Where were you on March 9, 2007? Were you still celebrating the non-firing “firing” of Dusty Baker and the hiring of Lou Piniella? Were you toasting Juan Pierre‘s departure from the North Side of Chicago? Were you excited about the budding friendship between pitcher Carlos Zambrano and catcher Michael Barrett? The acquisitions of Alfonso Soriano and Cliff Floyd? Were you desperately searching for nude pictures of new utility man Mark DeRosa? Or new pinch hitter Daryle Ward?

Maybe you weren’t thinking about the Cubs at all. Maybe you were pouring out a bottle of Boone’s Farm in memory of Ernest Gallo. Or for Bam Bam Bigelow. Or Anna Nicole Smith.

Or maybe you were wandering about the darkest corners of the internet. And maybe, in one of those corners so dark that the light cannot even penetrate it, you stumbled upon a poorly-formatted and even more-poorly-written Cubs blog called Hire Jim Essian (f/k/a Fire Lou Piniella). If you don’t know the history, it was the unsinkable incomparable TJ Brown who first suggested the Hire Jim Essian brand that has grown into a mighty empire.

Since HJE’s birth, there have been several facelifts, a couple of different commenting systems, a trillion words written in the Shoutbox, and even the occasional article. Happy third birthday, HJE. I’m fond of you, old boy.