#266

Hello, fans, friends, and family.
As the subject line may have already tipped you off, this will be the last newsletter that I'll be sending out. . .in email form anyway. You may have noticed that these newsletters, that used to arrive in your inbox like clockwork, have petered out. I know exactly what the problem is, so I may as well tell you and try to fix it. These newsletters started way back in 2005, a year when the word "blog" still confused the spell checker. Since then, people have been steadily requesting to be on the mailing list, making it a GIANT group of people. And that fact alone makes it statistically more likely that someone is going want to be removed from the list each time I send out a newsletter. I'd like to say that this doesn't mess with my head, but at a certain point, it gets hard to share when I consistently get back, "Please remove me from your mailing list!" Obviously, I'm not talking about any of you. If you're reading this, you're among the silent majority that has appreciated me keeping you in the loop. And some of you have not been so silent, and I appreciate all of the kind words and encouragement you've given me over the years.

But it's 2011 now, and even grandma and grandpa know what a blog is. You probably didn't realize it, but these newsletters have also been mirrored on my blog for the last few years. So I think that will be the best format to continue sharing what's going on in the cart before the horse house. I'll be able to write again without feeling like I'm bugging someone somewhere.

I had an "ah-ha" moment while sorting the recycling that clued me into this subtle difference between writing a newsletter to email and writing a blog. I was removing a bunch of unread newspapers from their wet plastic bags and grumbling to myself, "Why am I getting the paper all of a sudden? I don't remember signing up for it. I should call the newspaper and get them to stop sending them because this is just getting to be a nuisance on recycling day. I know where to get the news!"
You see, I constantly have the BBC news in my headphones. They're more focused on world news, and their British accents give everything an ominous 1984 tone that I appreciate. So in that moment I realized that to some people, my newsletters are like those soggy unwanted newspapers on the lawn. So from now on, I'll be more like the BBC news. If you want to know what's going on, just stop by and visit me here. . .

Thanks for reading.
-Dylan