Year Five (and this blog) in the Can (almost)

Today is the fifth anniversary of the beginning of this blog.

I'm normally a fan of writing entries in advance, but I put off writing this one until today because I didn't know quite what to say.

Other than, "goodbye," maybe.

Sort of.

You see, I no longer work in a library. It has therefore been pointed out to me, seemingly by more than one person, that perhaps another venue would be more appropriate to the continuation of the sort of tales I've been telling lately. My initial attitude toward this idea was to give it the finger on the premise that it's my blog which I may use to write about whatever I please regardless of how little sense it might make to the average observer. And as much as I still fully support that attitude on my part, I also have to concede that the opposing view does have a point. There is something to be said for bringing one story to a close before spinning off into something smaller with a few of the same characters. Granted, this almost never works in TV, where for every Frasier there are fifty Tortellis. (Unless, of course, you're producer Norman Lear in the `70s, who wound up having successful spin-offs of successful spin-offs of All in the Family.) It works better in comic books, where series end and new #1 issues begin all the time. In other words, I think it’s probably a good thing to give Tales from the “Liberry” a bit of closure and let it be its own boxed set (or glossy hardcover collection) before starting something new.

I have no illusions [p----------------nmm ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
kkkkkkkk,

(Sorry. Walked away from the keyboard for a bit and Avie seems to have trod on it.)

As I was saying, I have no illusions that all of my regular readers will find my non-"liberry" observations as entertaining. Lord knows I didn’t read most of the spin-offs of the library blogs that closed up shop during my five years in the business and lord knows my stats have dropped off since I stopped posting new material daily here (or, since I stopped posting about my job, depending on your point of view). But if you've stuck around since my retirement as a "liberry" ninja, and if you like reading about occasional encounters with assholes in the wild or the antics of circus animals like the one who sat on my keyboard a few minutes ago, you’ll like the new place, too.

There are a lot of people I’d like to thank before I go, many of whom are present in the sidebar links, but some of whom have moved on. I'd like to first thank Tiny Robot (a.k.a. “T," formerly of the late lamented blog Poocakes, currently of Hermes’ Neuticles and the Chronicles of Bleh), Sonny Lemmons, (currently of Through the Windshield, which was formerly Chase the Kangaroo) and Glen (who never had a blog when he worked in a library, but who really really should have cause his tales were better than mine, and who has just embarked on a massive new adventure by knocking up his wife). Those three more than anyone originally inspired me to take up the blogger's pen, though I believe at least one of them said something about there being money in it, which I haven't found to be the case. I'd also like to thank some of my colleagues who've especially kept me entertained over the past five years: Tiny Librarian ("liberrian" of the Great White North), Foxy Librarian (whose work I've always enjoyed and who I've failed to congratulate on her recent edition/addition (heh, see, that's a book/baby joke for ya)), Tangognat (who works constantly to keep comics a part of the library), Bizgirl (or, I should say, James--who fooled us us all, did it with style, and whose link to me got this blog a mention in a New Zealand newspaper), Daisy (a former co-worker of Glen's who, as far as I know, has left the library blogosphere, though not libraries), and a fond farewell to Happy Villain, whose spin-off blogs I do continue to read.

I'd also like to thank YOU the loyal readers whose numbers have increased steadily since I started paying attention to that sort of thing. It's been a pleasure to have such an understanding, sympathetic and helpful audience to share my tales with.

The new place, by the by, is called Borderland Tales. (Some other jerk writer already took "Tales from the Borderland.")

Before I shake the exit stick, though, I do have one last very short Tale from the "Liberry" left to tell. Which, naturally, means one last...

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Year Four in the Can

Today is the fourth anniversary of the beginning of this blog.

Wow. Four years of "liberry" goodness. Who'da thunk it? I figured I would have gotten bored with it long before now, but so far I've not.

Lemme just say, I couldn't have done it without my crazy patrons, so to them I say "Thanks." Their crazy antics and annoying ideosyncracies have given me ample material to cover and recover

Also, I probably wouldn't have kept this blog going without you the audience being there. You're not an enormous crowd by the usual "innanet" standards (meaning, I don't have the kind of numbers most folks would be interested in advertising to) but from the stats I've seen you're a very faithful and regular bunch--and ever-increasing! The numbers have steadily climbed as the years have gone by, which warms me greatly. Even the wife has come around to viewing it as not a complete waste of time, particularly since so many of her coworkers are now fans of it because she can't keep her mouth shut about it no matter how many times I keep telling her this is supposed to be strictly on the Q.T! (But, I'm glad to have them too!)

