Lunch with a Playboy centerfold

Before I get into this story, I have to thank my friend James Melroy for allowing me this once in a lifetime opportunity. The only picture right of that lunch was taken by my cell phone camera, not the greatest quality.

Working at a newspaper, you have a lot of opportunities to do things that the common person can't. I've gotten to ride on the Goodyear Blimp and stand next to Anna Kournikova to name a few. Sometimes the opportunities are presented to you and sometimes you find them.

For James, his love and knowledge of pro wrestling, and mixed martial arts, has earned him the respect of those who work for those companies. So when the WWE recently came to Los Angeles for a Pay-Per-View, James was able to get an interview with wrestler and soon to be March 2007 Playboy centerfold Ashley Massaro.

I was second in line for this chance and was invited when James' first choice was unable to make it. On Saturday, when I had lunch with him, he asked if I was interested and like any adult heterosexual male I said what time should I pick you up for the interview.

We arrive at the Marriott in downtown Los Angeles on Monday and met up with James' contact from the WWE who set up the interview. We met the lovely Ashley at a restaurant inside the hotel and order lunch. James conducts the interview and while I'm trying to act as normal as possible. I can't really do much because James is doing his work so I have to look of into the distance, listening in. I just didn't want to be caught staring at her.

However once the food arrived, I did pass her the peppermill. James likes to point out that, "I gave her something to grind." She is very personable especially for feeling under the weather during the interview.

The WWE picked up the bill for lunch, which was another highlight for me since I can say Vince McMahon bought me lunch.

Goodbye 604 Pine Ave.

On Sunday, December 3, 2006, I helped put together the last newspaper that would ever come out of the Long Beach Press-Telegram building located at 604 Pine Ave., home of the city's newspaper for 81 years.

At the end of the night, there were words about the building and the thousands of people who worked there. I was busy during the day not only putting the sports pages together, but also writing my name everywhere and taking mementos for my friends and me.

The next day, I helped open a new chapter of the Press-Telegram as the offices moved to the 14^th floor of the Arco Center on Ocean Blvd., with a wonderful view of the Queen Mary docked in the Long Beach Harbor. (Of course, the sports department gets a view of the oil refineries on Terminal Island, but on a clear day – we've been told – you could see downtown L.A. and maybe the Hollywood sign.)

While it is great to be in a new place with new furniture, I still think back to the old building. Towards the end, as furniture and items were being packed up, I couldn't help but think about the people that have stood before me in that building. You could almost feel the ghosts of the past as you walked through old hallways and wonder what this place might have looked like in the heyday of the newspaper business. I was imagining a group of people yelling and fighting over space and time towards the end and looking in the non-operative printers and wondering what they would have sounded at full speed.

As I now work in a new office, I wonder. In the future, will someone have those thoughts about what I am doing today?

"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

It is a question that is asked every time you apply for any job in print journalism – maybe it is asked in other professions, I wouldn't know.

For those that are driven with goals of becoming a reporter with a star beat especially in sports where you can cover a professional or college team, you know where you want to be.
The first time I was asked that question, I gave an honest answer: "I just want to be happy."

Being the son of immigrant farm workers, I saw my father work in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley from sunrise to beyond sunset for minimum wage and no overtime. If he could have found something else to do with more pay, no doubt he'd do it. Whatever it was, it would beat working in the fields where temperatures can sometimes rise above 110 degrees. It was clear to me that work goals, while they are nice to have and should help you advance your career, should not be the most important focus in life.

I could tell that the sports editor sitting across from me never heard or anticipated ever hearing that answer. He quickly asked me to amplify my answer. "And what would make you happy?"

Again I shocked him when I said just writing about high school teams and filling in elsewhere is what I would be doing as long as I was happy.

I always knew my role. I never had a star personality; I was always a role player trying to make the best of my situation. I show up and do my job with all the little things in between. Fax machine jammed: I'm on it. Someone has questions about the computer program: I'm there. Punch yourself real hard on the side of the head: … maybe I am not that committed. It has been 5 years since I first answered the question. In striving to attain my one goal I have made a lot of friends and have learned a lot of lessons. I have been praised and have been told never to work for another newspaper again when I was fired from my last job.

However, reaching your goals is never a straight line. There will be peaks that will make you think you're about to touch the sky and valleys where it seems light can't escape.

But if survive the voyage you will find what you are looking for.

And five years later, I have never been happier.

This is who I am - my first blog

To paraphrase Navin Johnson: I was born a poor Mexican child.

I spent the first 18 years of my life living on a farm in a small three bedroom, one bathroom migrant laborer house in Northern California, 15 to 20 minutes away from the city of Tracy.

I was the last of eight children. I grew up seeing most of my sisters go off to college. Seeing their example, I grew up not wanting to spend my life on the farm or in the surrounding areas and so after I graduated from Merrill F. West High School in 1996 (first graduating class) I went off to college in Southern California. I immediately made an eclectic group of friends. In fact, it is thanks to one that I now go by my birth name instead of an English version of it. He forgot my name and read what was on my dorm room door. Everyone quickly followed and it has stuck ever since.

I originally wanted to go into sports medicine, but after taking an anatomy class where I looked a cadavers of people who donated their bodies to science and learned a lot of things that I felt had no relevance to what I wanted to do, I decided to move on.

The one thing I could do was write 10 page papers the night before they were due on books I had only partially read and get A. My roommate hated it.

It was at that point I refocused my life goals to become a reporter, a sports reporter to be more exact. I began work at school paper, The Daily 49er, during the fall semester in 1999. In four semesters I moved up all the way to Editor-in-Chief, mainly because there was a lack of options. Hey, let's be honest.

I was told there would be a lot of due paying before I was finally doing a job I liked and would be fairly compensated for. Everyday newspaper reporters aren't in it for the money.

After graduation, I took a job in Sparks, Nevada for seven months where I was paid $7 an hour to start. I left because, well, you try living off of $7 an hour.

Fast-forward to now where I am working at the Press-Telegram in Long Beach where I design sports pages for much better pay. I am no longer a reporter, but I always have that option.

I work in a department that is fun to be in. You just never know what is going to be said next, but you know it is going to be shocking. Not only that, but there's a chance someone is going to lead the group in singing "Jesse's girl."