The Penguin Chronicles

I was a very early adopter to email. In 1984, when I was an administrator at School of Music at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I had an email address. The only other person I knew that had an email address was the Director of Graduate Admissions. His office was one floor above mine. Since we only had each other to email it wasn’t hard to keep up with my messages.

I was also an early adopter to AOL. Yes, I heard it thousands of times: “You’ve got mail.” I thought I was just about the coolest guy on the planet. I had a modem and I could dial in from anywhere. I could even set the modem to automatically pull mail in the middle of the night so that I could sit in front of the computer with my first cup of coffee.

By the early 2000’s I was getting email messages all day every day. And because the internet was global, so were the emails. I remember my mom being surprised that I got emails “over night.” She didn’t grasp that on the internet there is no night and day, just a continuous stream of data.

Then came domain names and email boxes. Then came email services. Suddenly I had messages scattered across several email addresses [thepenguin@johnbingham.com, john@johnbingham.com, jjbingham@earthlink.net to name just three that are still active] In addition to my AOL account [anyone remember RWPenguin@AOL.com?] I had a Yahoo account and others that I can’t even remember. I had Yahoo groups and the Penguin Brigade listserv. And that was before Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

Now, I have messages coming at me from all directions. There are 3 Facebook accounts [jjbingham, johnthepenguinbingham, and 100dayschallenge] that I personally monitor. There are all the event Facebook accounts. There’s the Twitter account. And, of course, the routine emails.

So, if you’ve emailed me, or messaged me, or IM’ed me, or Tweeted me, or anything else I you haven’t heard back from me, please don’t take it personally. I’m not ignoring you. I just don’t know where your message is.

Waddle on, friends.

You can follow me on Twitter: @jjbingham and on Facebook: @johnthepenguinbingham

An Accidental Athlete is available in print and ebooks versions now. BUY THE BOOK

Review An Accidental Athlete on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

What others are saying: Looking for some motivation to start running and improve your fitness? You’re sure to find some inspiration from John Bingham’s new memoir, “An Accidental Athlete.” As an overweight, uninspired pack-and-a-half-a-day smoker, Bingham realized that he had to make some changes in his life and began running at the age of 43. With wit and humor, Bingham recounts his journey from couch potato to self-proclaimed “adult on-set athlete.”– ESPN Gear Guide

Filed under: Bingham, John "the Penguin" Bingham, motivation, Penguin, Running, Training, Walking | Tagged: 100days, Bingham, column, Penguin, running, walking |