Headline text here

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Anybody who knows a thing about me knows I may have planned months ago to write my last column in the April Fools’ Issue. After basically 23 years at this job, it just feels really appropriate to leave you guys wondering whether I’m kidding about taking off.

For the last four years, I’ve worked two full-time jobs and did two master’s degrees. Plainly, I made those choices, but for most of that time, it felt like I was swimming with the current. Both the master’s enabled me move the Fatal Encounters project forward, and FE moved the newspaper forward. The RN&R was mentioned in news media from Australia to Spain to Russia to Canada, San Diego to New York City—sea to shining sea, baby. The Fatal Encounters series basically swept the state’s journalism awards that year, including Story of the Year. We even won some national awards.

I know that all sounds like some kind of humble brag, but it’s not humble at all. For three of those four years, I felt like I could bend spoons with my mind. I’ve never burned hotter.

But I’ll tell you what. All that heat melted the wax in my wings, and I’m burned out. So I’m going to take a break.

You’ll laugh to know when I say I’m taking a break, I’m cutting back to one job and finishing my second master’s.

I’ve got to complete the Fatal Encounters database—records of people killed during interactions with law enforcement since 2000—before I can move on to anything else, and that’s 60 hours a week for the next seven months, easy.

What will happen here? These guys have got it handled. Who cares, anyway? This column is about me, me, me. It always has been. I sure hope whoever does it next has enough sense to change the mug shot and the “Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.” They’re going to have a hard enough time getting compared to the bald guy.

Have a great April Fools’ Day, and I’ll see you around. And yes, the headline thing at the top is a joke. It’s supposed to make me look like a lousy editor.