Post 3924 - 2019, goodbye. Well, hello there, 2020! And... a major announcement.

Well, here we are. The last day of 2019. In hours, it will be 2020.

I am in my final hours as a provincial civil servant. Due to the vagaries of pay cheques and how and when I got added to the payroll system back in 1993, I will continue to receive pay cheques until the middle of January. The one I get on the 16th will be for, I believe, seven work days; plus, it will have the pay out amount for my unused vacation days. Then, on the 29th of January, I get my first pension cheque.

(Yes. I had so damn much vacation accrued that it could not be contained in one month. I had taken virtually no vacation since the beginning of the fiscal year in April of 2019, and I already had 70 hours in the bank from the previous fiscal year.)

But that is not all.

I have been sitting on this news for some time now.

Starting in two days I am a full-time employee of Frank Magazine.

This will please some people and displease others. The magazine is polarizing and I know it. I am convinced that most of the people who complain about Frank Magazine have never read it.

I can only tell you that I promise to be fair in everything I write for them. I have always carefully researched my cold case articles. You can rest assured that I will bring the same level of care to anything else I write for them.

So, too, does everybody else who writes for Frank, too. Nobody at the magazine phones it in.

I am lucky, and blessed, to be afforded this opportunity at this stage in my life. My whole life, I dreamed of having a paying writing gig, but assumed it would never happen. It has happened, and I will not squander this opportunity.

I know very well that there have been many layoffs of reporters and news gatherers in recent months, here in Nova Scotia. It must be galling for these hard-working and indefatigable reporters to see someone who has never seen the inside of a J school, become a reporter. I respect their bitterness and disappointment. Just give me a chance to be the best I can at this job. That is all I am asking you for. A chance.

The action begins on January 2nd, 2020. I can hardly wait.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy