A New Year (An open letter to my readers)

Dear Readers,

When I launched jonpenfold.com in early March of 2014, I never imagined it would become such a huge cultural sensation in such a small amount of time. With over 10 million hits a day, translated into 37 different languages, and a major motion picture currently in pre-production, my weekly blog has surpassed all of my expectations. In November, when Facebook offered to buy me out for 60 million dollars, I told Zuckerberg to go screw himself—“I’m not for sale!” After all, he never replied to my letter last May (See: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg, 5/6/14). “I know you read it, you son-of-a-bitch! I know you read everything I write! I know that you are secretly my biggest fan!” (Note to Zuckerberg: contrary to what I just wrote, I am indeed for sale. Seriously, just call me and we can discuss it. You have my number. You have everybody’s number. You know everything about us.)

Here at jonpenfold.com, 2014 was one hell of a year. Over the course of the last twelve months, we saw ourselves floating in isolation tanks (See: And We’ll All Float on OK, 3/25/14) and drinking whiskey (See: Drinking Whiskey with Lewis and Clark, 3/31/14), but not at the same time. We found ourselves snowboarding down an active volcano (See: From Hood to St. Helens, 5/20/14) and drinking beer (See: A White American Male on India Pale Ale, 8/12/14), but not at the same time. And we saw ourselves running a half marathon and eating lots of donuts, both at the same time (See: A Baker’s Dozen, 5/27/14). We also gambled on horses, went for hikes, dumped ice on our heads, tried to watch soccer, got healthy, got unhealthy, ate out of the garbage, visited strip clubs, and rode bicycles, lots of bicycles, sometimes naked (See: jonpenfold.com).

But now it’s 2015—time for change. Starting next week, jonpenfold.com will have a new format. Instead of “Finding Adventure in Everyday Life,” we will be telling stories—all sorts of stories. True Stories. Made-up stories. Stupid stories. Funny Stories. Scary stories. Serious stories. Controversial stories. Stories that will make you laugh. Stories that will make you scream. Stories that will make you cry. (Ok, maybe not the last one). It will be a bit different than what we were doing in the past year, but I believe it will be for the better. If you like what you read, please share it with your friends. And, if you don’t like what you read, just don’t read it. Because, in the end, just as Ricky Nelson sang, “Ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.”

Happy New Year and thanks for reading,

Jon Penfold

jonpenfold.com