My trip to an oil boom town in North Dakota started off on a pretty nerve-wrecking note.

I feel like, at this point, “in spite of my best efforts, I managed to make my Amtrak train” has become a running joke. For every time I made it onto the station with plenty of time to spare, there are two times when I caught it pretty close, either because I ( Read more... )

This coming Friday, April 12, I will take Amtrak to Williston, North Dakota. The plan is basically to make it a weekend trip. If there are no delays (which is always a big if with Amtrak), the Empire Builder will arrive at Williston the following day, a little before noon. I’ll then catch the Chicago-bound Empire Builder at 7:21 PM, and it will ( Read more... )

It’s been a while since I posted anything in this platform - but given how much digital ink I spent on my journalism career, it didn’t feel right not to mark it here.

Back in mid-April 2022, I was hired as a part-time reporter at Growing Community media, which I freelanced for in my Chicago Journal days back in 2012 and then after the whole ( Read more... )

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It feels like, every time I resolve to write more, I end up writing even less than ever. I have way too many things stuck, half-completed, in the draft folder. But the year hasn't entirely been a waste and, according to LJ algorithm, these were my most popular posts.

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I am a member of the several writing groups. One of them is Write About It, a writing group based in the Austin community area's North Austin branch library. I originally attended their very first meeting to do an article about it. And, originally, I was going to attend every once in a while, when my work required me to be in that part of Austin ( Read more... )

My sister was in town last Saturday, with Nadya, Kira and Nadya’s best-friend-since-practically-birth, Dawn, in tow. They were there for a children’s concert my mom got tickets for months in advance. Well, Anna and the older girls were. Kira is still 1 years old, so it fell to my mom to watch her during the concert ( Read more... )

Today would've been my cousin Petya's 37th birthday.

As I've written before, out of all of the relatives I lost, his death hit me differently. He was a teenager, only a year older than me. When my mom told me he died, part of me just couldn't quite process it. This couldn't be right. How could he die? But I also knew that there was no way my mom ( Read more... )

This is a conversation I meant to write about months ago, but somehow never found the time and the right headspace to finish it, so I am backdating this post closer to when it actually happened. For the past few years, Grandpa Gena P. and I have Skyped, almost without fail, every Sunday morning Chicago time (Sunday evening St. Petersburg time ( Read more... )

When you’re a journalist, you sign up for all kinds of mailing lists. You never know where an interesting news item or an article idea might come from. This means I get a lot of clutter - and, occasionally, some offers for free tickets, free screenings, you name it ( Read more... )