Election Day 2021 sucked because of the results in Virginia. But for me it was a still a pretty good day because, after months of looking hither and yon for a nice long-distance touring bike, I found this fella at a bike shop in Northern Virginia. We’re still getting to know each other but I’m hopeful that we’re going to have many rewarding adventures together.
Since high school, I had a back-pocket dream of being a professional writer. Thanks to Style Weekly magazine, I finally became one in 1998. I’ve never made a living off my writing but I consider myself incredibly lucky to get paid to do something that I find very rewarding.
Thanks to my various writing jobs, I’ve been able to talk to some interesting people who were famous (Petula Clark, Chris Rock, Frank Rich, Israel Horovitz, Stephen Patsis, Stephen Wright, etc.) and a whole lot more people who were just interesting. My regular gig at Style as a theater critic inspired me to help found the Richmond Theatre Critics Circle, and my work with that group has resulted in some of the most magical nights of my life. In order to write a book review, I received a galley copy of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” so had finished it before most people were able to pick it up. And, thanks to lenient and creative editors, I’ve been able to write stories either about my children or that have included them in fun ways.
So, in addition to the joy of seeing my byline every now and then, I’m thankful to have all of the memories of cool things writing has allowed me to do, and the opportunities I will hopefully continue to have.
I spent more than a decade of my professional life working in data analytics, which always involved some level of data visualization. Most of those efforts are lost to time but at least a couple should still be visible (see below).
For a time, the Diversity Digest was VCU’s weekly compendium of DEI news and information. While shut down in March 2023, you can still see it here. What’s sleek about it is not necessarily the graphic design but the inner-workings: a streamlined process for submitting articles, curating them for inclusion and then allowing anyone on our team to update the “official” version of the Digest on a weekly basis.
The Service-Learning Data Dashboard was one of the most rewarding projects I’ve worked on in my professional career. The two Service-Learning leaders I worked with are creative, smart and fun and they made this project delightful for the whole team. It’s the most ambitious Tableau project I’ve ever completed and the final project reflects about 10 things I learned how to do from scratch in order to put it together. Everyone should have the opportunity to work on something this cool in their life.
So at this point, I’ve only done two personal visualizations that would be of even mild interest to others.
There’s this chart that tracks the contestants on the TV show, “Alone.” I simply loved putting this together and will plan to maintain it with subsequent seasons.
Then there’s this dashboard that took fake data having to do with student absences and sanctions (detentions/suspensions) and turned it into a possible proactive system for seeing when students might be in trouble. I did it originally for a job interview but really dug into it and fleshed it out. I think it turned out great. I didn’t get the job.
I first started doing data visualization when working at CF Sauer using software called iDashboards. It was pretty nifty but also limited.
While still at Sauer I started working with Tableau, a really fun platform that, even after plugging away at it for going on 4 years, I’m still learning cool stuff about.
I knew I had entered a new realm of geek when I started doing visualizations (called vizzes for those in the bizzes) for fun. I’ve only done a couple but I’m sure there will be more.
A convenient series of events landed me the job of theater critic at Style Weekly. Allegedly, someone complained to Style because the guy who had the job before me wanted to be a playwright and he was bothering local theater people to read his work. So he was out and they needed a replacement pretty quick because they were covering the 2 or 3 shows that opened every week back then.
My wife had worked very hard to get a job as an editor of one of Style’s subsidiary pubs (Family Style) and wasn’t just going to ask someone there if her husband could have the job. But she could make sure the Arts Editor got a look at some spec reviews written by this guy, DL Hintz.
She ended up really liking the reviews and then Holly had to come clean who this DL Hintz actually was. For the first several years, I thought it charming that I was essentially writing under my maiden name (and email me if you really want to know the story behind that).
Here is a link to a search of Style’s site that will pull up my stories written as David Timberline. I’ve also had quite a few that ended up with a Dave Timberline byline. The several years worth of stories written under the DL Hintz byline are mostly lost to the digital dust bin but you can see some of them here.
