as two months for looking like a douche.   

 

First, I’ve always felt that the hot summer months are the hardest to dress for.  Warmer weather means fewer layers, which means that A) even fully clothed, the body is more visible, which for most of us is a mixed blessing at best, and B) clothes are what they are (in other words, you can’t use a classy scarf to dress up some grubby shirt—in the summer its just going to be a grubby shirt).  Still, the summer offers a bounty of fashion possibilities, even if they do require some creativity and awareness of common faux pas.  Try taking a holistic approach to your look as you balance comfort with flattering clothes that tell the world what you want to be saying.     

 

Specifically, for this month’s fashion tip it might be most useful to concentrate on the lower body.  While most upper body clothing can go over well (or very badly, depending) in the summer or any other season, July is the month for shorts.  Unfortunately, however, most guys have hairy, spindly legs that, depending on your ethnicity, may also be astonishingly white.  (At least, that’s what my legs look like after a long cold winter.)  While one of the best things you can do for your legs is to exercise and tone them, the second most important thing is wear flattering shorts.  Given the recent popularity of guys slim/skinny jeans, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing more and more slim/skinny shorts this summer (and next) as men begin cutting them off.  Given that a sleek look is also still relatively fashionable, this is probably a safer bet than, say, khaki cargo shorts from several years ago.  (Quick tip: just don’t wear khaki.)  Indeed even if you aren’t Michael Phelps or Lance Armstrong, avoid shorts that are too baggy and hide your figure; unlike many women, men’s narrow hips can actually be emphasized by tighter clothing to make even heavier guys look slimmer.  On the other hand, shorts that are too baggy can make a guy look thick and out of shape, even if he’s relatively fit. 

 

When it comes to the kind of shorts you wear, I’d suggest avoiding cargo shorts altogether.  Like everything, this point is a matter of taste, but I know that I got my first pair of cargo shorts in 1997 which means they were probably out of style at least eight or nine years ago.  If you have a bunch of little things to carry around maybe you need them, but I can’t say I’ve met many people who use the extra pockets enough to warrant looking so passé.  What’s more, most cargo shorts I’ve seen simply aren’t flattering.  They hit at awkward places (like the middle of the knee, which is a terrible place for shorts to hit), and are almost always too baggy.  Wear them camping if you must, but when you return to civilization put on civilized clothing. 

 

The other big area for summer fashion is the foot/ankle area.  For many men, this is an area with great potential: low cut socks (or no socks at all), can flatter slim ankles and, consequently, make calves look more athletic.  If you don’t have great ankles however, avoid some of the more obvious summer shoe/ankle mistakes.  For example, if you wear tall socks with shorts, bring a sense of irony to the outfit.  Get socks with a retro stripe somewhere on them or that are atypically tall.  In any case what you cannot do is simply wear the same socks you’ve been using all winter with long pants.  Short socks with low cut shoes will probably be more flattering than tall ones, but if you go that route be aware that it’s a fashion statement.  If you aren’t wearing socks at all, you’re probably in good shape too (just deodorize your shoes now and then).  (I’m not going to get into sandals here, but certainly there is a lot of potential there.  Just don’t do obviously stupid things with them.) 

 

Finally, as I said in June, for a little money you can look a lot better.  Summer is great because less clothing means even less money.  And remember, your clothes really are a statement.  There is no fashion neutrality.