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If you have children old enough to use the Internet, hopefully you've warned them of the dangers of sharing their personal information online. But what if you're the one sharing personal information?

How can you know whether the person behind a personal ad, or at the other end of an e-mail is who they pretend to be? Are you providing perfect strangers your phone number, address or other details of your personal life?

What if the person you're giving that information to is a stalker, a sexual predator or worse? How would you know? Several local women have learned the hard way that sometimes you don't know, and they have become victims of a man whose tactics have exposed at least one woman and her family to very real danger.

In the course of gathering information for a story about this man, I also became his victim. Although I am no longer the lead reporter on the Times-Union's story about this man, which is still being developed, Lt. William Gaden of the Clay County Sheriff's Office has asked me to write a public service announcement warning you of the dangers you may unwittingly be exposing yourself and your loved ones to.

Clay County’s annual playoff roller coaster ride has finally come to a stop, and what a rush it has been.

Ya’ll will have to excuse me if I appear a bit wobbly coming off the cart, but I get a front-row seat to Clay’s February Frenzy (move over March madness), and, truth be told, coasters and I have been known to undigest hot dogs at a projectile pace.