OK, what’s next?

We all have unconscious habits — things we say or do, little bits of behaviour — that punctuate our days.

Over the years, some of my colleagues noticed one of mine.

“OK, what’s next?” I often mutter as I complete one task, and start to rummage through the endless mini-assignments that pile up during the day, pondering which ought to be done straight away.

I still find myself mumbling these words, weeks after I retired as a producer from CBC News in St. John’s. To be sure, there are fewer things piling up before me, and very few of them coming at me from unexpected places.

And here we are: I’m launching a website: johngushue.com. Welcome aboard.

I’m also reviving a blog named Dot Dot Dot, which I started in 2004, and which I kept going for quite a few years … until I didn’t. I’d look at it from time to time, but I gradually let it fade away.

It’s time to bring it back, although it’s going to be different, by necessity. My plan had been to import all of the old Dot Dot Dot into this space, but the vagaries of the tech industry made a bit of tangle. To be specific, Typepad — the once-vibrant company that hosted it — shut down last fall, and all of its hosted content vanished into the proverbial ether the month before.

Later, when I was dreaming this thing up, I told Matthew Hollett — the brilliant designer who built this for me — that maybe the loss of the archive was a Zen way to embrace a new start.

So, again, here we are.

A new start, and a refreshed mission to do something interesting.

I’ll be using this site to explore my writing, which is going to be branching out into some directions.

I also want Dot Dot Dot to bring back the best of what I liked about blogging in the first place. An arena where things can be said quickly, or at length. Rapid hits and deep dives alike; bits of news, history, culture, oddities, curiosities, trivia that’s never really trivial. I’ll be writing about books, politics, journalism, movies, urban design, social trends … the gamut, in other words.

While I’m always interested in serious matters, I’d also like to this to be a place where your time is spent well.

As I typed on countless breaking news stories during my career … more to come.