My open book, online.

It's almost midnight on Saturday the twenty-eighth of July and I'm cruising the back streets of Grand Rapids scoping each corner. I was a paper boy in high school and I know that nearly 98% of the Sunday press gets dropped on these corners around the city about twelve a.m. The remaining 2% (a cover, and a few fresh news items) will be added to that pile at around 6 a.m. That's when paper boys & girls around the city will assemble these parts into deliverable parcels with sleep still crusted in the corners of their eyes.

I know one other thing: this Sunday morning the paper will include an interview with yours truly about this very website. I turn a dimly lit corner in East Grand Rapids, slide the car into neutral, and flip my lights off as the car coasts to a stop beside one such pile of partial papers. Something about what I am about to do seems slightly devious even though I personally know I'm going to do it as honestly as possible.

I open the car door and walk toward the stack. Just as I am about to bend over to grab a bundle of papers a car drives by and I fiend checking my car out. The car passes and I resume my mission. I grab a bundle and take it back to the car with me. Inside I carefully slide the papers out of their plastic bag, unbind them and remove one paper. It's been so long since I have had that smell on my hands. That inky, thin paper smell that was permanently ground into the matts of my high school car. Tonight I toss my single paper onto the car's floor and replace it with a dollar bill before returning the rest of the bundle to it's place on the street corner.

There were almost always extra papers at the end of every route I delivered but still I learned one thing from delivering papers: be nice to your paper person! Delivery is a hard job. Billing, delivery, customer service, assembly, almost every aspect of running a business is placed in the hands of young people all over the nation. Personally I think they deserve more respect, and bigger tips.

Pulling away from the corner and driving to my office I watch for any sign of a witness in my rear-view mirror. I arrive and I dissect my score in search of the rumored article. Here it is "Diary an open book online" by Cynthia J. Drake. It's pretty good. I'm pleasantly surprised. There were a few things that I wish had been stated differently - but I guess that's probably always the case. They're minor issues.

For the record:

+ Fray Day is the 7th of September, not the 8th.

+ For some reason, even though I probably am, I don't like the word exhibitionist. I'll have to process that one a little more. I don't think the article sounds like I think that I am but I think Shawn (the other guy interview in the article) says something about all sites having a certain level of exhibitionism to them. He's probably right. In fact I'm sure he is but somehow it still makes me a wee bit uncomfortable.

+ There is a slight factual error in that I didn't really start writing for my site five years ago. I have had one of my domains (thinkpub.com) since early '96 but I didn't really start writing until late '99. I got serious about writing (i.e. I made a new years resolution that I wanted to "learn to write better") January first of 2000. My earlier web projects were more design focused.

+ I was a little disturbed by the "hundreds of emails" statement. I make a point not to look at my own server logs because I don't really want to get caught up in counting visitors. I don't count emails either.

That's it. That's all my troubles with the article. I'd say that's pretty darn good.

Finishing the article I decide it'd be cool to share it with the other guy who was interview. I pull up his website and find his AOL Instant messenger name. I send him a note and his computer responds with a message telling me what he's up to tonight. It informs me that he's hanging out at a bar just around the corner from me so I jump in the car and drive over. The doorman knows his name and lets me find him without cover charge (nice guy). I find him after a few failed attempts and show him the paper. We talk very briefly and agree to talk again later. From what little I've read on his site and meeting him in person he seems like a cool kid. I look forward to getting to know him a little better. Is that the power of the Internet or what? I love this place.