In my continuing effort to extend the depth to which I can fit my foot into my mouth, I wrote a scathing (maybe not quite scathing, but definitely whining) email to the editorial heads of the Leader early last Monday. The online format had changed and there were no blogs. WHAT!?

I had just sent electronically, through the Leader's super-secret, password-protected intranet, another explainer to go along with another cartoon that would never make it to the print edition, the paper paper. The verbiage went along with the cartoon I’d sent through the regular Internet to Sara Radka, who, hopefully, as she has done in the past, would put the two components together in an artistically pleasing way.

Checking the online edition, I noted the lack of anywhere for the reading public to access the various blogs; more specifically, my blog. What? No! So I emailed Sara, something I always do when making a request – perhaps because I’m polite; more likely because I worry my stuff might get lost in the junk mail.

“So, Sara, if there are ever going to be any more blogs …” I may have written, not that I’m so conceited that I save my drafts – though I’ve tried.

My whiny email had been sent, with comments relative to how I really, really would prefer to be an online columnist, and I really appreciate having this creative outlet, and I always try to promote the site, and, hey, is this about bandwidth, money? And, um, other stuff. The email was addressed to Publisher/Editor Scott Wilson, and cc-ed to New Media guru Patrick Sullivan. I signed out of my Hotmail and returned to checking my bookmarked sites. These are mostly surf forecasting sites, tide charts; none of which showed any surf for the Straits for the immediate future. Maybe Friday, though actual surf is always smaller than predicted surf.

Suddenly, there’s a pop-up in the bottom right corner of my screen. A new message from Sara Radka. Oh. Signing back in, I read that in the new format, the blogs are actually even easier to access, prominently listed on the top line.

Uh-oh. I sign out, go to ptleader.com. Oh. Yeah. There’s the heading. And my new blog is there. I sign back in to Hotmail. (Yeah, if I had better computer skills, I could just … well [not to sound snippy], I don’t.) So I write another email to Scott, bcc-ed to Patrick, with a heading like “Ignore the previous email … please,” including an apology for jumping to conclusions and for bcc-ing Patrick instead of cc-ing. “I didn’t know how to switch back,” I explained.

Then I told Trish how I’d made another too-quick-to-panic bad decision. The most recent of these events had been, she reminded me, when I flooded the minivan because, having not been driven for 10 very cold days, it had not immediately started. And it’s not just that I flooded the engine with desperate and continuous pedal pumping; I did it minutes before I was to use the vehicle to transport our friend George to the airport, seconds after she left in the good car, heading in another direction.

“So,” Trish had said, “did George enjoy going to Sea-Tac in the Subaru?” She didn’t have to add that all other family members, including her, refuse to ride in the vehicle. It’s described by our daughter Dru as “moist.” It’s old, leaky, and I keep hoping the paint smell will someday overwhelm the mildew.

When I got back to the computer, there was a new message from Patrick. “A few bugs,” he said. I wrote a quick email “reply,” sent straight to Patrick, adding that it must have just been bad timing, and maybe, like the Seahawks defense, I had overrun the play, and the screen pass had resulted in another great scoring opportunity for the other team, and … (No, I’m not expert at the short and concise email.) I hurried back to give Trish the update.

“So, I’m not crazy,” I said. “They had a few glitches when they were trying to start up the new format, and I overreacted.”

“Like the minivan,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“And about your not being crazy …”

I had a cartoon published in Wednesday’s print edition. Yea! I went surfing on Friday; a little smaller than predicted. I should add that I originally started writing this to go along with another cartoon. (Still not good at the short response.) I’m now thinking of submitting it to the regular paper. “Dear Scott, about what I said earlier … ”