theSmudge.com

One week ago, I clicked the “deactivate” link on my Facebook page. They asked if this would be temporary or if I really wanted to delete it. I know you can’t ever delete your data from Facebook’s servers, and I know you can return even if you say you’re done. But I still chose the “temporary” option, because I knew it wasn’t going to be permanent.

The deactivation was not planned, but it was also an overdue detox. That evening, I realized I hadn’t spent an hour going through my news feed. I didn’t know what was going on at that very moment in the lives of 500+ friends. And, because I wasn’t posting comments, I wasn’t getting emails notifying me that someone else had replied, or that someone had commented on my latest oh-so-witty update. Suddenly, I had time to pick up the unread books that were gathering dust and overdue fines.

I didn’t quit other social media, though. I stayed on Twitter. I continued reading blogs and browsing a couple message boards where I lurk. I finally got around to reading/posting in another social site for a product I’m testing. I even looked at Google+.

The day I deactivated Facebook, I mentioned it on Twitter:

I got one response on Twitter. (I’d texted a couple friends about a bunch of other angst in my life and told them about my Facebook deactivation, so they knew and didn’t respond on Twitter.)

Five days after my deactivation, a friend contacted me on Twitter to ask if I was OK. The next day, another friend texted to ask the same thing. I appreciate it, but that was also a very good reality check: Facebook will definitely go on without me, because only two of my 500ish friends realized I was gone and contacted me. I’ve had the same email address and website for almost 11 years. I’ve had the same cell phone number for about six years. I’m the only Layla Bohm on the internet: If you can type the nine letters of my name into a search engine, you’ll find me.

No, I am NOT trying to guilt trip anyone. The fact is, Facebook censors news feeds, so we never actually see everything our friends post. It’s not surprising that nobody noticed that my Facebook page was gone. Facebook’s new default is to show you “most updates” from your friends; you have to manually change that to “all updates” for every single friend if you want to see everything.

I recently experimented with Facebook’s powers of deciding what’s important. If someone posts an update that gets no comments, it is soon pushed down in the algorithm of importance. If an update has oodles of comments or likes, it’s going to be higher up in friends’ news feeds. My experiment? I had posted something very early in the morning, and it had no responses. That evening, I posted my own update to the status, in the form of a comment. Within the hour, several people had commented, and several had “liked” my original status — which meant they hadn’t seen it before. In the eyes of Facebook, I was getting more traffic, so my update was worth pushing higher up the ranks of coolness. (I assume this is how Facebook is trying to get ad revenue — and in the process is frustrating its users.)

Anyway, why did I deactivate my Facebook account for a week? Well, the main reason is because I had vented about my rather rough week, but that venting backfired by making me more upset. It was just going to snowball from there if I didn’t shut up. Also, there were some things I just wanted to avoid seeing on Facebook. This sounds vague, I know. Sorry about that — I don’t compromise other people, so I can’t exactly go spilling personal things all over my public website.

Nine years and nine months ago, I left a close-knit Internet community in which I was very active and had some very close friends. That departure was, for lack of a better description, awful and heartbreaking. As I type this, I truly cannot believe it’s been nearly 10 years. A decade later, I still miss it. I still look at the website. And, in a couple brief moments when I’ve faced tragedies, I’ve logged in for a couple minutes in search for solace. With a few keystrokes, I was instantly transported back to the previous world I knew.

I’ve managed to keep in touch with many friends from that community, which has been a great relief. In fact, one of them was one of the two people who contacted me about my Facebook deactivation. Somehow, we’ve all kept in touch despite the many miles between us. We’ve gone through ICQ and AIM and LiveJournal and MySpace and Facebook and Twitter and Google+ and blogs. We’ve gone from dial-up to DSL to cable. We’ve gone from landlines to bad cell phone receptions to flip phones to smart phones. And, despite everything, we are still meeting up in person. Four months ago in Chicago, I met up with one of those old friends — for the very first time.

Friendships should be able to outlast Facebook. At some point, we will all gradually start shifting in a new direction. (Ten years ago, we didn’t think we’d be so connected to something called “Facebook.”) When it happens, I hope we still have each other’s friendship — and contact information. You can always reach me at layla@thesmudge.com. And I will more than willingly give you my phone number. I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.

