What a week

The new job is certainly catching up to me. The first couple of weeks were fairly calm as I spent my time trying to figure out how this whole Data thing worked and putting together a Wiki to roll out to the room (that no one even uses yet... Ugh). I managed to score big with a 1A centerpiece that fell into my lap about presidential campaign contributions within the first week and a half - and then the work really started.

I've got my fingers in about 6 different projects right now, seeing what I can stir up, everything from statistics on the uninsured to foreclosures to teacher salaries to funding schools with taxes on casinos.

Normally, there's always a little breathing room during the day where you can take 10 or 15 minutes to relax a little and check out NYTimes.com or whatever catches your interest, but not the last couple of days. I've been trying to get databases cleaned up for 3 different projects, while figuring out stories worth pulling out of them and how to best present the data graphically in print. I've been able to occasionally tab over to see glance at the latest update on the front page of the Times (can you tell they're my preferred online news source?) maybe every couple of hours.

It's just kind of weird having to work hard for once. I've spent so many years able to just skate by without breaking a sweat that this is a nice change. How big of a freak am I - enjoying the fact that my job is a lot harder now!