Call me Dave...

I've been writing for a long time...drew super hero fantasies on the backs of my 1st grade writing exercise papers, built weird stories out of the daily spelling words assigned in the 3rd grade, wrote short stories for extra credit in English class in junior high, discovered poetry in high school (thus purging my system of a lot of bad rhymes before I entered my songwriting phase), wrote songs, short stories and poetry throughout high school, vocational school and seven years working shipping, receiving and retail sales at a large hardware store.

Then college, and the rest.

I earned the "Uncle Dave" nickname in the 90's at a consultant gig in Milford, Ohio. Barb, the office manager, began referring to me as "Uncle Dave," asking me for advice and opinions. On the day our office got it's new email system, Barb sent me a message asking Uncle Dave: "Why does your nose run when you cry?" and "Is there really an Easter Bunny? Will he come to see me?"

I answered with the following, cc'd to a few others in the office:

In regard to a pair of reader's questions...

Question one: Why does your nose run when you cry?

The nose is a sensitive, if unfairly maligned, part of the body. The focus of cruel comparisons (as plain as the nose on your face), threatening suggestions (keep your nose out of my business), and forever linked to inappropriate behavior (nosy little person, aren't you?), the nose feels ... well ... picked on (pun probably intended).

But the nose is an empathetic little organ. It can sense when things aren't going well with some of its organ siblings, and it feels their pain -- especially with the eyes, two of the closest companions of the nose. When the eyes tear up, the nose shares the feeling, letting loose a dribble or two of sympathy-snot.

Question two: Is there really an Easter Bunny? Will he come to see me?

I'm sorry, but no, there is no Easter Bunny. The confusion started with repeated retelling of the Christian story of the Resurrection. Something got lost in the translation in the ensuing centuries. Instead of a stone rolling away from the front of a tomb, a shrubbery parted ... instead of the messiah emerging after three days of burial, a bunny with a basket of brightly-colored eggs hops out.

One part remains constant, however ... both Jesus and the Easter Bunny distributed chocolates among the hopeful masses. Both seemed to have an endless supply (refer to the loaves and fishes story from the New Testament, and the Macy's Day Sale advertisement from the New York Post). Unlike Christ, however, the bunny had no holes in his hands or feet.

An early relative of the Easter Bunny was snared and eaten, which is why we have no "Lent Bunny."

Bunnies seem to have eternal life because of their rapid (and voluminous) procreation, which gave more credence to the "eternal life" mythology of the "Easter Bunny."

I signed the piece as "Uncle Dave," and a hobby was born. Over the next few years, I produced 86 more of those things (almost one a day, Monday -- Friday between 1986-'87) as the mailing list expanded to a couple dozen folks beyond the office mailing group. Somewhere in there, I began publishing pieces in "The Gonzo Herald," newsletter of the Hunter S. Thompson Society and in "Fat City News," the website of a group of HST-inspired Gonzo journalists.

Side note: The "Fat City News" name was coined by Hunter S. Thompson during his '70s- era run for Sheriff of Pitkin County, CO...one of his platform items was the idea to rip up all the asphalt in Aspen, replace it with grass and rename the town "Fat City." All real estate developers trespassing on city property were to be caught, rounded up and executed, their bodies put on display around the perimeter of the city limits.

Skills (the short list):

A journalist since 1987 (BA in journalism in 1992 from Marshall University, Huntington, WV), I've been involved in desktop publishing since 1986, working on both Macintosh and IBM platforms. Some of the programs I use include Pagemaker, MS Word, MS Excel, Photoshop, Illustrator, Canvas, Paint Shop Pro, WordPerfect and Quattro Pro. I got involved in web work in 1997, and my program of choice is Dreamweaver. A photographer since 1987, I've been involved with digital photography since 1997.

What I’ve done (the short list):

Until recently, I was Manager for Quality Assurance and Documentation for the Belo Interactive Technology Services Group. Responsibilities included: led team that tested all applications and programs developed by the Technology Services Group, ensuring our ability to maintain a 24/7 publishing cycle. Produced print and web-based technical documentation for the software developed and built in-house at Belo Interactive and maintained the archives, which included thousands of pages of print and electronic documentation and more than 3,000 hours of digital videotape archives. This documentation was used by producers at Belo's 34 major web sites nationwide (110 million+ pages views per month), which included wireless, email and other products plus software packages including an enterprise Content Management system.

Before that, I was Manager for Training, Resources and Documentation for Belo Interactive Technology Services Group. In addition to documentation duties, I arranged technical training sessions, working with outside contractors and in-house resources. Other duties included 24/7 on-call customer service for our web publishing divisions and management for our system administrators. During this time, I also did some freelance writing for The Cole Pages and The Cole Papers (http://www.colegroup.com/) and some freelance photography work for Editor & Publisher magazine (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/index.jsp).

Prior to joining Belo Interactive, I was project director for New Directions for News in Columbia, MO, where I developed and coordinated roundtables, working with media professionals from across the country and the world. I also redesigned the NDN Web site, launching it as a daily publication in addition to creating special NDN publications

I arrived at NDN from the American Press Institute, where I was associate director of The Media Center. With The Media Center founding Director Chris Feola, I built and established the Center at the American Press Institute. I was editor of the Center's "Issues and Answers" web site (www.mediacenter.org), coordinator of the Center's intern program and organizer for the Center's conferences. I oversaw the day-to-day office management and collaborated with The Media Center Director in developing new media training programs. I also was responsible for the production and design of the Center's new media products and Media Center merchandise, and I wrote for professional publications that included The Cole Papers, The Cole Pages and NewsInc.

Before joining The Media Center, I did editing, technical writing and layout and design for Cates and Associates, a technical consulting firm. Cates main client is the Cincinnati-based Procter and Gamble Co., and my main focus was in work with P&G's Pringles potato crisp division in Jackson, TN. I developed instruction manuals and training resources for a number of production lines at the Jackson facility.

Before that, I was involved in some freelance journalism work in the Cincinnati area, specializing in database journalism projects, with work on projects for Cincinnati Magazine and Keyboard Magazine.

Prior to Cincy, I was a reporter/editor at The Waterbury (CT) Republican-American, where I began work in 1992. Promoted in March, 1994 to suburban editor and bureau chief for the paper's Naugatuck and Southbury offices. Before that, I was a senior reporter and state capitol reporter. Lead reporter for the investigative series Lost in America (published Fall '93) and a primary reporter for The Tax on Living (published Fall '92 -- reprinted Spring '93). Expertise in computer-assisted journalism cited in the November 1993 issue of the American Journalism Review.

Other writing:

In other writing, my fiction has been published in Muses Mill, a small magazine based in South Point, Ohio, and Centerpieces, a literary publication of the University of Kentucky's Ashland campus. Three of my short stories were adapted into one-act plays and presented at the first Jesse Stuart Writer's Workshop at Ashland in 1986. I was one of the featured readers at the workshop the following year. My critical review of the play "Driving Miss Daisy," written as a student at Marshall University, now is being used in the textbook for the college's course "Introduction to Fine Arts."

A musician for more than three decades, I've been active in home multi-track recording since the late 1970s. I've written and recorded about 200 songs, and in 1984 two of my recordings were featured on a Sunday night radio program on station WAMX-FM in Ashland, KY.

I've also worked as a farmer, an electrician, a hardware salesman, a karate instructor and a guitarist/singer/songwriter in a really bad band.