Ok, I realize that most of you didn't know (or care) that I was "gone". In March 2006, I quit my engineering job of 23 years at TTE/Thomson/GE/RCA to work on the Gazette full-time, as there wasn't enough time for both it and the Gazette. Yes, I left a good job with a regular paycheck for a great job with intermittent (at best) monetary rewards. A few weeks later a friend at my old company, Thomson/RCA, called to see if I was available to help on a huge HDTV integrated circuit project. We worked out an arrangement where I would work part time on the Gazette and part time on the IC team as an independent contractor. The IC project was severely under-staffed, as they always are, and my part time gig quickly turned full time. This left little time for the production of the Gazette, which was growing in distribution and scope. All of these pressures resulted in a great change at the Gazette - that is when Ashley Plummer, a Butler journalism graduate, joined our staff as associate editor. Ashley has been doing most of the layout and writing since November. She worked in the media relations department of the Indiana House Democrats during the 2007 session, so she was also part time at the Gazette. Combining her time and mine allowed the Gazette to continue through the winter and spring. My temp job at Thomson grew from six months to 12 until the project wrapped up the end of June. My last week of work fell during a paper week and it was chaotic - extra hours at Thomson trying to finish the project and an expanded 32-page edition of the Gazette. During the final layout of issue #13, Ashley came over at 5 p.m. and worked until 1 a.m. I continued the layout until 4 a.m. and finally finished the last two pages the next morning, making me a couple of hours late at Thomson. That was a great issue, full of news stories and pictures, but it was also our most error-ridden issue, as there was no time for a full proofing. This ensured a winner of the Rene's Bakery Mistakes Can Be Sweet contest! Yum!

The second half of 2007 will be exciting for us. Ashley and I are now full-time at the Gazette, our volunteer writing staff is growing and we have tons of changes in the works. The first is visible with this issue - two sections! Hoo Hoo!

We will also finally be implementing our website expansion plans that have been on hold for two years. One of the points of this article is to apologize to all of you that have been, in effect, ignored for the past three years while I had two jobs. It wasn't because I didn't want to talk to you, return your calls/emails, or interview you. I was simply overextended. A couple of examples: I interviewed Bob Bork of Borky's Drive-In fame over three years ago for an article that I still haven't written. Same for Jill Shirley, owner of the much-loved Renee's French Restaurant. Bud Wolf, of Bud Wolf Chevrolet, called to help me with an article on car dealers in old Broad Ripple. Dave Badollet, long-time dog groomer in Broad Ripple, offered to work with me on a Broad Ripple history article. Chef Prosper only got the first part of his article in print. Now I will follow up on these and many others. Hopefully they will still talk to me after all this time.

So, that's my story. I'm back, full-time. That doesn't mean there won't be mistakes in the Gazette, but we promise to do our best to get it right.

As I finish writing this, I see I should have made the title "We're Back", since Ashley and I are both full-time at the Gazette. We love bringing the news, new and old, to you and we intend to do it better with every issue.

- Alan