Suffice it to write, I'm quite happy everyone is here and I hope to keep you on a bit further.

Which brings me to my next point...

Even after four years of this, I'm not yet ready to give up. I've learned a great deal about the blogging game along the way and feel like I've got this machine firmly within my control. There are still implications and secrets yet to be revealed and I'm certain I can keep chunking up quality posts for a while yet... oh, let's say at least the next seven months, or so.

At least.

Could be longer.

We'll all have to wait and see.

Fine Free Late Arrivals

A couple weeks back, the wife announced that she knew what she was going to get me for my birthday.

"But I don't think it will get here by your birthday," she added. "Do you want to know what it is?"

"No," I said. "I want to be surprised." For you see, unlike SOME PEOPLE, I don't feel the need to pester my loved ones for hints as to what my presents are until they accidentally let something slip or allow a stay psychic impulse to float into the air where I can catch it and ruin their day by guessing my present.

So she let it go... for the moment. But did warn me that I was not allowed to go to our bank's website and snoop, for the charge would soon be appearing there. Uh huh, I thought.

On last Saturday, the day before my birthday on which we went out for my birthday dinner, the wife reminded me that while she had a card picked out, she did not yet have my gift. "It will be here Thursday," she said. "Do you want to know what it is?"

"No."

"Do you want a hint?"

"No. I don't want to guess it and make you mad that I ruined the surprise."

"You'll never guess it," she said, tauntingly.

"That's right," I said. And then demonstrated this by not guessing at all.

On the day of my birthday, she again began plying me for guesses.

"C'mon! What do you think it is?"

"No, I don't want to guess and spoil it!"

"You're never gonna guess. You would never expect this."

"Okay, so give me a hint," I said.

She was reluctant at first to even hint, but when I pointed out that I always give her hints (and she always winds up guessing anyway even though my hints are immaculate), she relented.

"It's classy," she said. "But you'll just use it for nerdness."

Well, that was no good, cause that could be said about a great many things. But it was a start. So I asked if it was something we both could use.

"Yeah," she said, though there was something in her voice that made me thing Not so much.

"Is it an item of clothing?"

"No."

I thought some more and then started putting the pieces of the puzzle I did have together. Whatever it was would probably be from a specialty store that is instantly recognizable for a single type of product; cause if it was from Amazon or eBay or an other online store, it wouldn't matter if I saw it on our bank site because just seeing the online shop's title wouldn't give away
what it was. I told this to the wife.

"No, it could still give it away," she said. After all, if it was through eBay, our PayPal payment could be listed as having been made to an online retailer, such as WhoNA, purveyor of all things nerdy and Doctor Who-related. Did she get me a Tardis cookie jar? Nah, she'd never think that was classy. (Plus it would compete for counter space with my Darth Vader-head cookie jar.)

She pestered me for more guesses as to the actual identity of the item and I gave her a few, but still she wanted one last one.

And suddenly, out of thin air, I knew what it was. It was an item from a specialized company, the very name of which is recognizable for a similar line of products that speak of both class and quality. It was something I would not have otherwise expected. It was something I would use for nerding. All the clues added up and the sum was a certainty.

"I know what it is," I said. Oh, I should have kept my mouth shut.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I can't tell you. It will ruin it."

"No. Go ahead."

I steeled myself and said, "You got me Bose headphones."

There was a long pause before she said, "I'll never tell."

I explained to her my deductions on it, noting that I had, just two weeks back, mentioned that I thought I would soon be needing a new pair of headphones as I'd accidentally dipped the right earphone of my Zen Vision's pair into the water fountain at the gym and it just hadn't sounded right since. I must have even subconsciously suspected headphones might be involved, because I nearly bought a pair of new phones while in the mall the night before, but put them back at the last second, fearing I might spoil something.

The wife continued to ply me for hints and guesses afterward, but I was pretty sure she was only doing so in order to conceal that I'd nailed it.

Yesterday, upon my arrival home from work, she presented me with a gift bag in which I found a new pair of Bose in-ear headphones. They're spectacular! The sound is just everything I'd hoped for in a headphone. They fit quite comfortably in my ears and the sound seems to be coming from somewhere in the center of my cranium.

