If you type it they will come

I was up writing until nearly two a.m. on Sunday night. When I stopped, I was too wound up to go to sleep. I have set up my television to automatically turn off every night at 3:07 a.m., it doesn’t mean I will fall asleep, but at least there is one less distraction. I might have even slept a little before shuffling off to work bright and early.

Monday is the workhorse day at the paper while Tuesday morning is proof day with the goal of sending the paper to the plant to be printed by noon or so. So those are the days when I should at least pretend to rest.

So I told myself I would watch Mystery, Alaska then start lying in bed by midnight with the TV off already because I knew I was tired. But the movie left me curious since the best player for Mystery was Conner Banks. I couldn’t remember the first name of the Mighty Ducks’ best player whose last name was also Banks. The Internet is a good friend to the Insomniac with a bed memory thanks to seven concussions (yes I realized in the proof that I wrote bed instead of bad, I think that is just my inner child whining)thanks Turns out it the kid was called Adam (and in my opinion the true hero of all three movies) I also learned that Goldberg’s first name was Greg. Go figure.

Not sure why, but rather than lying down so as least to say I tried, I yahoo’d myself. I remember a few years doing that and coming up with a big fat zero. Now I am all over the place thanks to the paper’s website and the blog that serves as a column archive.

But imagine my surprise when I found stories of mine in places I never put them. I found links to articles at www.nearwesttheatre.org, www.clevelandbrowns.com and www.rockyriverchamber.com. No surprise there really I suppose. You write something nice about a local group and then they put it on their site. But how about finding links to my articles at these sites: www.wrestling pod.com (the article about the new real pro wrestling), www.cerebropalsy.com (my feature on Jennifer Sherman), www.best-newspaper.info/the-sport-newspaper.html (Rocky River Recreation‘s Lacrosse program. which you can‘t even find at the Rec‘s website, sure the Sports Illustrated article is there, but who loved ya first), www.1airlineflightscheduleparis21.info/northbridge-ma-public-school-bus-schedule/midview-schools-bus-schedule.html (my article about the SWC split, which mentioned how Midview has more kids than Olmsted Falls), sharp.search-now858.com/scott_sharp.html (my personal favorite as it apparently it links to all things Scott Sharp.) There was even a link to www.insidehighered.com/news where I was quoted by a writer who did a story on teen gambling. That same story was found on a college in Kentucky’s website as well.

Now I was wide awake so then I decided to google myself. There I found a few more hits including another Scott Sharp site www.newszoom.com/search/latest/scott-sharp/news (I think Coach Sharp is a great guy but who knew he was so popular) However be careful on that last link, I think my pop blocker saved me a virus there. There were also broken links on google that included www.golf-in-1.com (Except it said it was about Kelley Moore) , www.find-sports.org/Hockey (a Tim and TJ Murphy profile) and there was even www.miame.com/women-men/astrology/west-life.html which claimed to have my story on the best of 2004. I swear no occult magic or tarot cards were used in the making of that article.

At MSN, www.creative-interior-design.info/interior-designer-west-burke.html had a link to my profile of Ashley Rucker. All because she mentioned she might one day want to be an interior designer. I also learned my name appears in the Baldwin-Wallace football media guide. It also asked me if I was looking for Zachary Dezurick or Zachary Dezurik. Not sure I could handle knowing anything about those guys so I declined.

Funny thing is even though they all exist in cyberspace, outside of my column blog, you can’t find any of my articles (outside of this week’s) by logging directly to www.westlifenews.com. Although our webmaster is working to change that.

So finally I asked Jeeves, the real question, “Who is Zachary Dzurick?” But he didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already learned. I did get a little nervous when Dogpile’s search engine led me to the Houston Herald Obituaries, but thankfully the reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated.

So what did we learn today boys and girls, that maybe when you have already written a perfectly acceptable column that name dropped Rocky Colovito, Coco Crisp, Joe Carter, Lofa Tatupu and LeBron James, you should just stick with it. Now that column will be lost forever, for something that really had nothing to do with sports and has now kept me awake well past closing time.

Of course, I bet in a few days if you type Zachary Dzurick Lofa Tatupu Joe Carter in a search engine, that column might magically surface somewhere from deep in cyberspace. Also, you have to be careful what you write these days because as I have learned. if you have the right search engine, Pittspuke and West Life are now forever linked. Amen to that.