If it’s not for me, it’s gone — no forwarding, no replies Once upon a time, I thought I’d struck digital gold, scoring my actual name as my Gmail address back when Google’s email service was shiny and new. I was the early bird who caught the worm. Unfortunately, that worm has been a constant stream of other people’s mistakes, and I’m finally cutting the line. For years, I’ve been the accidental pen pal of countless strangers. Football fans, insurance companies, schools, medical clinics, and even Marvel enthusiasts — all happily sending me messages meant for some other Cole Cooper. I’ve received everything from heartfelt personal notes to confidential login instructions. And because I’m apparently nicer than I should be, I’ve spent years forwarding, replying, or politely explaining, “Sorry, wrong Cole.” That stops today. The volume of misdirected email has reached the point where I’m no longer a free customer service agent for the world’s sloppy data entry. Going forward, I will no...
The Evolution of a Digital Identity If you have followed my writing over the years across Cole’s Notes or The View from the Plateau Substack, you know that maintaining a clean, efficient digital workflow is a core focus of my work. As part of a broader mid-summer digital decluttering and workflow upgrade for 2026, I am officially making a major structural change to how I manage my online publications and reader communications. Effective August 1, 2026, I am retiring cole.cooper@gmail.com from its role as my public-facing blog and publishing contact for Cole's Notes. Moving forward, all publishing, newsletter, and official media inquiries will be hosted directly under an new official email address: thesundayjournalist@gmail.com . Alongside this technical shift, I am standardizing all public publishing under my long-standing pen name, Mark Coleman . For the time being - there will be two contributor profiles on the main Cole's Notes profile until I update the publishing sys...
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