"Do you love them?" the wife asked.

"I haven't known them long enough to love them," I said. "But I think I might be in lust."

One score and fifteen years ago...

I turned 35 over the weekend. The wife and I celebrated by leaving Tri-Metro and driving to a larger town equipped with an Outback, where we feasted on Aussie Fries, steaks, and a giant can of Fosters. It was great.

At the end of the meal, our waitress came over and asked if we were too full for dessert. I looked to the wife to see if she was going to give me the excuse necessary to order something wicked involving fried apples, but she just shrugged and said, "It's your birthday, do what you want."

"Oh, it's your birthday?" the waitress asked.

"Er... yeah," I said reluctantly. I'd not intended for the waitress to learn it was my birthday. Giving out knowledge such as that to wait staff is a dangerous thing in my book because it often leads to loud singing of specialized restaurant celebratory songs by entire flocks of them. Sure, it might net me a free dessert of some sort, but it really isn't worth it to have to sit through something like that. It's not that I'm embarrassed of the attention; I simply HATE loud interruptions of any kind when I'm trying to dine peacefully and find these kinds of stupid "customer friendly" displays unbearable when directed at anyone, but especially at me. Nothing burns me more than sitting down to a nice quiet meal only to have it interrupted by multiple choruses of "It's your BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY and we're here to celeBRATE! So on your BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY here's a f**king piece of CAKE!" (I say multiple choruses, because it's never just one; if some jackass has a birthday and gets that treatment, suddenly there are at least two more that have to have it too.)

So I sat there and awaited the onslaught of obnoxiousness.

A few minutes later, our waitress returned alone and placed an envelope on the table.

"Happy birthday" she said quietly.

I opened the envelope to find it was a simple Outback birthday card signed by the entire wait staff, wishing me a happy birthday. No song, no fuss, and no clutching of conveniently-large steak-knives necessary. Okay, there wasn't a gift certificate in there like I'd hoped, but in effect the card itself was a gift certificate. It was a "Get-out-of-Hellacious-Song-Free" card.

When the waitress returned with the check we told her that we greatly appreciated the card as opposed to the usual song. She said that it was a new policy instituted only a few weeks ago. If I'd not had the good fortune to be born so late in the summer, I might not have escaped unscathed.

So, in addition to fantastic steaks and cheesy bacony fried potatoes, Outback now makes my Christmas card list for ditching the woefully unnecessary choral numbers. Thank you sirs and madams of the Outback management for your wisdom.

One Thousand in the Can

This is the 1000th post of...

Actually, that milestone was probably passed some time back, due to the number of posts I've either deleted, drafted but decided not to post, posted then returned to draft form or have drafted but have yet to post. However, it's as good an estimate as any, I suppose, and is in the ballpark of accurate, so I'm calling this the 1000th.

Volume 2 begins shortly.

That is all.

Year Three in the Can

Today is the third anniversary of the beginning of this blog.

Whoo, and might I add, hoo.

One Day in Tibet

Saturday my wife and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.

Being as how it’s our 5th Anniversary, I’ve wanted to do something special for it for a while now, but hadn’t been real proactive toward actually planning anything until last week. Oh, sure, I’d been pestering the wife for weeks as to what she wanted to do for it, but she seemed very non-committal, which told me that the ball was firmly in my court and it was my turn to plan something good.

A couple of years back, I’d hatched a plan to spend our 5th anniversary in the cabin we rented in Gatlinburg for our honeymoon. However, I’ve somehow failed to become spectacularly wealthy in the intervening time since then, so that was out for this year. I knew we would at least go out to dinner and I would at least get her a dozen roses and a card, but it seemed like there needed to be something extra on there too. Something special. Something unique. After all, I was celebrating having spent five of the best years of my life with a woman who has come up with some very nice and well thought-out anniversary presents for me in the past. 

While lamenting about this topic at the library last week, I happened to say, "Well, I guess we could just drive to BIGGER CITY and eat Indian food, if nothing else."

"Oh, if you're coming to BIGGER CITY, you should come see the Tibetan Monks too," Mrs. B said.

"Do what?"

