I've been having more fun than a barrel of monkeys doing the Beer Barrel Polka, and I've only barely begun. Berrily, berrily, berrily, berrily, life is but a dream.  Is that a good theme for this summertime of year?  Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream ....
Earlier this year -- when there were simultaneous hints of winter and spring --  I hinted that a great unveiling might take place this summer, an unveiling of a new creation, a new icon, a new click, a new display on my website. 
Well, I've now completed it and am happy to bring it to you in all its cool color and splendid space.  I've named it, "The Key."  It's ready for you this very moment at www.VictoriaGazette.com.
The Key is a tribute to all the businesses, and people behind those businesses, who place advertisements in The Victoria Gazette on a regular basis, some of them for more than 20 years.  I called this tribute "The Key" because it opens a special door for both you, the readers of The Victoria Gazette, and you, the advertisers in The Victoria Gazette. 
The Key can be turned by people on both sides of the door.  It's user friendly.  It's even "multicultural" and "appropriate" and "politically correct."  It will appeal to people looking for area business and people doing area business.  It's a resource that benefits those who sell and those who buy.
The Key contains a wealth of information about goods and services easily accessible to you and your family, whether you live in Victoria, Waconia, Excelsior, Shorewood, Chanhassen, St. Boni, Chaska, Carver, even Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Hopkins, and other "outlying areas."
The Key tells you, in large part and small pieces, about much that surrounds Victoria in business and service, and it continues the Gazette's tradition of introducing some very fine people to each other. 
You may have already visited "The Grapevine," which is my free online service for Victoria businesses.  Well, The Key is the free online service for Victoria area businesses.  It supplements the Victoria Chamber's Business Expo 2001 and Business Expo 2002 exhibits in Sue's Album at
www.VictoriaGazette.com, and which are also chock full of area business people, including names, numbers, and dozens of full color photos.
As with other features of my website, The Key did not happen overnight.  Although the Gazette was the first newspaper in Carver County to go online in 1998 -- with a site that remains unlike that of any other newspaper -- I've been trying to figure out, these many months, how to give even better time and space to the sector that helps me bring "the news" to you.  After all, this sector consumes a good and valuable portion of my news-paper.
So I gathered the names and numbers of my faithful advertisers and scanned their logos and designed a special space for each of them in The Key -- at no charge to them or to anyone else.  It's a surprise gift to about 100 advertisers, and it's a surprise gift to all of their customers and potential customers in this beautiful neck of the woods.
I've spent hours and hours doing The Key, and I've enjoyed every minute of it.  If there is a number or word or line out of order on the site, or a faithful advertiser that got accidentally missed, please let me know and I'll remedy the situation post-haste.  Size of each of the displays in The Key is roughly proportionate to the size of the displays normally found in this paper you're holding.
The pressing process of piecing parts, choosing colors and determining sizes overtook my nighttime dreams when it happened to be the last task on my way to slumber.  Only after The Key was completed did the midnight marathon totally cease.  Amazing how that works.  We go to sleep with our challenges and all that delights or disturbs, and we get to wake up to a new day to complete the task that was in our dreams.
I believe The Key is important be-cause it includes so many of our neighbor-ing businesses.  Letters and notes to the editor, and the subscription list, seem to indicate that the Gazette's online and offline stuff appeals to people in all locales.  It's an uncanny, unplanned, unusual phenomenon. 
Maybe it's because the Gazette is a continual mix of family and friends, work and play, church and state.  In fact, it seems impossible to this editor to separate any of the above.  Those things personal and professional seem to become more intertwined with each new day.
Anyhow, if you get a chance to visit www.VictoriaGazette.com, you'll now be able to click on The Key ... as well as The Books, The Grapevine, Sue's Album, The Gazette, and The Archives.  There is a treasure trove of information behind each of those colorful clicks.  The website (www.VictoriaGazette.com as well as www.PrintsPublishing.com) has been maintained and updated each month without fail since the summer of 1998, when the word "Internet" was barely part of our vocabulary.
Did I say barely?  Squarely I did.   Thank you for bearing with me, either barely or abundantly.  I've been having more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  Berrily, berrily, berrily, berrily, life is but a dream.  ~Sue