I worked with Scott on the site in Brooklyn last night. We signed up with Sitecrossing to host, primarily because of its robust, and relatively cheap, interactive suite and huge storage capacity. Once we did, I saw the site in all its HTML gloriy for the first time. There are rough edges to be worked out, but I'm psyched.
I just asked Duncan to come and see the site. As klugey as it is, I thought it would be good for him to have the first peek. He's often the forgotten man in the addiction dynamic around here. In fact, I started by asking him if he even knew that the Dateline show was going to air on July 29. Predictabily, he didn't. We neglected to tell him, and he wasn't listening.
The first thing I showed him was the contact information on the site, and his e-mail address. I wanted to make sure that he was okay with getting mail which, I pointed out, could be positive or negative. His only question was why I was routing it to elephantonmain.com instead of his usual address.
I then explained how the site worked.
"Are you going to write about catching me drinking?" he asked.
"Ummm, no, I mean, well, I haven't written about it ... yet, no, I don't think I will, well I guess maybe down the ..."
"You should," he said. "It's the last thing that happened to the family."
He's right, of course. I was equivocating because I'm already so worried about the impact of all of this exposure on Duncan, the innocent bystander, that I guess I wanted to spare him any further "embarrassment."
Resolved: Down the line I will write about catching Duncan drinking and how we handled it. When I think about it, it's a much more normal situation, in that Duncan is not a heavy drinker or drug user and it's the type of scenario that most parents find themselves facing. Bottom line on that score: The best leverage I think we have with kids who may drink "socially" or "to see what it's like" is driving priviledges, and his learning permit lay fallow for a while.