Occasionally, after going all day without getting any e-mail, Marcia or I will jokingly say, “See? No one cares about us.” But we have not been saying that lately.
Yesterday, confident that all of my e-letter-sending problems were behind me, I sent out my third attempt. Third time's a charm, right? As an afterthought, I stuck the phrase, “advise if message is unreadable,” in the subject line. After all, I thought, there may be some poor technologically impaired person out there who still can't get it to work. I'm thinking now that that was perhaps a bad choice. I knew something was up when I received 5 or 6 replies within about 5 minutes. Within a few hours we received probably 40 replies. By this morning it was up to about 80, and we are closing in on 100. People have been very helpful about the whole thing, although I'm guessing some are thinking that I should not be allowed anywhere near a computer without close supervision (“ummm, THREE blank e-mails?!?”).
Anyway, I thought the blog readership might enjoy a sampling of the kinds of responses I've been getting. It's interesting how a 5-word request can generate such a variety of responses.
Specific: Message not justunreadable but invisible…Hey guys…I can read the banner but I can't see anything else…
Concise: still unreadable…unreadable. 
…Header only!!! … Still can't read it…
Sympathetic: I’m very sorry, but it is stillunreadable. It’s still a nice letterhead picture though.…I only see a picture.. there is nothingelse….If there's anything I can do.. please let me know…Sorry. Just got the header. Frustrating, isn't it?…My dear friend Steve, I genuinely hate to relay this info to you, but I'm still able to view only your banner. No, I'm not joking.
Cheerful: Hello! Thank you for the attempts at sending theprayer letter! Although we couldn't read it this time, we look forward toreading it. We enjoy seeing new twists on prayer letters as it helps us rethinkours as well….Yep, its unreadable, all right! Hope you guys are doing well – we are praying for you!…Blank message, nice header though!
From family: Steve, Page is blank. Not a word! OOpps?[sic]…We love your beautiful letterhead, but we'd reallylike to know what's new too! 
(In other words, no, it wasn'treadable).
07/11/2008
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