Corporate slip-up

David McGrath wrote a local view, “A few ‘no thanks' are in order today".

I sent him a note of thanks, but when I sent it, I realized that the address was wrong.  The first four characters of his address were not included.  In the Olive Edition of the DNT the email address was split.  (Olive is software that displays the printed edition as is and then will open up single articles.  It has many of its own problems.)

I thought it might be that the opinion editor was being careless.  That would be ironic because he always seems to find something to change in almost all of my letters or commentaries.  So much so that I have given up sending anything to the DNT.

I looked at the DNT on my iPad this morning, but I am using my MacBook Air to write this blog entry.  The Olive Edition opens with an error on this computer, and nobody has fixed the problem yet.  So, I looked at the web edition, and surprise! The email address is correct at the bottom of the article.

That means that the opinion editor probably never saw the result once it left his computer to the automated process to be put in all the various formats.

And probably nobody double checks all of these errors because the owners won’t provide enough resources to check and correct all of these irritating errors.

Thanks to my Reader Weekly fans

Often people who know me or recognize my name or face ask about my Reader Weekly column, “Party of One".  I now have to tell them that I no longer write for the Reader.  I was bumped one too many times.  I don’t wish to make a deadline and then not have my column published.  Especially since the publisher asked me specifically to write again; I had stopped writing because a previous editor bumped me one too many times.

If you are one of my Reader Weekly fans, please let me know that you read this blog entry.  It would make my day.

Here we are at Irregular Blog entry 1000

This is the 1000th blog entry I've posted in the "Irregular Blog".  It's been nearly four-and-a-half years since I posted the first entry at http://magree.blogspot.com. 

It hasn't been the most popular blog around; it took a long time to even get to over 20 subscribers per day and to get two followers.

I suppose it doesn't matter in the bigger scheme.  I've gotten some ideas out of my head.  Some of you, if you didn't get new ideas in your head, you might have gotten a little different view of some ideas.  I do hope that long-time readers, if any, have had a few "Ah, hah" moments and a few chuckles.

Almost twelve years ago, newly arrived in Duluth and walking around, I was struck with the urge to write more than letters to the editor.  I told myself, if you want to write, you have to write.

I did join the Lake Superior Writers Group and wrote a few essays.  One was a collection of bear stories, but only Kyle Eller, editor-to-be of the Duluth Budgeteer, was the only one to show up that evening.

I started picking up the Northland Reader, which had ads for writers.  I called Richard Thomas, the editor, and he said I should send something in.  I sent in "Bear Stories".  Lucky me, he published it in the 1999-09-30 issue.

Every few issues, I would send something more and he generally would publish it.  Then I started submitting something for every bi-weekly issue.  Then the Northland Reader became the Reader Weekly, and I started writing weekly.  Then I was bumped down to bi-weekly.  My guess is that I had about 160 fans; that is, something like that many people told me they enjoyed the columns.

I think I wrote over 200 articles until I was bumped one too many times.

I posted many of these at my website, http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree and still have a few buried on my hard drive.  I also started writing a blog at the same site.  Then I discovered Blogger and started writing entries for it.

People often asked me what I wrote about.  I replied, "What I damn well please."

I have continued that attitude with this blog.  But now I don't have to meet a deadline.  Of course, I like to post something everyday, but if I don't, I don't.  However, if I want to write two or three entries, I can.  I have no space limitation except my readers' attention span.

If you like what I write, please tell your friends.

Here's to the next 1,000 blog entries.  No, let's be ambitious, here's to the next 10,000 entries.