From the In Box: 'Tis the Season to Be... AWOL III
Ouch, again. I just finished working through the 2,100 emails in my in boxes, after about seven and a half hours of almost-solid laptop time, and do my eyes smart! Wow, oh, wow. Ow. And how. Several people took me up on my offer of distracting me with personal and Media Diet-related email (thank you), so I figured I'd share some of the best bits.

Next time, give me a call! -- Laurent

Indeed, Laurent. I wish I'd had your phone number with me while I was stuck overnight in Paris. I would've preferred hanging out with you instead of at the hotel, at the airport, etc. I'm sure we'll meet some day, though. While I was in Italy, I had two extremely small-world moments. One of the other participants at the conference I spoke at lives down the street from me. Imagine! And I went to college with another of the participants. Stuff like this happens to me more and more. It's a small world, after all. (Please don't sue me, Disney.)

Where's the Media Diet, dude? I was just looking forward to some time chilling out reading it on a Sunday morning. Hope all's well and that you're back online soon. -- Rick Weller

I hope you're doing OK. I've been thinking about you since last Friday afternoon, when I noticed you hadn't posted to Media Diet all day. -- Charlie Park

While Laurent's email made me feel good -- and reminded me how blogs and the Web can help people connect around the world -- the fact that people (represented here by the good people Rick and Charlie) missed Media Diet made me feel even better. Even though I fully intended to be back online Friday, that clearly didn't turn out to be the case. Sorry to let you Media Dieticians down. I'd say that it won't happen again, but you know what? It might. These things happen.

Blogged you today on my site. Your site's cool.

I seem to be seated next to you in a Pullman coach called Dan Pink's Just One Thing. Our links are alphabetically proximate. I admit to being a louse and actually never visiting your site until today. Je suis desolee. Excusez-moi.

Your flight sounded like a nightmarish one I took from Paris DeGaulle to SFO to LAX. It took a speedy (and usual) 11 hours from Paris to SF and then we got fogged in. It took another eight hours (instead of one) to go from San Fran to LA.

Write more and go away often. -- Halley Suitt

Hello, Halley. Thanks for finally checking in! If others aren't familiar with the blog Halley's Comment (great name, by the way!), it's a solid selection of cultural trend analysis, business news commentary, media mentions, blog references, and personal writing. Halley's Comment is cleverly contextual and quite revelatory -- i.e. the entries earlier this month about the death of Halley's father. I'll be adding this to my daily reads -- which, obviously, I haven't been able to keep up with.

In fact, my eyes are numb. So I'm going to take a break.