Onto the edge and Vietnam

Welcome to the first posting for On the Edge, a blog about my experiences, thoughts, etc. while traveling South East Asia and beyond. I've been around in my 40 or so years on planet Earth, but this next journey -- first to Vietnam and then to various other places in the world -- represents, literally, a departure from the norm for me. I was a journalist in Northern California for a few years and before that in other states. Actually, I've worked as a reporter for newspapers and other media from Hawaii to Georgia. But, alas, the newspaper business is going down the tubes. If the Internet, as one octogenarian American congressman once said, is a "collection of tubes," then the business is literally going down the tubes. The Internet has replaced the newspaper as the medium of choice for news readers. The result is that many of the papers I've worked for have cut back, some of have gone out of business, a few claimed bankruptcy and still others just faded away -- like an old soldier. An old friend of mine once speculated that the failures of all those papers had one thing in common: Me. Geez, some friend.
My last reporting/writing gig ended in bad blood for everyone involved. Curses were exchanged; retributions plotted. I had to move on. Forgiveness is the answer, they say, but I'm too pissed off for that just yet. Instead, I'm heading out to Vietnam to teach and write and find human contact (sans Avian Flu-infected folks, I hope) and gain some kind of perspective on it all. I leave the California Bay Area full of hope and promise. I suspect, however, that some of that hope will be dashed upon the rugged reef of reality. Someone once told me that high expectations only lead to heartbreak. Damn them, I say. Because once you lose hope, what else is there? And, frankly, a journalist should always be interested in what lies just around the corner. Therefore, I push on to Ho Chi Minh City -- formerly known as Saigon -- with great anticipation and a healthy dose of hope and curiosity. Wish me luck. And continue to check into this blog often.