Mrs. B explained that a group of Tibetan Monks were going to be appearing at her daughter’s college in BIGGER CITY. In fact, her daughter had been in charge of booking the monks' appearance and was terrified that no one was going to come see them. Mrs. B and her family were going to go over to help fill seats. This struck me as something that the wife might really want to see. After all, if you’ve got Tibetan Monks on site, there’s gonna be some tri-tonal throat-singing going on too and that stuff is just amazing.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, tri-tonal throat singing is a process many Tibetan Monks have mastered whereby they are able to sing in a very low vocal range and have such control over their vocal muscles that they can actually sing in three separate tones at once. (Janice Joplin only managed two!) They can thereby sing in musical chords all by themselves. You get a bunch of monks chanting in tri-tones in unison and it can be mighty impressive.

Now, I know that Going to See Tibetan Monks probably doesn’t sound like anything cool or romantic to you guys, and perhaps it’s not. But I knew it would certainly be memorable, unique and pretty much on theme for us. I also knew the wife would enjoy it. That decided, I alerted her to the fact that I had something in the works for Saturday evening, though I would not be telling her ANYTHING about it so she wouldn’t have any chance of guessing it ahead of time and spoiling the surprise, as in accordance with tradition. Of course, she pestered me until I told her that my plan involved a drive to BIGGER CITY, which was just enough to get her imagination really going.

The wife had asked off for half a day from her Saturday family practice rotation in Town-R, so it looked like we'd be right on schedule to leave. My master plan was to leave the house at 2 p.m., pick her up some roses and a card at the local flower shop, hide those in the trunk, meet her at Wal-Mart by 3 p.m., hit the road for the 2 hour drive to BIGGER CITY, eat massive amounts of Indian food at our favorite Indian food restaurant where I would also surprise her with the roses and the card, then pop on over to the university for some Tibetan Monk throat-singing action.

So confident was I in my plan that I spent most of the morning messing around with this stupid blog, and not out buying flowers, and thus I was completely caught unawares when she phoned me at 12:30 to say she was on her way home early.

Town-R is 40 minutes away from our house in Town-C. Assuming she was calling from Town-R and not at the bottom of the hill in Town-C, that meant I now only had maybe half an hour, forty minutes at the most, to go get flowers and a card and get back to the house before she did. The local flower shop in Town-A was too far away to risk it, so I would have to get them closer to home. I slapped on some clothes and hauled ass for Town-B's Kroger.

The deep red roses in Kroger's floral department left much to be desired in terms of everything but price. You could choose to buy them at either $3.99 a piece or 12 for $19.99. Unfortunately, they were kinda ratty-looking roses whose petals had started to blacken, so I really didn't want them even at that price. They did, however, have some bright pink roses that looked and smelled nice so I went with those. Miracle upon miracles, I was also able to find a great card that said exactly what I felt in under 5 minutes. That only left braving the checkout lines, which at that time on a Saturday, were packed. The express lane was especially lengthy, so I tried one of the others before realizing I was just about to break in line in front of a lady with a brimming cart and hot-pink hair that nearly matched my roses.

"Whoever she is, she'll love them," the pink-haired lady said.

"I hope so," I said, stepping into another line.

Kroger took a lot longer than I'd planned, but I managed to get back home a full eight minutes before the wife did. I had just enough time to get the roses in a vase, prepare the card and place it all for maximum presentation when she walked through the door. And, indeed, she loved them.

We hit the road shortly after 2 and made the drive to BIGGER CITY. It's a gorgeous drive to make on any day, but with the sun shining for the first time in weeks, and it being my anniversary and all, it was especially lovely.

Of course, the whole way to BIGGER CITY I was under constant interrogation from the wife as to what our plans were for the evening. She sussed out the Indian food right away, but she pretty much knew that was in the cards. Since leaving all our favorite Indian restaurants behind when we left Charlotte nearly 4 years ago, we've sought out any and all such establishments in the region and always make it a point to stop by our favorite in downtown BIGGER CITY whenever we're in the area. Beyond that, I did give her a few hints. I wanted her to know up front that it was NOT something that the average Joe on the street would consider particularly romantic or worthy of a 5th Anniversary celebration, but that it would be a similar unique foreign cultural horizon-widening musical experience as she gave me two years back when she got us tickets to Ladysmith Black Mambazo and refused to tell me who we were going to go see. 

"Is it African?"

"No."

"Indian?"

"Not directly, but there is a link there."

"Nora Jones?"

