^{Tuesdays with Murray we return next week. Trying to get it up today! If baby cooperates!}

In late February I received a message from a friend (the same friend who introduced me to my husband) letting me know that a mutual, online friend of ours named Nicholas Francisco was missing. Nicholas left work on February 13th, told his daughter he’d be home to help her bake cookies, and then he and his car vanished. (The car has since been found). He leaves behind a pregnant wife and two young children.

I have always known Nicholas online as “Francisco”. Our online paths have crossed a few times since early 2000. Most recently, we kicked around on the same private, invite-only messageboard, which housed a couple dozen people who knew each other in real life or long enough online to ensure a positive environment. (I am no longer a member of said messageboard. I quit a while ago.)

I like Francisco. I don’t know him well at all. But he has always been kind and helpful. He stood out. Plus, he’s a graphic designer, so we gravitated to the same topics.

I’m writing today for a couple of reasons. The first one is to just let folks know that Nicholas Francisco is missing and his wife and children miss him. When I first heard he was missing I told Toby, “I know this sounds awful, but I kind of hope he just left.” Because imagining the alternative was just too awful. (I would rather live in a world knowing my kid’s father had a change of heart and chickenshitted out than one where he no longer exists at all. I DO NOT, however, believe that’s the case here at all.)

The other reason I’m writing today is to bring up something a bit more cynical and a lot more confusing.

When I got back from Florida, I spent a few minutes looking over my stats. I discovered a referrer I hadn’t seen before. Normally, I don’t check every referrer that links to me but this was a messageboard and nine times out of ten when someone on a messageboard links to a blogger they are guilty of one of three things: slander, pedophilia, or hotlinking.

Anyway, I found this written by a woman named Kim:

Well, it lists people who’s blogs or websites he follows. When they update their site it alerts him and he can go check it out. Some of my blog friends have it so I signed up but never really figured it out.

I went to one of the females sites. Yes, I’m going down that road. There are only a few females that he follows. I went to her entry from Feb 13th and there’s a comment from “Nico”. It wasn’t a suggestive comment or anything but I’m wondering if he’s going by the name Nico when he comments. Here’s the link, look in the comments under the post titled “Artificial Sweetners”.

http://mihow.com/

I have to get dinner ready but will be back after the youngest is in bed. This is all very interesting.

Disclaimer: I am not implying that any comments or contacts that Nicholas made or has mean anything other than a simple blogging community. If you guys were able to find his twitter account then so could Christine so I don’t think he was hiding anything.

With the Internet on the case, who needs law enforcement? Seriously, someone has been watching way too much Dateline.

It appears that a few of the members of that particular online community are actually accusing Nicholas’s wife of making it all up so she can run off with the donations. Some other members were asking if he played the game World of Warcraft. What does that have to do with anything? (Admittedly, I haven’t combed through the 15 plus pages so I am not sure if there’s a background to what many of these people are insinuating. I have also been away for over a week. The little bit I did see disturbed me). I’m not sure what to say or do. I want to tell these people that I’m just an online acquaintance and that “Nico” is very much NOT Nicholas Francisco and instead a gal I’ve known since I was 16, one I used to smoke cigarettes with after school.

I wasn’t going to link to the messageboard because I really don’t want to fuel what appears to be a fire of cynicism, but maybe someone with a little more time on their hands (and a lot less baby) can make sense of it. So, here’s the link to the page featuring the link to my site. (If you want to start from the beginning, you have to go to page one). On second thought, some of the people are just awful. Some of them make me uneasy. I am deleting the link.

I hope this isn’t nearly as cynical as it appears to be.

And lastly, I do hope Francisco is found safe and sound and soon. The Interweb misses him too.

Edited to add:

A commenter named Tessie added a link to The Francisco’s Web site. I hadn’t seen it until now. Sadly, Christine Francisco feels that she needs to defend herself. This is really gross.