"News from the Corner" by Troy H. Cheek on Apr 02, 2004

Well, folks, here we are on Day 2 of my quest to write a new piece of literature every week day of April 2004. Because I have so much I need to say? Because I have received an official challenge from an established writer to put up or shut up? Because I lost a bet?

No. Just to see if I can do it.

How's it going so far?

I thought I'd fill today with a few words about why this column is called "The View from the Corner." Just in case any of you were wondering, which, based on the number of emails I've seen, you're not.

Many, many, many years ago, I attended a institute of higher learning that had, as most do, a school newspaper. For a time this school paper had a fairly regular column written by, of all things, a student who actually attended the school. He even lived in the on-campus housing that we jokingly referred to as dorms. He mostly wrote about life in said dorms. Or, rather, the articles about dorm life are the ones that I actually remember reading.

He lived on the lowest floor of his particular dorm, which was actually underground as it was in most of the dorm buildings, having only the tinyest excuse for a window and fresh air and light. He named his column after the place he lived. It was either "The View from the Basement" or, my memory tells me, more likely "The View from the Dungeon."

I often threatened to get a job with the school paper and write a column of my own. I lived on the top floor of my particular dorm. My geologist-turned-journalist roommate Greg suggested that I likewise name my column for where I lived. It would be "The View from the Attic." I never actually got a job with the school paper, so that name went unused.

Years later, I created my first website. I called it Catfish Corner. Catfish because was one of my nicknames growing up. Corner because I wanted to create a kind of small sleepy country town type feeling with the name. A good name for the page where I posted any opinion/editorial/humor type articles would be, I thought, "The View from the Corner."

Years went by. My interests expanded and so did my website. Actually, it is more accurate to say that my interests had always been varied, and as I encountered more people with similar interests, I expanced the scope of my website. It no longer was simply a small vanity page trying to evoke a small town feel, but a bustling metropolis with a dozen ever-changing sections. Eventually, the vanity section, Catfish Corner, fizzled and faded out.

I kind of had to get rid of it. It seems that Catfish Corner does such a good job of evoking a small sleepy country town type feeling that it had been used before. Repeatedly. By every catfish restaurant, hunting and fishing guide service, country store, and gas station/deli from here to the Louisiana coast. If I did get an email about Catfish Corner, it would be to ask for a menu, check the guide rates, request a catalog, or offer to sell me restaurant, hunting, fishing, or gas station supplies. So the website had to go.

But I kept the name in mind, and kept the idea of writing articles for a section called "The View from the Corner."

I actually did write any number of articles over the next few years, but then I slacked off. Part of the reason was the hassle of regularly updating the website. Writing was fairly easy, since I type pretty fast and don't make a whole lot of speeling erorrs, but putting it into HTML format was a drag. That was my own fault, as I pretty much refuse to use any type of HTML writing tool and instead prefer to use a plain old text editor. I prefer the control this gives me over the finished code. But it's a pain when you have to interupt the creative process to remember to mark the beginning and end of every paragraph, or search the web to figure out how to properly set up a META tag, or whatever. So I'd either not write at all, or keep most of my articles as plain old text files. And then I'd still have to udpate the index HTML file so people could find the text files in the first place.

I eventually figured out a way to automate the posting of news articles in my Atari section and even automated adding new email signatures to the Bard's Tale petition page. I did this with simple BASIC programs that knew where to look and how to add the HTML code that I had already hand-optimized for the particular look and feel of those pages.

Why it took so long for me to realize that I could do something similar to my "View" articles, I don't think I'll ever understand.

But there goes my biggest excuse for not writing. I can crank out plain old ASCII text with my favorite text editor, let the BASIC program massage it into a viewable HTML file, and use a simple BATch file to copy the results to the appropriate directory. The FTP program that uploads it to my web host server is the only thing I didn't design and write myself.

Maybe someday.

Of course, all you need to know is that you'll see a new batch of ramblings like this every weekday for the next month or so, all nicely formatted and updated automatically.

Time will tell if that's a good thing.

Copyright 2004 by Troy H. Cheek. Reprint with prior written permission only. Comments and questions to $mail:theview$