(Updated August 11, 2014: I’ve closed comments on this post due to spammers, who apparently seek out “Facebook” related blog posts only. But please feel free to contact me via email at layla @ thesmudge.com.)

It’s that time again — when I lose sleep because I’m up late watching the Olympics. I could go on about how NBC is showing almost no events live, tape-delaying everything to show from 8 p.m. to midnight, and then its own newscasts broadcast spoilers. But for now, here are a few random observations:

1. The closest I will ever get to being in the Olympics: via the Australian swimmer whose last name is Seebohm. (The announcers pronounced Emily’s last name with a short o — one of us is wrong.)
2. Gymnasts are trying to bring back the hair scrunchie. I expect to see acid-washed jeans and shirt clips in the 2016 Olympics. Random factoid: Once upon a time, I sewed my own scrunchies, going to great lengths to match the pattern perfectly at the ends so you couldn’t see the seam. Welcome to my brain.
3. Beach volleyball players get confused when it’s cold and they want to wear some more clothes: Multiple women’s teams wore their sports bras on the OUTSIDE of a shirt. That’s kind of like wearing underwear over your jeans, acid-washed or not. Apparently they did that because it was cold, and despite being Olympians, they didn’t have a single long-sleeved shirt with their name on it. This, however, leads to my next thought:
4. It’s not beach volleyball. Maybe it’s sand volleyball, but there is no beach in sight.
5. I live 25.2 miles from what is apparently the “world class” ping pong training center. Or I suppose I should call it “table tennis.”
6. Rowing is hard work, which I learned in college from a colleague who was on the crew team. But there’s one person who sits in the boat, faces the teammates and just yells at them. This person has the unfortunate title of “coxswain.” However, if I did the rowing while someone else yelled at me, and then we both got gold medals, I’d use a permanent black marker to put an asterisk on my teammate’s medal.

“San Francisco to Chicago. In a convertible. With a redhead. What could possibly go wrong!!?”

That is the subtitle my friend Rick gave a photo album shortly before we set off on a cross-country road trip in May. He was moving to Chicago, so of course we had to kick off this new life chapter with our biggest adventure yet. We posted photos along the way, but here is the full collection in one place. (Photos are by both of us; if you claim them as your own, you’ll face the combined wrath of Rick and Layla, which I do not recommend.) Click on the photos to see them in all their full-sized glory.

My vacation started at 5 p.m. on Friday, when I left work and went on a 13-mile run. The next day I was off to the wedding of two dear friends. Between the flowing wine at the reception and the strong drinks with lots of dancing at the after-party, I was nearing collapse when I got into a cab and then caught the last train home. Sunday morning involved a rare hangover, a three-mile “car retrieval run” and a few forced bites of breakfast.

Day 1: California and Nevada

Rick picked me up at 1:30 p.m., and the trip was officially underway.

About two hours into the drive, I got excited about huge road construction equipment that was bright turquoise. I think this is probably the first time Rick thought to himself, “Wait, I’m stuck with her for HOW MANY days?!” But answer me this: Have you ever seen turquoise road construction equipment??

Anyway, Rick did not toss me out of the car, and we pulled over at the Nevada state line.

This set the stage for future states, though we didn’t know the ante would be upped. (See that? It’s called foreshadowing.)

First priority: Solar eclipse! No, Rick’s actual first order of business: Seeing if Layla’s hair would blend in with traffic cones. (This was not my idea. In fact, I think this makes excitement about turquoise road construction seem pretty mild.)

Moving along to real priorities. The solar eclipse was the first one visible in North America for 17 years, and Reno just so happened to be a prime viewing location. My dad was in town and had managed to find eclipse viewing contraptions, so we met up on a street corner in Reno and peered up at the sun.

So, yeah. Reno had been hot and sunny with no cloud relief for several days. It was a prime eclipse viewing spot. And then, five minutes before the moon moved perfectly in line with the sun, the clouds decided to play games. No ring of fire for us. Meanwhile, we were standing on a mildly sketchy Reno street corner, staring up at clouds, while mildly sketchy people stared at us. It was time to move along to another family meet-up, this time with Rick’s aunt, Betty.

Her boyfriend, Brian, was preparing to leave the country for work for at least a year. His best buddy of several decades was less than happy, so they were having one last hurrah and had spent the whole day drinking. And that is how I met Brian and Woody. I will forever kick myself for not getting a single photo of Brian and Woody together. Maybe that’s because Woody, who had just gotten another tattoo on his arm, was very intrigued by my name, my hair and me.

