Back in 5th grade (1991), some lady from the Akron Beacon Journal came to talk to our homeroom class. I remember two things from the talk; 1) she told us the paper would not exist if it was not for the revenue from classified ads and 2) every question she got was about how one could grow up and be one of the editorial cartoonists. I think there many have been some Gulf War discussion as well, as that was the time that was all going on. I knew I was never going to be a writer when I "grew up" so I was busy working on my side project at the time with a guy who is still my friend: piecing together copies of fellow classmates report cards - my teacher inexplicably used copies of report cards as scrap paper. We managed to piece together every single student's report card. It was kind of impressive.

Fast forward to 2008. I am happy to announce that I have been hired by the Beacon / Ohio.com to start up a new political web page, The Point. It will be done in conjunction with Kyle from The Chief Source, which makes sense since we work well together and have been friends since we were kids. There is no example in this state of two bloggers with such different political perspectives that have the working relationship we do. We are both honored by the selection and excited to get it going and have been eagerly waiting for today for about some time. Since we started our websites (2004), we said if one us got an opportunity like this that we would do it together. That is exactly how it worked out. This has been a month or so in the making with a lot of behind the scenes work (thank you Jim, Linda, and everyone else involved), and we are finally ready to get started. It was a tough secret to keep......I did the best I could, only telling a few people, who I must say did a pretty damn good job of keeping it to themselves. The site is going to be mainly about - you guessed it - Ohio politics. There will be some other topics thrown in there from time to time, but we will just have to see how it evolves. We have been posting there in quiet for the last few days so the site would have some content when it was launched, so be sure to scroll back a little bit when you check it out.

Some of you may say, "Well aren't you a hypocrite for working for the Beacon Journal? After all, you have bashed them several times, including recently." Some people might call me a sellout - "blogger gone mainstream." Maybe. You can be the judge of that. I compare it to a Senator (lets say Obama) who talks about how happy they are in their job and would never want to change and wouldn't even want a higher office (President). Basically it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. And in a selfish moment, I feel like I have earned it with all the work I have done here in the last 4+ years. The people who will criticize are the same people who would have jumped at the same chance.

So it is an exciting new venture and I hope you all follow me there - but don't think I will forget about the KPR; that will never happen. I am going to keep up this site which will be a monumental challenge considering I also have a full-time job, and will be a full-time Phillies fan again in a couple of months, but it is one I know I can handle. That is about all. What are you waiting for - go visit The Point.