A Little Sunday Update: Pictures of Volume 1 of the Book of E-mails. - 03/25/2007 - 11:18 PM:

I know that I promised I'd keep myself from posting too frequently, but I had some pictures for you. The first volume of the book of e-mails arrived in the mail this weekend and it's pretty cool. In case you're not sure what I'm talking about, I promised during Chapter 1 that when I returned from California, I'd take all the good luck e-mails I had received from people that had come to the site and wished me well, print them out, and have them bound into a big book of good will for my personal shelf. Then, no matter what, the thickness of that book would be the true measure of my success.

At first, I had intended to just take the stack of printed e-mails down to Kinkos, but they couldn't bind a near thick enough compilation. So instead I used LuLu.com, which still can't bind a book thick enough, but let me do cool things like have a hardcover binding. This is the first of probably 7 volumes in the collection if I'm going to fit all the e-mails. You might notice that the cover is not the one I had originally intended to use - that first one was the wrong resolution, so I used a second cover that someone sent to me that could be centered easier. Don't worry! I still plan on using the original cover, which reads, "We can hear you :)" on the second volume - I just wanted to make sure I knew how to center it properly before I did.

You might notice the title of the book is, "This Book is 13 Inches Thick". That's how thick I calculate the collection will be in the end; not too bad, if you ask me. I've had a few people in the local Boise area contact me to ask if they could read through it, so I'll go ahead and mention this offer again: If anyone ever happens to be nearby and wants to take a look at it, let me know. I'll make the time if I can, because in many ways I consider this compilation the most significant part of this journey. Getting lots of e-mails is one thing, but getting lots of e-mail from complete strangers with no motivation but to pass on good will, with no hopes of anything in return... well, that's something else, and really doesn't happen all that often.