It's true that when I started at Plastics News in 2017, I watched several YouTube videos on injection molding, blow molding and extrusion as one of many steps I took to learn about plastics machinery. But combine that with my visits to manufacturing facilities, plastics trade shows and company interviews — where, yes, I talked to people in person, face to face — and my brain has absorbed quite a lot of plastics industry knowledge in these two short years I've been covering the machinery and automotive beats.
If only we could do a side-by-side comparison of Bill's first two years at PN compared with mine. My bet is that those YouTube videos gave me a slight advantage.
Journalists today have to be well-versed in all things multimedia. We have to do it all now: photos, videos, meeting weekly deadlines for print and daily deadlines for the website — not to mention using social media as a way to find and share news. (Bill, this is just a tip from a young reporter, but YouTube has tutorials for all sorts of things, like how to upload files to Dropbox.)
As Bill mentioned, 2019 is a monumental year: He's celebrating his 30th year at Plastics News. I'm celebrating my 30th birthday. And Plastics News is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Could it get more coincidental than that?
It could, if I bring up the time I first met Bill and discovered we drove the same type of car in the exact same color — though, mine was the newer model. There's probably a millennial/baby boomer joke in there somewhere.
Bill, as my plastics machinery beat mentor, here is my final counterpoint to you: Eat your fruit and vegetables. This old-souled vegan will see you in Germany at the K show, where I will probably write more stories than you for our show dailies thanks in part to my high caffeine tolerance and the youthful energy I'll maintain after enjoying my meat-free version of schweinshaxe — "soyhaxe," as you call it.