"No. That would be cool, but it's not Nora Jones."

"Is it dancing?"

"I don't know. Dancing might be involved."

"Is it colorful?"

"Yes. Yes it will be colorful. Kind of a yellowish orange color."

"Is it a tiger?"

"No."

"What country is involved."

"I can't tell you that. It would give it away immediately."

"You left to go get flowers just after I called, didn't you?"

D'oh!

"Well, yeah," I said. "What am I supposed to do when you call and throw my master plan higgledy piggledy?"

This sort of questioning went on for quite a while, punctuated by attempts on my part to change the subject. She kept pestering me for more and better hints. She eventually began a laundry list of foreign countries in an attempt to lure me into confirming or denying each.

"I'm not gonna do that," I said. "However, I will say that it is another country in Asia."

And this is what tipped it.

"Hmm. Asian country... Yellowish orange... Not a tiger..." she mused. "Ah! I got it. Tibet!  We're going to see Tibtan monks?"

"Yep," I said. I wasn't even angry about it. Ever since our birthday present guessing game last October, I've decided that if it gives my wife greater joy to guess what her present is when I'm trying to keep it a secret--and it always does--then that's okay by me.

"Are they going to throat sing?" she asked.

"That's the plan," I said.

She seemed suitably pleased at this.

Having left far earlier than I'd planned, we arrived in BIGGER CITY far earlier than I'd planned and had to figure out stuff to do for a while until it was time for dinner. We contented ourselves with finding the theatre building on the campus where we would be seeing the monks later, then drove around town looking for Honda dealerships where we might test-drive a Honda Element, her current choice for new car when we get to a place that we might think about buying a new car. We were unsuccessful in finding any Honda dealerships, but we did find one ratty assed comic book store that gave us both the screaming willies and soon after passed by a different one that looked much better. I figured she had probably had enough of comics for one day, though, so we didn't stop.

Around 5, we headed for INDIAN RESTAURANT in downtown BIGGER CITY, our current favorite Indian restaurant. Our meal there was fantastic and everything we could have hoped for. We each got a full order of samosas for an appetizer, (I, frankly, would have been content with just ordering a fat plate of about 10 of those bad boys and calling it an evening, I love them so much), and then ordered our meal. I had the Chicken Korma, which was spectacular and full of crunchy little almondy bits, while the wife had a different chicken dish that I can't recall the name of but which was a good deal hotter than she would have preferred. (It's her own fault, as she's the one who told `em to make it hot.) We shared our dishes with each other, as well as a heaping basket of assorted nan, another favorite of mine.

After dinner, we walked around downtown BIGGER CITY for a half hour or so, seeing the sights. It's is a really nice area full of trendy little restaurants, all of which look wonderful except we're never going to eat at any of them because we'll never not go to the Indian place right there. But we stopped for a bit and watched a sushi chef prepare sushi in the window of one of these little trendy eateries. The wife tried to attract his attention to tell her what a particular odd looking fishy/crustaceany bit was, but he was steadfastly ignoring her. The evening was cool, though not cold, so we had a nice walk before heading over to the college theatre.

I'm glad we got to the college early, cause if we'd arrived at 7:45 like I'd originally planned we might not have gotten a seat. Mrs. B's daughter had been terrified that no one would come to see the Tibetan Monks, but the place was packed. I'd say the crowd was filled with 1/4 students from the college, whose religion professors had probably forced them to attend, 1/4 interested outside parties such as us, and about 2/4's hippies. Not dirty hippies, mind you, as they all seemed pretty clean and well-dressed, but there were certainly a wide variety of granola types present and accounted for. We eavesdropped on the conversations of several, who complained bitterly about how much the local area magazines were charging them for advertising for their New Age crap shops.

At 8, the show got underway.

The monks were represented by a spokesman who came up to a podium to explain to us the various parts of Tibetan monk culture which we would be seeing throughout the evening.

The first demonstration the monks did was to play traditional Tibetan instruments and sing. It was kinda neat and all, but not really what I was there for. Then, for the second demonstration, they brought all the monks out again for some throat singing and things got really good.

While I believe most of the monks throat sang during the demonstration, there was one guy who was obviously the standout throat-singer of the bunch. He had a deep resonant tri-tone that just reached out and grabbed you by the spine and held you pinned in your chair. It didn't sound so much like a voice as it did some sort of big honkin' deep woodwind.

