Back online

Our computer had a long, slow slide to oblivion. We have a new one now (it's even shiny!), which will make it easier to get back to the blogging business.

Whether or not I'll blog more often than I have recently is an open question. Time is a factor; it was my practice to get up waaaaay too early in the morning to blog. A lack of sleep and a too-often sedentary lifestyle is a good way to end one's blogging permanently, if you know what I mean and I think you do. So I'm not likely to do that anymore. But I do want to find time to blog, so I'll be experimenting with it a bit.

Update/Good News

Barring anything unforeseen, I have a new gig. Will start work on an 18-month assignment for a medical device company on 7/29. I expect to learn a lot.

The blogging may still be lighter than it used to be; my pattern in the past was to get up very early in the morning so that I could write something before I headed to work. At this point in my life, sleep deprivation is a very poor idea, so I'm not going back to that schedule. But I'll stay awake.

I am grateful for your support. A lot of people were praying for me and I appreciate those prayers and well-wishes. While this is an era of low unemployment, it's not easy to find a job at a senior level, so your prayers have lifted me throughout this period of transition.

Housekeeping

I tweaked the blog settings so links should now be screamingly obvious. Hope it helps and sorry about any confusion.

How's the blogger?

Checking in;

• Things are okay. I am still committed to this feature, but the upheaval in my life has thrown things out of equilibrium. I do anticipate getting back to a more regular blogging schedule in the coming days.
• Spring is here, finally. We hope.
• I have a few things going now. Should know some more in the coming days.

Thanks for your support and friendship.

Getting closer

I hope to get back to blogging more regularly soon. A few quick observations in the meantime:

• If you haven't read Tyler Dunne's longform evisceration of the Packers, you should. Especially if you are a Packers fan. It's brutal, but Dunne is credible and the only way forward for this franchise and its fans is to understand the past.
• There's been a lot of buzz about Pete Buttigieg, who at first glance appears to be freshest fresh face among the approximately 7,492 Democrats currently running for president. But is Mayor Pete any good at his current job, which is mayor of South Bend, Indiana? Daniel Greenfield takes a look and you should, too.
• I've removed a few links from the sidebar. In most cases, they are sites I can no longer in good conscience recommend.

Thanks for your continued support of this feature. I do appreciate it!

Housekeeping

A few things:

• I turned off commenting on a thread that seems to have gotten out of control. I've never done this before, but it seemed appropriate. I have not deleted any of the comments, although I always reserve the right to blow away comments that don't meet our minimal standards.
• What are the minimal standards? Don't be racist, don't be ad hominem, and don't threaten anyone.
• Remember, everyone who is a listed contributor to this blog is a member of my immediate family. We're nice people, we really are, but don't crap in our cornflakes.
• I also made this blog secure (no more http, it's https). I should have done that a long time ago. The change should not change the functionality of the blog and if you have a blog of your own (and many of you do) and link to this feature, those links should still work.
• As far as I can tell, there's not easy way to block abusive commenters on the Blogger platform, although I have a question in to tech support about it. The good news is that, although this blog began over 13 years ago, it's not been necessary to do it. I do have pretty good spam filters, so that's rarely an issue. I will find out how to do it, however.

I appreciate your support and loyalty to this enterprise, and your friendship.

Housekeeping

Changed up the background a bit. Always want to keep it reasonably fresh. May do some more tinkering on the edges in the coming days. Hope you like it.

Housekeeping

It's early January, so I am playing with the format of the blog a bit. Will continue to pick at it all weekend, I would guess. Most of the changes will be cosmetic this time. More to come.

Housekeeping

I did a little pruning of the blog roll, trying to get rid of blogs that no longer exist or that I can no longer recommend. While it's sad to see that some stalwarts are no longer with us, there's no point in maintaining a portal that leads nowhere, or to a place not worth going.

Milestone

There are now 5,501 posts on this blog, counting this one. Thanks for reading!

It's been busy, so. . .

. . . blogging hasn't been so great the past week or two. I'm still trying to figure out how best to approach the world in the era of Trump, but the lack of content around here is more a function of being busy and fighting off the usual winter maladies. More to come, really.

Housekeeping

I don't have many rules for this feature, but one rule always obtains -- don't use racial or ethnic slurs. I will delete comments that use them. I may repost the rest of the comment, minus the slur, if I think it adds to the discussion, but I may just delete the comment entirely.

Thank you.

Housekeeping

Just a layout change and updates to the Dead Pool. Didn't feel the need for major surgery on this thing just yet. Still mulling over the larger purpose of what I do, however, so we'll see. Much will depend on just how entertaining the circus in Washington gets. As always, I thank you for your support!

Housekeeping

A few tweaks to the blog, including adding a label list and a statement of purpose. Ideally, it should be easier to navigate now.

Housekeeping

A minor change, but one that I think is needed. I have eliminated anonymous commenting. Nearly everyone who comments here has either a Google account or uses the OpenID feature already, so I don't see any compelling reason to have anonymous commenting. While I welcome visitors and encourage comments on the blog, the anonymous commenters here don't add much to the discussion -- in fact, it seems to be more of a poop and run sort of scenario most times. If you use OpenID, you can comment without any trouble, but we can actually address what you're saying without having to chase ghosts.

Light posting

There are some bad bugs going around town these days and I seem to have one, so posting will likely remain shortish for the next few days.

Housekeeping

A few tweaks to the appearance of the blog -- I typically like to change things up at the beginning of the year. I'll probably be playing with things a bit more in the coming days. Sometimes it's the right thing to do.

Also, fear not -- Benster and D will be up in the morning.

Light posting for the next few days

Real life intervenes, as it often does. Benster should be stopping by for picks later, though. If you're so inclined, you can still get into the 2016 Dead Pool if you enter by the end of the day tomorrow. Details here.

Light posting this week

We're gonna be busy, so you may not see much from this corner for the next few days. Hoping to have more later in the week, including the season debut of Benster and D.

Housekeeping

I should have been doing this all along, but after 9 1/2 years (!) it's about time I start making this feature a little easier to search. I will be putting labels on posts going forward and I'm also going to start going back through the archives to add labels to old posts. Counting this post, we have 4,638 active posts on this blog, so it's going to take time to get this project done. In the end, it should be worth it.