Thank you readers from Mr. 3000

As our first Autodesk blogger, Shaan "Johnny Appleseed" Hurley, has way more blog posts than I do; however, according to my TypePad dashboard, this is my 3000^th blog post on It's Alive in the Lab.

• Actually, as a DWF Technical Evangelist, I started blogging by supplying Shaan with guest articles that he would post on his blog, Between The Lines, for me. On February 14, 2006, I started my own blog, Beyond the Paper, using Shaan's naming strategy where the emphasis was on DWF files and what you could do with them besides just printing. There are 916 posts on Beyond the Paper — most of which I authored.

• When our team's DWF work grew into a more formalized presence for Autodesk Labs, I defected from the DWF-related blog to It's Alive in the Lab. I wrote my first article on April 10, 2007, entitled "It's alive. It's alive. It's alive." (an allusion to the original Frankenstein movie) which described our mission.

• So not counting Beyond the Paper, this is my 3000^th blog article. A blog is a novel written one page at a time. This is the technology preview story. This is also my story.

Thanks to the Autodesk community whose readership keeps this blog going. The 4,649 comments on this blog reflect our dialog about people, technologies, and thoughts that make up our little corner of Autodesk — technology previews.

Sewing words together like body parts is alive in the lab.