Woody promptly decided that I reminded him of Jennifer Gray in the movie “Footloose.” And then he exclaimed: “I’ve seen you in your underwear!” Best line of the entire road trip.

I had run that morning, barely eaten anything, recovered from the hangover, and was nearing delirium from lack of calories. Woody and Brian had no plans to stop drinking, so Betty and I got a table at a nearby restaurant while Woody and Brian proceeded to pour about four beers into Rick in the span of about three minutes (we have no idea how that happened, but it’s impressive). He soon joined us for dinner, and Woody and Brian went off to do whatever Woody and Brian do. Actually, this is what they do:

Soon, The Most Interesting Man was placed at our table, entertaining passersby — not just any passersby, but tipsy casino-goers.

That’s around the point when I said The Most Interesting Man would look good in Rick’s convertible. “Oh, oh, oh!!” a rather animated Rick exclaimed. “He needs to go on the trip with us!!!”

Day 2: Nevada and Utah

Our new friend needed a name. I nixed Steve. So then Rick came up with Arlington (a road we’d passed in Reno), Arlo for short. On Monday morning we carefully buckled him into the back seat and were on the road.

We set off across Nevada, which looked like this for a little while:

And then it got pretty boring and flat. We switched off the driving, and the scenery was still just as boring.

When driving across the entire state of Nevada…

We finally reached another state line.

A few outtakes:

Then we stopped at the salt flats, which didn’t photograph too well. They’re white and, well, flat and salty.

Off in the distance, we saw a tall smokestack-type of thing. We kept driving, went around a hill, and we still hadn’t reached it. The thing was huge.

I was, of course, dying of curiosity about the thing, but I didn’t actually find out what it was until long after the trip. However, Rick had guessed correctly that it’s so tall in order to send gas into the atmosphere, rather than into the population of Salt Lake City. At 1,215 feet high, the Kennecott Smokestack is the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River and the fourth tallest smokestack in the world. It would be the third-largest in the world and the largest in the U.S., but one in Pennsylvania was built three years later, and I’m guessing they intentionally made it two feet taller for bragging rights. (OK, OK, I’ll stop with the history lesson — can you tell that I loved history in school and that I like finding the answers to my curious questions?)

After a long day in the car, we arrived in Salt Lake City and pulled up to a lovely hotel, with an extremely lovely (and massive) room and a lovely view. Rick said it was to make up for the place we would be staying the following night, where hotels are few and starred ratings — any stars at all — are rare.

We also had a lovely dinner. I still hadn’t been abandoned on the side of the road due to my random silly comments, so I pushed my luck and took a couple quick photos of the first course at dinner:

Day 3: Utah, Wyoming and Nebraska

The next morning, Rick got in the car and then jumped backward — Arlo was sitting calmly in the backseat and had startled him. Good start to the day! Plus, Utah was much prettier than Nevada:

As was Wyoming:

Speaking of Wyoming…

We cruised through Wyoming, and this might be where I was introduced to the novelist Dick Francis. We alternated music and an audio book, and before long I was hooked. I didn’t think I’d be interested in a story about horse racing, but I’m always game to try something — and then it turned out to be a mystery. Two thumbs up from me.

Then we reached Nebraska, where Rick decided that we needed weeds in our teeth. This was shortly before I got a little mixed up about roads (they change numbers when you cross a state line). That was my one near-meltdown on the trip, and of course I felt like an idiot once I calmed down a few minutes later. Lost Layla is unhappy Layla.

Rather than driving straight across the country on Interstate 80, we had a detour planned. Neither of us had seen Mt. Rushmore, and both of us wanted to see it. This was discussed before we determined that the trip was actually happening. That wasn’t the only thing I wanted to see: Long ago I had added another site to my unofficial bucket list, and when I looked at a map, I discovered that it was basically on the way. It sounds goofy, and Rick was skeptical at first. But I was extremely excited about it, so he humored me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Carhenge!

Yep, Carhenge is exactly what you think: An imitation of Stonehenge, made of old cars. It was built in 1987, and it’s basically the only thing worth seeing in the town of Alliance, Nebraska. Or probably most of Nebraska, for that matter.

Pardon me while I post some Carhenge photos.

