dan oshinsky dot com: A blog about stories, the work... and my mother.

Four months ago, I launched a blog that I had a lot of promise: Smartphoneless.com. I wanted it to be the hub for discussion and thought among my fellow smartphoneless Americans. And I got some amazing feedback in the time since launch, especially from students here at Mizzou. They’d see my phone or hear about (…)

Let me take you back to 2009. Newspapers were slashing staff daily. Jobs weren’t plentiful. A young, wide-eyed Dan Oshinsky was about to graduate from college. And in the midst of all this, a strange thing happened: A big newspaper chain decided that they really liked me. They liked my attitude and my skills. They (…)

“People change. Circumstances change. Legal documents don’t change.” — Brent Beshore, CEO of AdVentures At my first job out of college, I was told that I would get health care. Dental, medical — the usual. This sounded good to me, even though I didn’t know what a co-pay was, or a deductible, or anything else (…)

I am in the midst of reading this fantastic new book, Tom Scocca’s “Beijing Welcomes You.” It’s about China’s capital city during the years leading up to and during the 2008 Olympic Games. I was there myself, covering the Games for the Rocky Mountain News, and reading Scocca’s account, I find myself experiencing some very (…)

All Things D brings word today that Facebook will soon be loaning its commenting system to major media players. For those who believe that commentating systems that use real names — and therefore add some sort of accountability and transparency to the commenting process — are more likely to limit trolls, this seems like a (…)

During the previous month, I’ve been cleaning out my childhood room, and I’ve made some unusual discoveries. Here is some of what I’ve found, presented without comment. 3 Maryland Terrapins posters from 1995, featuring an ad for Erol’s Internet 1 World Cup USA 94 bumper sticker 1 pack of ‘Moochas Gracias’ stationary, featuring a picture (…)

In the summer of 2009, having just accepted a job at a TV station in San Antonio, Texas, I attempted to convince my bosses to allow me to channel my inner Dave Barry and publish a daily blog, to be titled “The Evolution of Local Man.” The pitch, as I delivered to my bosses in (…)

There’s this amazing moment in one of Carl Reiner’s and Mel Brooks’ “2000 Year Old Man” sketches, when Reiner is moving through a line of questions about the early days of man. He’ll get to the good stuff in a second — questions about Joan of Arc, questions about the secrets to longevity — but (…)

For the last 10 days, there has been something wrong with me. I have been slightly more irritable than usual. I’ve been twitchy at work. I’ve gone through long spells when my mind appears to be in a very different place. Today, I believe I’ve discovered the problem. I may be bleeding out of my (…)

The first thing I heard was a weird scratching on the phone, like aluminum foil was being rubbed against the receiver. Then I heard my mother’s voice, frantic. “I must have just missed your call,” she said. This was last Thursday. But I didn’t call, I told her. That didn’t stop her. “No, Dan,” she (…)