Watch this space for Cory Farley

You're in the right spot...but at the wrong time. To be fair to the Gazette-Journal, which is still my employer until Nov. 30, I won't be posting commentary here until December 1.
But I can answer a few questions readers have asked:

• I wasn't fired. I was offered a buyout, fair if not generous, and accepted it. To be honest, I would have liked to stay, but editor Beryl Love wouldn't commit to letting me write a column if I did. I've been doing that too long and enjoyed my relationship with readers too much to go back to reporting on drunk drivers and church bingo games.
• It wasn't political. Well, maybe it was, but nobody told me. I've enjoyed a lot of latitude at the paper (and it's paid off for them in lots of readers). If I was offed for my political views or because advertisers were sick of me, nobody mentioned it. Not that they would, but they didn't.
• No, this isn't going to be a Slam-the-Gazette Urinal site. Readers will do plenty of that on their own. I'm disappointed and a little aggrieved, but not bitter. They could have kicked me loose with zip; as it is, I'm getting pay and bennies until 2009. Money for nothin', and I get to write for anybody else who asks me while I'm drawing the paycheck.
• I don't know how they save money by paying me for doing no work. If they're happy with it, though, who am I to complain?

Mark this spot, and come back next month. Everything I've wanted to do over the last 29 years but couldn't is going to show up here eventually, and some of it will be fun. You can't get sued for reading....
--Cory