At one point, we left Arlo to admire the cars by himself. We should have known he’d attract the ladies: A couple girls saw him and took a couple photos. We hurried back, for fear that he’d be kidnapped and doomed to life in a town that had very little cell phone signal, but all was well.

Dinner was at a Mexican place recommended by the girls at Carhenge. The food was great, but our desire for Dos Equis (Arlo was rubbing off on us) was foiled because the restaurant didn’t have a liquor license “yet” — despite having plenty of alcohol listed on the menu. Our server was more than a little spacey, but maybe that’s also a western Nebraska thing. We did ultimately find Dos Equis that evening.

Day 4: Nebraska and South Dakota

The next morning, after chatting with an interesting couple from Pennsylvania, we headed north.

Nebraska soon gave way to South Dakota.

The state border brought some sprinkles, so Rick had to lend Arlo a jacket before he’d agree to get out of the car.

We got to Keystone, South Dakota, a quaint town clearly aimed at tourists. A mile later, I got my first glimpse of Mt. Rushmore through the trees, and then we rounded a bend.

The Mt. Rushmore visitors center has lots of fascinating history, and it also houses the models that were first created in order to give the workers something to work from. They’re built to scale, one inch equaling one foot. Each head on the monument is 60 feet tall.

On our way out, I snapped a few quick picture of this guy, Nick Clifford. He’s one of the original monument carvers.

Mt. Rushmore was all I’d hoped. If it were being built today, I wonder if the same presidents would be included on the memorial.

The drive across South Dakota was green, cloudy and sometimes rainy. My sunburnt skin was grateful for a reprieve. We passed the northern edge of Badlands National Park, but I was driving and didn’t get photos, so you’ll just have to imagine interesting rocky shapes.

Did I mention that South Dakota was green? Yes, I’m a big fan of greenery. And pretty clouds.

My task for the last half hour of driving that day was to “find a nice place for dinner.” This is where it’s handy to actually know your road trip companion, and know that he does not have something like Chipotle in mind. The combination of Yelp, UrbanSpoon and OpenTable led to success, and the tired travelers enjoyed a fantastic dinner in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

And then came the lightning storm. To say that I was thrilled is an understatement: I’ve always loved lightning storms, and these days they’re a very rare treat.

Day 5: Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois

I had noticed on the map that we would pass due south of Mankato, Minnesota. Until January, that was the town where my friend Jim lived. Six years ago, I was on a radio show that Jim happened to hear, and for some reason we became Internet friends. A year ago, he lost his father to cancer, and then he was also diagnosed with terminal cancer. Jim embarked on road trips, in order to make the most of his remaining life. On Jan. 1, I broke the 4-hour barrier in a marathon because I kept fighting in his honor. Two days later, Jim died.

If it hadn’t been for cancer, I would have finally met up with Jim on this road trip. I kept the sad thoughts to myself and soon regained my perspective: Life is short and should not be spent in regret. I knew that Jim would have gotten a kick out of all my road trip photos. So I consulted a few of the websites I’d browsed before the road trip — I needed another interesting site along the way, and I found one due south of Mankato.

How do you top Carhenge and Mt. Rushmore? Well, you don’t. But this will suffice:

Yes, that’s a 55-foot-tall statue located in the middle of nowhere, aka Blue Earth, Minnesota.

Of course, this called for goofy photos, including Layla being irreverent and Rick being the photography director.

As if that’s not funny enough, in the (very long) time it’s taken me to actually write this blog post, I have since won a friend’s random blog contest. My winnings: A bunch of Green Giant loot. Between these awesome photos and the Green Giant merchandise I am now using, they should hire me.

We almost missed the Wisconsin state line due to a poorly placed off-ramp, but we couldn’t disappoint Arlo and his fans.

Deer don’t fare well on Wisconsin highways: That afternoon I counted five dead ones on our side of the road. We wondered who had to pick them all up, and why there were no automobile repair billboards facing the highway. Rick also realized that we’d seen almost no people pulled over by highway patrol officers on the whole trip, and very few officers’ vehicles, for that matter. The roads were wide open, there was no road rage, and everyone just cruised along.

After a stop for dinner (where Rick the manager admired the efficiency of the operation, while Layla the people lover watched the customers’ attire and interactions), we reached our last state.