Cheer me on, support nature and remember April Sayre
Last November, an amazing and accomplished old friend, April Pulley Sayre, succumbed to cancer. The loss to the world and to all who knew and loved her is profound (please read more about April below). On April 23rd, there will be a celebration of April’s life in South Bend, Indiana, where she lived with her devoted husband, Jeff, who she married back when I first met her in 1989.
On April 25th, I’m setting off from the shores of Lake Huron in eastern Michigan, planning to bike to South Haven on Lake Michigan. As per the image above, the distance from lake to lake is about 250 miles. I am asking that you cheer me on in this effort by supporting the environmental foundation that April and Jeff established, called the April & Jeff Sayre Fund for Nature.
Just 1 cent per mile will result in $2.50 more toward the great work of this fund. Of course, if you can give 10 cents, $1 or even $10 per mile, that would be awesome! I have plans for some special gifts for people who give the most money but honestly, any amount you can give will be greatly appreciated.
I have never done anything like this before – neither rode my bike over so long a distance nor organized any personal fundraiser like this. Which makes me especially grateful, both for your moral support of me and your financial support of this foundation.
To Give Your Support
Simply go to the April & Jeff Sayre Fund for Nature GoFundMe page and donate! Please add a comment like “To support A Ride For April” so I can thank you personally.
If you feel comfortable, please ask your friends and family to lend their support as well. You can send them to Ride4April.com and that will redirect them here. THANKS!
More About April
An obituary from Publisher’s Weekly
A remembrance in the South Bend Tribune
April’s Healing Earth Facebook page.
More About the Ride
While it is approximately 250 miles from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan across the southern expanse of the state, when all is said and done, I will be biking about 300 miles in two main chunks.
Here is my planned route from Port Huron to Paw Paw.
And here is my loop from Paw Paw to South Haven and back.
You can follow my preparations for the ride and see the adventure as it unfolds on this site under “A Ride for April” or by clicking here.
I retired in 2023 after 40 years as an information technology / communications professional. Starting as a research assistant while still in college, I ultimately worked in IT roles from business intelligence, enterprise analysis, application development, and database management, to desktop support and software training.
I worked in state government, non-profits and the private sector. One of my first jobs was with Circuit City, on the team that developed their first eCommerce system. My last job was with VCU in their diversity and inclusion division, supporting operations with application development and support as well as data analysis and visualization.
You can check out the “Data Visualizations / For Work” area for some examples of what I did for VCU.
Here’s my LinkedIn page.
Also…
I’ve been a professional freelance writer since 1998. Most of that time has been working as the principal theater critic for Style Weekly magazine. You can find many, near endless, examples of my work under “Writing.”
My theater blog started because, after 7+ years of covering a LOT of theater both in and out of Richmond, I was having to really scale back the shows I was seeing. Our fourth kid had been born in 2003 and, after ignoring him for 3 years, he was getting to the age that I had to pay attention. Also, blogs were a relatively new thing then so I was on the backend of a hot trend.
I never would have guessed that I’d end up posting to it more than 1,100 times. And, even though most of the time I was writing off the top of my head, I also did some pretty good work. Looking at my metrics now, I was getting upwards of a 1000 hits on some of the posts which still surprises me. Was there just nothing else to read back then?
I’m fairly certain that my writing on this blog was more instrumental than my published criticism in getting me my Annenberg Fellowship at USC, an experience I still consider pivotal in my understanding of criticism and journalism.
It used to be called The Richmond Theater Blog but at some point someone complained because they said I was trying to be “THE” definitive commentary on theater in town. So I changed it to Dave’s Theater Blog to bring it down a peg. I’ve only posted to it 6 times in the last 5 years but I may pick that up a bit as I slide into my golden years.
Some of my favorite posts ever were:
— > The epic “Souvenir” performance, a night of 1,000 mishaps.
–> A dust-up that happened around a production of “Arcadia” that was worked through (relatively civilly) through several different blog conversations.
–> Any post that generated conversation about bigger issues about criticism, what it is and isn’t, and theater in general. Here’s just one example.
