That was Monday, the 17th of July, 2006. 1,423 days ago. Three years, ten months, twenty-three days, some hours, minutes, and seconds ago.
1,000 posts ago.
(Almost exactly 7/10s of a post per day, for those of you keeping count, BTW...)I would say that I've fulfilled the promise I made to talk about politics and adoption. Soccer? A bit. Birding? Not so much. But bike racing and music and cool things in North Portland and geology and parenting and kiddos and travel and love and fear and success and failure. I hope that all that has been worth coming around for a read now and again.
As for us, along that way we lost a dog, lost (or perhaps never really had...) - and then gained - a daughter, aged three years and change, retired from the Army after 22 years, changed jobs, changed cars...
It's been quite a ride.
I have no idea how much longer I'll keep doing this. I suspect that I may have a few more posts in me. But as long as I continue to enjoy it...and as long as there are a few friends along to upbraid me and keep me straight...I will be here doing business at the Fire Direction Center, perhaps for another thousand posts.
And let me just, for a moment, turn this back on you the readers. I've gained more than I've given over the past 1,423 days from your comments and observations. I will always regret and miss those of you who no longer visit; Atomic Mama, Wicked Witch, Millicent and Floyd, Beeb, wzgirl, Dee, holly. And I treasure, and enjoy, those of you who still do. If this place, this thing, this "blog", means anything, it is in the interaction between you and I, between what I write and what you write back.I had a conversation recently with someone who was contemplating removing herself from Facebook - not all that horrific an option, IMO - but compared it to the "epistolary friendships" of the Nineteenth Century. And so this has been, in a way, a long conversation carried on in writing, between those of us who have visited here and elsewhere.
So, in honor of this 1,000-mile mark, of you all, and of myself, a pint raised to us; who's like us?
Damn few.
And they're all dead.
Thanks for the last thousand. Hope we're here for the next thousand more.
7 comments:
Keep it up! Many of us are listening, even if we don't do feedback much. Blogging with something intelligent to say is harder than it looks and you do a fine job of it. But I still wonder why the URL points to you hijacking a blog that was originally your wife's....
Lee: The URL goes back to the period where we had one e-mail account and it was in Debra's name. Since then we've our own accounts but Blogger remains frozen, a dragonfly in amber.
Thanks for everything Chief! I love your work, especially the Decisive Battles. If you have any more posts in you, you'll have my eyeballs for sure.
Hey, if you're not going to take up a professional writing gig, I say stick with the blog. You gotta write it down, sometimes. Plus, how else will I get to see such cute video of your daughter singing Timbers songs? "...and burn the bloody lot!"
Here's to the next 1,000. You are a brilliant poet, a strong man of profound sensitivities. We are all deeply privileged to share in your musings.
I come here to revel in your humanity. Thank you for being so generous with us. You help define what it means to be a man. Simply that, which is everything.
Keep it up man, some great posts, I always enjoy reading you even if I don't always post comments myself.
I'm still around enjoying and appreciating. Pretty impressive milestone (is that bad of me to say, as I approach a similar one myself?)!
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