Get inside info on the outside

I went into one of the local REIs a couple of weeks ago and, true to form, was quickly accosted by a sales associate. "Can I help you find something?"

"When's you're next eighty-three sale?" I asked. I knew it was soon and I hate to miss it. Everything with a price ending in 83 cents is half off. It's when I do 90 percent of my shopping.

"We're not allowed to tell you," she replied.

How's that? In the past when I've asked the information has been shared readily.

"Is this something new?" I asked.

She paused, staring at me intently, in an almost conspiratorial way. "We're not allowed to tell you," she repeated, maintaining that glare. "But I can tell you we do have a really good sale starting Aug. 22." Wink, wink.

A couple of days later, I was in a local bike shop. I'd been in the previous week inquiring about new shifters for my 21-speed commuter bike and talked to a mechanic who said he had a rebuilt pair for $70. I told him I'd think about it.

"Hey," I said, after tracking him down, "you still have those rebuilt shifters?"

"Those are mine," he replied. He didn't mean, "Those are mine, get your own." What he meant, I soon discovered in the course of a brief, hushed conversation, was that he rebuilds shifters as a side business and that a store honcho was standing right behind me.

The scoop on one of the biggest gear sales of the year, a mechanic who deals rebuilt parts on the side -- information gleaned in the process of being an enthusiastic consumer. Yet information that could possibly cost these two their jobs should it get out via a blabbermouth like me with something of a forum.

Do I pass this information along to you?

In both cases I did not, for one simple reason: In neither case did the people involved know they were talking to a reporter.

In the case of REI, it probably mattered less. I wouldn't have to identify the sales associate or the store (there are three in the Triangle). Would this particular associate have gotten in trouble? Probably not. Still, she didn't definitively confirm that the upcoming sale was the $.83 sale.

In the case of the mechanic, the decision was simple. For the information to have any value to you, I would have had to identify both him and the store. As furtive and nervous as this guy was ("Cash?" I whispered once the coast was clear. "Yes, preferably," he whispered back.), it's a good bet he would have been looking for a new job. And for me.

Such instances of information withholding are rare. Thanks to the Internet, I am capable of getting out so much more news than in the print-only days. For every story that appears in print, I probably have three times as much useful information that I simply couldn't wedge into the story. That information now appears on my Get Out! Get Fit! blog, blogs.newsobserver.com/joemiller.

An example: The third installment of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail summer series The News & Observer is running (www.newsobserver.com/trailblazing) was on the trail through the Triangle. The print story focused on the behind-the-scenes happenings that are making the trail happen.

Then, for three consecutive days on the Get Out! Get Fit! blog, I was able to address trail development, specifically on three sections of the MST through the Triangle -- along the Eno River, Falls Lake and the Neuse River.

Perhaps more important, the blog is a repository for news gleaned when I'm out exploring. It's a good place to find updates on greenway and trail development, for instance. Or to find out what others in the outdoors and fitness communities are up to.

But you won't find the name of my wheelin', dealin' mechanic.

I'm keeping him to myself.