My other favorite bit of the evening was when two monks came out in a two-person snow-leopard costume and gallivanted around the stage like a big clumsy dog. That was crazy funny. There's just something about a big old white and green snow-leopard shaking his head and pretending to sleep and winking at the audience and wiggling his ears that just hits my funny bone.

I won't go into a play by play of the rest of the Tibetan demonstrations, but they were definitely interesting.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening. My only real regret is that we didn't find a hotel room for the night instead of driving all the way back. We were both pretty tuckered by the end of it.

Five years of marriage has passed by pretty quickly. We've had our ups and downs, of course, but mostly it's been ups. I can't really express how amazing I think she is. Sure, she's mean as a snake when she wants to be, and has occasional flashes of a dark sense of humor, which is part of the reason I was attracted to her in the first place, but she's still one of the best human beings I've ever known. I'm eternally grateful that we met seven years ago and that I had the good sense to see how amazing she was even then, and that I got off my ass to tell her how I felt.

That's a nice story for another time, though.

Year One in the Can

Today is the first anniversary of the beginning of this blog.

Looking back at my very first entry, I note that I said I'd give it a month and see how it goes. Well, it went. And how! Doesn't even seem like it's been a whole year since I wrote those words.

Turns out those early fears about not having enough material to sustain a blog were quite unfounded. I probably could have done at least half a year's worth of posts on the Rogues Gallery alone. (Actually, I'm guessing I already have.) However, the day-to-day crazy that goes on around here has been a blessed fount of inspiration that doesn't seem to be going dry yet. Which is a good thing, cause I was a bit concerned there for a while.

Library blogs (blogs in general, I'm sure) seem to have a limited shelf-life. Granted, the genre isn't very old as such things go, but three of the big ones from my perspective--Liberry Blooze, Male Librarian Centerfold and Aaron is Not Amused--closed up shop, went into archive mode or otherwise changed their mission statement within the past year. Made me wonder if there was some sort of inherent half-life to the prospect of library blogging. Sure, I know I won't be doing this forever and may one day get sick of it and shake the exit stick myself, but I somehow don't think it will be because I've exhausted my material. After all, crazy is forever. More likely, when that day comes and I do unlock the after hours drop box for the final time, I'll have moved on to something else entirely and will likely begin chronicling it.

Writing this blog has been a very rewarding experience both personally and creatively. I've said it before and I'll say it again, my only regret with it is that I didn't start it sooner. I should have started it from day one on the job, or better still, in August of 2001, the month before I got the job, shortly after we moved to the Tri-Metro area. Hell, nearly every job I've had in the past ten years has been blog-worthy as far as sheer drama goes. (I really really should have been blogging when I worked in Charlotte, NC, at a music store called Repo Records. I even considered it and was going to call it the Repo-Man Diaries. That would have been an amazing blog, cause the customers that store attracted were easily as astounding or more than the ones here. Plus, there was that whole bit of drama after the store was held up at gunpoint twice in one month, prompting me to seek employment elsewhere as my life is worth more to me than $6 per hour.)

The best surprise of all, though--something I had not even considered when I started this thing--is that I’m not alone. There are loads of other folks plowing the “liberry” field and doing it quite well. As an addict of serial storytelling, I subscribe to many of them. And it’s great to see the experiences of people who frankly have it a lot worse off than me as far as stress and hassles go. I've corresponded with quite a number of such colleagues whose work I admire. (Okay, so some of them turned out to be men posing as women, but whatever. Still good stuff.) My wife has even grudgingly begun to see this blog as not quite the huge waste of time she once thought it was. She still doesn’t read it, but she likes the bits I read to her on occasion.

I guess my only other regret is that according to the stats I've written over 200,000 words since November 18 of 2003. That's a lot of output and I'm proud of most of it. However, if I’d put the kind of time and effort into my fiction as I do in my non-fiction, I’d be quite a bit more prollific. As it stands, my lengthiest work of fiction is just over 200,000 words, is yet unfinished and has taken me 12 years to achieve. Almost makes me want to cry. Or get off my ass.

I have to say, I still like my job. The way things seem to be working out, it looks like I’ll be around this place for a while yet. So I guess I’ll give this whole blogging thing another year and see how it goes. And maybe by next year, I'll have finally gotten around to revealing the secret identity of Ron the Ripper.