After 2,461 miles, we reached my mom’s house. Rick headed into the city of Chicago. And that, my long-suffering readers, is a wrap.

An 8,000-square-foot home burned to the ground last week in my hometown. Of course, the photo of the fire is pretty intense. But the history is what’s interesting.

The house was built by one of the famous Vanderbilt heirs. Clark Gable, Audrey Hepburn, President Harry Truman and John Wayne were among the famous guests, and it was apparently quite the place in its day. When it went up for sale in 2000, the estate got a mention in the Wall Street Journal. The next year, it went back on the market and got some more publicity, including from the San Francisco Chronicle.

And that’s where the story takes another turn. The home was bought by this guy:

Yep, YouTube sensation “Double Dream Hands” guy bought a big house in my hometown. I’m not a big YouTube watcher, but I’d actually heard of and seen this unique piece of musical dance amusement. I’d even visited the guy’s website a while back, just to see if he was serious.

John Jacobson, the Double Dream Hands guy, was actually serious. He’s a musician who has been involved in a number of projects, including Disney productions. He apparently makes enough money to plunk down several million dollars on another home in the middle of nowhere.

People often don’t realize that there are a number of well-to-do quasi-celebrities who have a “main” residence (in this case, Los Angeles), but actually live elsewhere most of the time. Believe it or not, Northern California is a popular spot for such people. Among the hicks and the hippies, wealthy people live on forested mountains, finding a “normal” life away from the chaotic world. They don’t really stand out, because the area is so spread out. They don’t attract media attention, and the national paparazzi can’t be bothered to fly and then drive several hours to a remote location — especially since much of the area still doesn’t have high-speed Internet. It’s a nice place to get away and just live a normal life.

Well, until your house burns to the ground and a blogger decides to link to both the fire and your YouTube video. And to the one where you appeared on The Ellen Degeneres Show:

Click here for Part 1 (pre-race).

On Ironman day, I arrived downtown around 11:30 a.m. I walked to the corner of Kuakini and Palani, the big turn the racers make as they come in off the 112-mile bike ride. I got there with time to spare, which was what I had planned in order to get my bearings and figure out the best spot to spectate.

(Click the photos to see them full-size. All photos copyright Layla Bohm. You may use them, but please credit thesmudge.com.)

The first athlete to come in from the bike ride was Chris Lieto, who lives near me (though he doesn’t know or care). In what seems to be a common theme of “Layla finds people from her world,” I was chatting with a fellow spectator and discovered that she also lives near me, and that her husband trains with Lieto.

In second place off the bike, Luke McKenzie had just averaged 25.4 miles per hours for 112 miles:

Craig Alexander. In the triathlon world, I don’t need to say anything further, because everyone knows his name: nice guy, family-oriented guy, and super-fast guy. When I saw him, he was in fourth place off the bike. Then he proceeded to run a 2:44 marathon (fastest of the day) to win the whole race and break two records while he was at it.

This guy, Andreas Raelert, was 19th out of the water, moved up to eighth place after the bike, and then surprised many people by coming in third overall.

Julie Dibens was the first female off the bike and had a huge lead. However, she injured her foot during an Ironman a couple months earlier, so the run did her in.

Rachel Joyce, fourth-place female. See how she already has her feet out of her shoes? That’s how the fast people do it, to save time transitioning from the bike to the run.

Andy Potts, who had the fastest swim of the day, was grinning coming in from the bike ride:

And here is Chrissie Wellington, who holds the women’s world record for fastest Ironman race — she’d also never lost one of the 11 full Ironman events she’d raced. She’s known as being a truly nice person, and for always smiling. On Sunday, she came off the bike 20 minutes behind the leader and in sixth place, and everyone knew her bike wreck two weeks earlier was playing a factor. But she hit the ground running and by mile 7 had passed every woman ahead of her.

After watching for a while, I made my way over to the volunteer tent at 1:30. My shift would start at 2 p.m. inside the finishers’ area.

Coming next: Catching the finishers

Saturday marked the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. Only the best and fastest triathletes are even allowed to compete, and they first had to prove themselves at a previous race. Those who qualified for Kona then had to swim 2.4 miles in the Pacific Ocean, bike 112 miles along a hot highway lined with black lava rock, then run 26.2 miles in unrelenting sun and heat.

