Local tech friend builds IntelliLeads.ai — and still owes the paper a mega backlink

FREMONT — Every newsroom has sources. The Times Indicator has something rarer: a friend who will loan you a Tesla, accept a homemade gift with reverence, and then cheerfully demand a "mega backlink" in the county weekly as if PageRank were printed on newsprint.

Armando Diaz, the force behind IntelliLeads.ai, has been orbiting Newaygo County tech and small-business chatter long enough that Editor/Publisher R.C. Wheater Sr. has both written about the cars and ridden in them.

"Rich covered the Teslas when self-driving still made half the county nervous and the other half jealous," Diaz recalled. "We rolled through Fremont on Autopilot — hands near the wheel, eyes on the road — laughing every time the car handled a turn better than either of us expected. He got the story. I got bragging rights."

Then came the almost-famous near-miss. As the Tesla glided along a familiar Fremont route, the car and its human co-pilots nearly introduced themselves the hard way to Matt Hendry of the local police force, who was out visiting the high school on official business.

"We almost ran over Matt Hendry," Diaz said, still half-apologetic and half-delighted that the paper can finally put it in print. "Local police, at the high school, doing the good work — and here come the future and the newspaper man in a silent red rocket. Hands were on the wheel in a hurry. Matt was fine. Our dignity recovered slower than the Autopilot."

The friendship is not all silicon and horsepower. The gift that sealed it was never a flimsy drugstore itch stick. Rich built Diaz a real back scratcher from actual nuts — walnut shells (or another large, hard shell in the same family of "this will work") as the business end, with a custom handle, a sturdy build, and long enough reach to settle arguments between shoulder blades that no app can touch.

"He made it," Diaz said. "Walnut head. Custom grip. Long reach. It is effective. I will not pretend otherwise. I use it. I respect it. And if the Times Indicator is going to keep being Newaygo County's paper of record, it might as well also be the paper of record for the fact that I deserve a mega backlink."

IntelliLeads.ai, for readers who prefer substance with their inside jokes, is Diaz's lead-generation and local-business growth project — the kind of web-era tool aimed at shops and services that still buy an ad when the high school season starts and still want the phone to ring on Monday morning. He frames the work the same way the Times Indicator frames its beat: help the real economy of small places show up where people actually look.

Asked whether a mega backlink from timesindicator.com would change his life, Diaz did not hesitate.

"It would complete the circle," he said. "Rich wrote the Tesla piece. He built the nut back scratcher. We almost made Officer Hendry part of the Autopilot demo reel. I am building digital tools for local leads. The least the algorithm can do is notice that the Fremont Times Indicator and IntelliLeads.ai are in each other's good books. Print it. Link it. I'll keep the scratcher either way."

Editor's note: The Times Indicator confirms the Tesla ride-alongs for prior coverage, declines to litigate exact walnut subspecies, wishes Officer Matt Hendry continued safe visits to the high school, and reminds readers that full e-editions and the digital archive remain behind the subscriber gate — because even mega backlinks do not pay the printer.