On second thought...

Right after I wrote about my frustration with not getting the sheriff's office reports, I started getting them. Yay! Now I feel my news site is a better service to my community.

Today I'm buying a few new domain names from GoDaddy - and downloading the first program - now in the archives at GoDaddy Radio. Seems like everyone wants to get into internet radio these days. I want to do a show on family rights... but don't have the right equipment yet. My computer is so old I'm using Win98SE - it's a Pentium III and I want to upgrade to something more capable of handling internet radio production.

My new domain names are all about bigfoot. Why? Because I live in a place where bigfoot is a big issue because there's so many sightings around here. I am the new owner of BigfootSightings.Org, BigfootHunt.Com, and BigfootJamboree.Com. The last one is a local celebration held every Labor Day weekend... sort of a local faire where there's lots of events and vendors.

This year my daughter signed up to sell Bigfoot Jamboree Raffle Tickets. I'm planning to put a paypal link up somewhere for her to sell them online.

Yesterday she and I went to Yreka for a doctor appointment (hers) and then we went to Medford so she could spend her birthday money at the mall there. Her birthday isn't until April 20 (she'll be 16) but she couldn't wait and I caved in and gave her what she wanted early. It seems I'm the only one in my household that sees value in waiting for the official birthday. Anyhow, we had a great day in Oregon and were very happy to get home just before midnight. The only animal I saw on our way home through the forest was a small rabbit. Seems strange there's so few deer the last year or two.

Frustration

I run a small town news website - Happy Camp News - where I'm managing editor, publisher, head reporter, photographer, cook, bottle-washer, and everything else.

I've been trying to get the local sheriff's department to send me news releases since I started back in 2001. However I wasn't a real business until 2003, so at first I didn't press it. Here it is 2005 and I'm still having trouble with this.

What IRKS me is that the daily newspaper in our county seat gets news releases from the sheriff's department constantly. And I'm not asking for any extra consideration - I just want the same exact news they're giving to the daily newspaper. I pay a county business license fee and feel I'm as entitled to county sheriff department news as any other news agency in our county.

I've written to their PR Rep three or four times since January and went to see her once in person - she claimed she was in the process of getting used to a new computer system. bleah... how long does it take?

Our Sheriff will be here in town soon... and you KNOW what I'm going to be asking him about!

This week I finally got the first news release - check out my front page. "Evans Promoted to Sergeant". And this would be oh so great to hear except that it happened back in DECEMBER. I got the news release on March 18.

My Letter to the Editor About CPS

This came as a surprise to me... I wrote a letter to the editor three days ago. It was in response to a letter from a victim of CPS in the Siskiyou Daily News. Right after her letter was printed, the editor printed a long op-ed from a friend of the victim-mother.

I was very moved by these letters, which explained that the girl has completed her entire reunification plan, but was not being given back two of her four children. So I decided to answer, but the muse didn't get here to help me out for a couple of weeks. I finally wrote my piece, which was way too long, and sent it in on Saturday night.

Right after I sent it in, I opened Friday's newspaper and saw that a program manager in the local CPS agency had written an op-ed explaining her side of the controversy. So... I thought it all very interesting... and I didn't expect my piece to be printed for another couple weeks, if at all. Well, here it is in the paper, on Tuesday, just three days after I wrote it! He put my website URL for Fight CPS And Win, and my phone number at the bottom. I've received a few calls...