The Boneyard:

Big changes have been going on at NCPR Online--where nobody will ever notice, under the hood of the content management system. Invisible labor seldom garners glory, but it does have its satisfactions. When renovating my parent's home in Potsdam, the first major job involved bringing in a steel beam and jacks to stabilize the center of the span. You would never know it was there unless you bumped your head rooting in the basement, but it squared the walls and insured that the rest of the work would last. Most of the world's work seems to work in the same way, whether one labors on buildings, or services, or programs, or gardens, or relationships. It is the foundation work that requires the closest attention, that has the most potential. From the bone, the skin can be known.