Lemme Summup

Ha! You thought I was going to go a whole year without posting, didn’t you? Well you were wrong, and this proves it. I almost feel bad for breaking my streak. Why haven’t I written? None of your business. I’m not doing this for you and I don’t owe you anything. I’m not even sure who you are. And I really don’t know why I’m doing it (hence the carefully selected name of this blog).

The writing habit? Maybe. Sharing with friends and family? Not really. Amassing a cult following of daily readers? No way. I don’t really have the time or motivation to devote to regular posts. It occurs to me to blog about something about once a month. Figure I actually do about 5% of the things that occur to me and before you know it it’s been almost a year. Plus I’ve got issues with privacy, who my audience is, what is my “purpose”, and is such-and-such a topic consistent and appropriate. Oh, and I’m a slow writer and did I mention that I don’t have much time?

I do it because I like to read my own posts. It’s all about me. I like the way I write. I’m interested in the topics that I write about. And I’m not very good about cataloging life. It passes. Things change. I tend to think life is perfect at the stage it is now, but in fact it was perfect at earlier stages that I’ve forgotten about. Looking at year-old posts reminds me of those times, and damn, did my yard really look that good last year?

Recently, I’ve been toying with the idea of firing up a work-related blog. Naturally, this has renewed some of the same questions I’ve had about this one. Consistency, audience, etc. And as a result, I think I’ve probably been motivated to put some new entries up here. There are lots of things I could have written about in the last year. Unfortunately, my journalistic standards don’t allow me to backdate posts, so we’ll just have to hope that mildly interesting (yet not terribly personal) events continue to occur.

So in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, “lemme summup”. In the last year I might have blogged about the following:

• My wife and I have conceived, gestated, delivered, and intentionally exposed to chicken pox another child. A boy. He’s still in the cute phase, but they say testosterone causes a type of brain damage in utero and I sure believe it.
• Pool Day came on the exact same weekend as it did last year, utterly refuting this global warming business. It occurred to me that I should contribute empirical data from my pool thermometer as a bellwether index of global climate change. 95% chance I won’t do that.
• Aaron learned to ride his big kid bike without training wheels after a three-day marathon of crashes and injuries. As his parent, I find the determination he displayed to be both exhilarating and frightening.
• After waiting 9 months for the power company to trim it back off the lines, the back yard oak was finally removed. Hallelujah.
• I paid more in taxes than my salary 10 years ago.
• Somewhat related to taxes, I finally let go of the car I bought when I was 19 and bought a company truck. Yeah, it’s got a HEMI.
• I went to Atlanta for GT’s homecoming with my brother and my dad. I stayed at the Ritz. On the previous occasion that I stayed in that hotel, I made myself sick on Heineken and chicken wings at the Hard Rock Cafe. Yeah, it was classy.
• Our diet has changed completely. All organic, nothing we can’t pronounce. I’m developing a phobia about eating on the road. My wife is talking fondly of her friends that have goats and chickens.
• I was affected by the death of the Steve Irwin. I hope I die doing something I love. Well, and something respectably dangerous and manly. I don’t want to die on the toilet.
• My parents are buying property in Panama.
• Eli is interested (and proficient) in ice skating. I’m monitoring the situation carefully.
• The first year of homeschooling was a success.
• I got reprimanded by the Coast Guard for sailing my little boat in one of their security zones. There were very nice, but it still hurt. I came up aces on their inspection though, so I got some points back there.
• We almost bought a 55-foot schooner, but somebody else bought it first. That guy must be crazy.

I think that’s it.