In the lingo of the Web, OMG!

Ladder Lacing

Ladder-style lacing

Photo by Ian Fieggen .

OK, so maybe its not as useful as fifty ways to leave your lover. Still, there is something alluring about creative shoe-lacing.

But first, let me offer a little background:

Us Knights-In-Training are asked to do a story each week. My partner, ATC producer Art Silverman, came up with a good one. The magazine, National Geographic Kids had gotten their readers to send in old sneakers. They were going to string them all together and set a new world record. It was a natural story for this "new media" world - good visuals, activity and even an eight year-old kid who had collected over five hundred sneakers. So we recorded audio, shot stills and video, came back and tried to make something out of it.

But here's the thing. In Knight training, we are asked to present the story in several different ways. There might be a video, a slide show with audio, and maybe a map. In our case we had the overall story, and we had a nice interview with the kid, but we sort of needed one more element.

So we did what anyone would do in this situation. Google.

And there we found Ian's Shoelace site. In the lingo of the Web, OMG!

In addition to 34 ways to lace your shoes, Ian offers extensive advice on pressing problems such as slipping or crooked shoelaces. He provides a treatise on aglets - those would be the usually plastic things at the ends of the laces. And, of course, he has instructions on a variety of alternate shoelace tying techniques.

Ian lives in Australia, and according to his Web site he's just a regular guy and not a "Knotting Nut." Whatever.

For me, at least, he's yet another reason why the World Wide Web really has made the Real Wide World a much more interesting place.

Oh, and here's the video we made of the successful attempt to set a record for the longest string of sneakers

- - Steve Proffitt and Art Silverman

12:33 - July 7, 2008

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