In other words, it’s not something I will ever do. First of all, the heat and humidity are too oppressive. Second, I have no intentions of swimming with a crowd of people kicking me in the head. I’ll stick to running and recreational bicycling, thank you very much.

But getting the chance to see these incredible athletes? Being able to volunteer at such an event? Sign me up! I timed a visit to my grandparents with the Ironman, and I signed up as a race volunteer. The experience was inspiring, to say the least. So many people fought so many battles just to get to the starting line. They were such a powerful reminder that dreams can become reality if you truly work for it.

(Click the photos to see them full-size. All photos copyright Layla Bohm. You may use them, but please credit thesmudge.com.)

I took close to 300 photos before, during and after the race. I spent nine hours on my feet, ignoring a grumbling tendon. Because it was such an powerful experience, I’m going to split it up into multiple blog posts. One post simply won’t do it justice. So, hang on and be patient. We’ll start with Friday, the day before the Ironman.

Everywhere I went, I saw athletes wearing their neon orange bracelets. I could actually feel the nerves in the air: In less than 24 hours, they would be on the world’s stage, competing against what I argue are the best athletes in the world.

I got my volunteer packet, wandered along Ali’i Drive, and then headed to the beach.

Coming next: Spectating. And volunteering.

First of all, it’s 11:11 on 10/11, which means it’s one month until 11/11/11. Yes, I almost posted this at 10:11 a.m. instead of 11:11. But I did not. OK, moving along to the 11:11 a.m. Tuesday Time-Waster.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve heard of Angry Birds. It’s that game that started as a little iPhone app and suddenly became the biggest hit since, well, since something. (I was going to say since Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” tribute to Princess Diana, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with Angry Birds.)

But did you know that you can play it on a browser? Now, you have to jump through a couple hoops to do it, but maybe you’ve already done it and didn’t realize it. First, you have to get a Google+ account. I’m not a fan, but I got one a while ago, let it sit around, and then one day I saw the “Games” link. Lo and behold, there was Angry Birds! The next hoop you may have to jump through is upgrading your browser. It refuses to work in Internet Explorer, so you’ll need either the most current version of Firefox or Google’s Chrome browser.

Once you do that, and after you’ve come up for air and realized that the 11:11 a.m. Tuesday time-waster turned into an all-Tuesday time-waster, you’ll see why I have made two versions of an Angry Birds sign to cheer at races:

I’ve had my name and photo in the local, national and even international press thousands of times due to my former job. (One time, a town car drove me to and from a live interview on a national morning news show at 5 a.m.; let me tell you, that was wild!) But when I left my job a year ago, the Google news hits stopped.

However, yesterday I was in a newspaper. Tonight I’m on national TV. And I will soon be in a national magazine (as of a few days ago, they wanted me in a photograph, though I’m trying to keep the focus off me). It’s strange to be on the interviewee side of things. In one case, I got pretty annoyed with the reporter. In another case, I was impressed by their thoroughness.

Tonight’s TV show will air at 10 p.m. on the Investigation Discovery channel. The show is called “Deadly Women,” and the episode is called “Love to Death.” NO, I am not the subject of the show! The only things I kill are spiders, unlike the murder case I talked about, in which the main killer was dubbed a “black widow.”

In mid-March, an Australia-based film crew came to my apartment. They set up big lights, ran cords across the floor, and rearranged my whole living room — including the bookshelves. They work on the show “Mythbusters,” so I figured that made them cool enough to move my furniture. Then they interviewed me for an hour, during which time I stammered my way through a bunch of answers about a case I’d covered years earlier. This is what the spectacle looked like:

Each hour-long episode of “Deadly Women” features several crime stories. Once you factor in commercials and the fact that I’m sure two other interviewees performed much better than I did, I’ll probably be on TV for about 30 seconds total. The show airs regularly in re-runs, and I’ve been a bit surprised to hear from many acquaintances who know the show. I have no idea how many people will watch the episode, but I know the case still gets a lot of interest when it’s re-run on another TV network and the Lifetime movie re-airs. My dormant website has a whole section on the case (which I wish I’d had time to update and fix the dead links), and I can always tell from the traffic that the case was on TV again. I’m off to a wedding this weekend, or else I’d spend part of Saturday updating that website.

I wasn’t paid for any of this publicity, and I even took time off work for the TV interview. But the crew did leave me with this little guy, who now hangs out at my desk: