Welcome to the redesigned West of the Tunnel website. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks reworking the look of the website with the hope of making it more useful to readers. In the name of complete transparency, I used AI (Claude for the AI geeks among you) to do most of the coding work — I know enough coding to be dangerous but not enough to do this by myself.

I have my own concerns about AI, but in this case, it allowed me to build something I couldn’t do by myself or afford to pay for. Let me know if you have specific questions. I’ll be expanding my policies about AI and the work I do, look for that too. But the short answer is, I don’t use AI to write, photograph or create videos. The content on this site is all human-generated.

What you should see is a more conventional three-column website. The center column contains the longer, more in-depth stories I’ve been producing since the start.

The left column will contain links to stories from Lane County and around Oregon from other news organizations. To start, that includes KLCC.org and the Lincoln Chronicle. Both organizations are sharing their content with me (and me with them), and both are trustworthy organizations that take their reporting seriously. That said, I won’t be fact-checking their work, I’ll just be linking to their stories.

The right column will contain local news in two forms. Short stories that I report – “quick hits” or what are often called “briefs” in the news business. Information that I think is interesting or useful or fun but that I don’t have the time, or don’t require a longer story.

I will also be posting links to press releases. These are statements, stories or information published by an organization. I don’t have the time to fact-check or report on these directly, but I think the information is worth sharing. Please be properly skeptical and open-minded to these press releases.

And, maybe the most fun! I’ll be posting a weekly crossword puzzle, The WotT Weekly Puzzler. It’s a mini-crossword. About my speed to play and build. Most weeks will have at least some locally-inspired clues. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

My goal is to make West of the Tunnel more useful and helpful. Please let me know what you think, and always feel free to contact me with suggestions, criticisms, and comments.

As always, I am grateful to everyone who visits the site. If you haven’t, consider subscribing (it’s free) and if you are willing, and able, donations help pay for the cost of running the site.