Now day one is nearly a decade ago. I was eighteen when I started the website; my May 12 birthday represents a rough birthday, though I actually began building it before back in 1999.

The hiatus the website went on, its brief disappearance, wasn't entirely unplanned. I knew that I could have my site taken down just by not updating my credit card information in the billing section. (This, as I have agonizingly explained before, has been a neverending pain in the balls with my host.) Before they could delete the site I fixed the payment option, but they were unable to correlate the dot-com address with the site's contents. This problem presented itself when I'd made things normal again and the site still refused to be seen.

And finally, the worst thing of all: I lost every single one of my e-mails at the forgottenOH.com e-mail address. This is VERY IMPORTANT because I'd really like everyone to know that, having lost my only catalogue of e-mail addresses (not to mention an irreplaceable archive of stories, information, and assorted material intended to be put on the website or into a book or articles. But mainly I need to ask everyone who I've corresponded with to go right ahead and e-mail me again. Feel free to use andy@forgottenoh.com or forgottenohio@yahoo.com, since both should be working fine by now. And rest assured that there won't be any more interruptions of this kind.

I'm just sorry that the website didn't return with a whole new look, or fourteen new pages of content. That content (the pictures) is now being developed at Cord Camera, believe it or not, so it's just a matter of time.

Forgotten Ohio probably seems to have been forgotten by its owner, but it really hasn't. I've just been hung up in real life and it's been difficult to add new material of any kind. I really appreciate everyone's patience. There's nothing more fun than working on the website and corresponding with people about it, and I don't intend to give that up anytime soon. So my promise is this: before the website reaches its ninth birthday, I will have added four or five new locations by then.

Thanks again, and check back soon for new material. It does exist, and it will reach the website. Thanks once again for keeping up with the website, and for writing; now that your e-mails won't bounce, send me a new one. I'm particularly worried that some of you who are my friends might not get back in touch, and that might mean losing touch completely.

Happy New Year as well, and a belated Merry Christmas. Now get ready for Groundhog Day.

I am reading:
Where to begin? To name a few that come to mind...
FICTION - It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis
A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick
The Cider House Rules, by John Irving
NONFICTION - An Innocent Man, by John Grisham
An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government, by William C. Davis
Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, by Conrad Black

I am listening to:
The Arcade Fire