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.
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....
ReplyDeleteLee: 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.
ReplyDeleteThanks 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.
ReplyDeleteHey, 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!"
ReplyDeleteHere'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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteI'm still around enjoying and appreciating. Pretty impressive milestone (is that bad of me to say, as I approach a similar one myself?)!
ReplyDelete