Random Rant VI

Today in like an hour from this posting the Disaster Response Teams will deploy to the East Coast to help relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy.

I wish with my entire heart I was going.

I did my best to help out in my branch of journalism, but they (people at the top) decided there was no room for me.

I had attended the Emergency Operations Center briefings and taken pictures and gotten quotes for possible articles, and ended up updating a whiteboard with the latest on the Hurricane.

All this got me thinking about the time when I will be doing this for a living.

I will be exhausted pretty much all of the time, but I think in the end the rewards will outweigh the sacrifices.

Then, it took me to when I will have decided enough is enough. I'm not sure I want to do conflict zone/disaster journalism for the rest of my life. This is a highly demanding field, and I'm not sure I want to pursue it until I retire. I have the odd feeling I would end up like Ernie Pyle . . .

I've always had a dream of living where I can see the stars, up in a mountain somewhere. This was my goal when I was still pursuing a missionary doctor role.

Still, I really want to be able to do that. I want to live where the pace of life is slower, where at night my view of stars will be unhindered by city lights.

I don't know. Sometimes I dream too big.