I have a cap feather that I want to wave. It gave me such an interesting six weeks, in the process meeting and getting to know some fascinating people (some wonderful and wise, some neither) and learning their stories. And now great satisfaction in its reception.

The City of Juneau will be releasing a new directory of non-profit services being offered in town and the homeless shelter will have a section devoted to them.

I'm involved with a local homeless shelter and I was co-opted by its director into interviewing "10 to 20" patrons to get their opinions of the services being provided as well as what other services they deem desirable. She said she also would like information on what brought each one here.

So I interviewed everyone I could find in the shelter who was amenable to being recorded (a lot of people are skittish about that). I then took the recordings home and entered into the computer only the data referring to their usage of the services. I ended up with 28 stories, including the shelter director and the shelter manager.

After tweaking and tightening the stories I emailed the result to the director and she tells me that she loves it, that not only will it be in the Directory but the patrons' stories will be invaluable to her in her management of the facility.

I am chuffed.