This week, I spent two days in Kingston, N.Y., to help the Daily Freeman transition to a new editorial system. We made the same transition when I worked at The Register Citizen in Torrington four years ago.

Walking into the Daily Freeman newsroom, it felt like I had been transported back in time. Not only were they using outdated computers with outdated programs (Quark XPress 3.2) up until a couple of weeks ago, but they are still printing pages on film and carrying them out to the press room, where they print the paper on site.

The Middletown Press hasn't had a press since the old building by the South Green was demolished a couple of years ago; Torrington shut its press room down last year. Here you can see the Life section of the Freeman printing:

The Daily Freeman is located in an old building on Hurley Avenue in Kingston that used to be an A&P supermarket. It has many old rooms that host paste-up equipment as well as paper rolls and old issues of the paper. Through a back room, we were also able to climb an old, metal ladder up to the roof of the building to watch the fireworks Friday night.

What's even better is that with all the new technologies, I was able to put out several pages of The Middletown Press while being in Kingston. I chatted with my ad director via Skype, and I talked to the Middletown mayor on my cell phone. I text messaged with Ed McKeon from The Middletown Eye, and a few minutes later I was up on the roof of the building taking photos - 200 miles away from Middletown.