Front Page Material

Before I say anything just look at this:

That’s me with Wiki, right on the front page of the Willimantic Chronicle in full color. I’m appearing in a few other newspapers over the next week, actually. It seems every other day a new reporter is asking for an interview.

The press is exciting, for sure, but not as exciting as the research assistant I’ve hired to research / write articles for pages that are under construction. I feel like that’s plugging in the last piece of this puzzle. By hiring a research assistant to write quality articles with some of the money I’m making selling pages, its the ultimate reinvestment because it creates a real resource for visitors while simultaneously adding value to the deal for the page owners.

In other news, I spent part of the weekend backpacking the Appalachian Trail with my girlfriend and a few friends. When we got to the summit, I was glad I packed the produce department in my backpack. I cooked up sandwiches with portobella mushrooms, onion, orange peppers and avacado on Ciabatta bread with lots of balsamic. I seriously can’t get enough of these sandwiches lately. I’m addicted to the point that I haul all the ingredients along with me while backpacking and cook them up on the trail. If you haven’t tried one of these sandwiches, that’s really too bad. It’s also too bad I didn’t pack my camera, because the view was astonishing. Rolling hills with mist-filled valleys. I really didn’t know such a view existed in Connecticut.

But something strange happened while we were camping. We offered a random through-hiker a sandwich and made some small talk. Pretty soon, me and my friends realized that this guy was really creepy. He had huge scars all over himself and a really high pitched laugh. He was talking to himself and growling and it started to really freak us all out. He also told us that he was 42, lived in his parents basement, and worked as a meter maid even though he had a PhD in Chemistry. Slowly, I collected all the sharp objects we left out and put them in safely my pockets. A few forks and a knife or two. My friends all thought he was a serial killer or something.

Then, just as the sun was going down, he took off, saying that he might come back. That was it for us! We packed up all our stuff immediately and headed off into the woods to camp somewhere where he couldn’t find us.

I think the moral of the story is sometimes, when you have a hunch about something, its better to trust it than be sorry later. In our situation, it didn’t make sense to wait around and find out if we were right about this guy. We had to follow our hunch. That advice might not have much to do with wikis, or making money online, but it sure will save your butt if you ever find yourself camping near a serial killer!