just blogging along

I've been doing this blog thing for fifteen months now. Periodically, like everytime I fiddle with it, I ask "why?" It started out as sort of an open e-mail to our children, nice Florida kids who left home for the colder climates of Massachusetts, Colorado, and California. The idea was to drop little reminders of life back home without cluttering up their in-boxes. They can check in daily, monthly, or not at all.

That grew into "look-what-I-did" brag book. Here's Dad, trying to be helpful to hurricane victims. Here's Dad, taking and completing a Scuba course. Here's Dad. . .but that got tiresome.

Lately it has become a venting place, an electronic letter to the editor of no newspaper, to be read by maybe a dozen people but not to be carried out with tomorrow morning's egg shells and coffee grounds. This has actually turned into something that justifies the nominal effort, and it's fun when I can import a good political cartoon or photograph.

It is also an exercise in self-restraint. I've had years of practicing self-restraint. I do not want something I write to show up in tomorrow's newspaper to my embarrassment. A good friend of mine, the police legal adviser for another city in a galaxy far away, once referred to the city's police officers as "hot dogs." The newspaper loved it. The cops did not. He was embarrassed. That perfectly illustrates why you need to assume that whatever you write will eventually be read by the wrong people. Some folks are a bit too sensitive but there's no point in picking a fight unless you really intend to and have another job lined up. That's why you won't find me discussing my current job, the people I work with, or my employer. There's too much other stuff to grouse about without having to explain myself to somebody whose opinion really counts.