Back at home

I flew home to a county on fire, literally flying over one of the fires and seeing the smoke fill the skies as we approached San Diego.

While I looked forward to the job: serving up reliable news to people who obviously would be wanting and needing it, I knew that the jerry-rigged system we've been using to get the news online wouldn't be up to the task. It wasn't. But we pulled through somehow. Actually thanks to Google. And we were able to give folks what they want.

I ended up working overnight shifts and found the experience of directly interacting with readers through the fireblog to be fascinating and invaluable. Here's my favorite sample. But that's the exception. Most of the comments were amazingly appropriate, constructive and on-target. And all were hugely appreciative.

Here's a story on Poynter on my roller coaster ride last week.

Things are only now getting back to normal.