Looking back to my trip to Lincoln -- it's been a year already

Sometimes you have to take a look back. Last year at this time, I was just a father of one – soon to be a father of three as my wife and I were expecting twins to be born in November to go along with our oldest child, who was 1 ½ years old at the time. I had not been back to Lincoln in seven years.

I have spent 31 of the 37 years of my wife in Napa, CA. I attended the University of Nebraska from 1994-1997, earning my degree in Journalism. I stayed in Lincoln for a year after I graduated but things were not working out professionally so I decided to return home and essentially start over.

Little did I know, I would land a job at the Napa Valley Register. I worked as a sports writer for there for three years. I then moved on to the same job at an internet news in Benicia and Vallejo. After two years, they laid off the entire staff so I was out of a full-time job for eight months, during which time I made do as a pure freelancer. I landed back on my feet in January of 2004 as a sports writer/photographer for two weekly newspapers – the St. Helena Star and Weekly Calistogan, where I still am. I'm actually finding that I enjoy life as a small town weekly newspaper guy. I have more control to do things the way I see fit. Plus, big papers are cutting more jobs than they are adding. I also worked as a freelancer for an Oakland Raiders magazine from 1999-2005. I resigned just before the 2005 season because the company that owns the magazine was forgetting one small detail -- like paying me on time. Though I’ll always be grateful for the experience, I don’t miss covering the constant drama that goes on in that organization especially given how bad the team has become. I got married to a gal named Jacqueline Scioneaux, in August 2003. We also recently had a little girl (Juliette Scioneaux D'Adamo) who is now 2 1/2 years old and we just welcomed twins (Thomas and Danielle) into the world just seven months ago. Most days are great, others I’d like to jump off a bridge. We own a home here in Napa. I kind of have a like/dislike relationship with it. I dislike it because it's not the same Napa we knew growing up but I'd still be hardpressed to find a better place. Well, except on college football gameday.
Again, I had not been back to Lincoln in seven years, when my long-time friend and I came back for the season opener against TCU in 2001. I had always wanted to make it back to Lincoln for a game but various circumstances prevented me from doing such. Well, I went to the 2007 Cotton Bowl in Dallas, which was fun other than the outcome of the game, but it’s not the same as being in Lincoln.

With our now 10-month old twins keeping us busy, it’ll probably be a while before I make it back to Lincoln again. Anyhow, I took the liberty of writing about my trip back to Lincoln last year. I share this with you because it was before I established this recreational blog:

http://www.sthelenastar.com/articles/2008/09/04/sports/local/doc48bf61e8bc529666722997.txt