BZ

What keeps a guy off his blog? Well, these kind of things:

1. Launching a redesigned website at his day job. The really fun part is cleaning up afterwards. It’s not just that things don’t always work as planned. It’s the old links. Once you let a link loose in the world, it takes on a life of its own. Thankfully there’s a neato utility called ISAPI_Rewrite for us saps using IIS that allows us to capture invalid incoming links and convert them on the fly to perfectly good new ones, with users none the wiser and not discomfited in the least. (Apache admins just use mod_Rewrite—or so I hear.)
2. Applying for a job … while launching a redesigned website. As the latter took precedence, the former may have suffered. Oh, let’s be honest: it suffered. In the event, the prospective job seemed less attractive after the second interview, so it was probably all for the best. But it would have been nice if I had spent more time reviewing my own résumé—that question about the “web policies” I’ve created and enforced really did have a good answer, I swear.
3. Driving up to Boston for our kid’s graduation from college. Visited Walden again—this time watching intrepid, or slightly insane, locals in wetsuits swimming the length of the pond at full tilt, and others doing likewise but at a leisurely pace with many pauses for sky-facing flotation. (According to Thoreau, the pond is 0.55 mi long and 102 ft deep at its deepest point. That’s a long way down if you get a cramp!) Also kids wading in the lifeguarded part and small groups, or couples, or loners sitting in the many small alcoves, on the stone slabs leading to the water, some reading, some writing, some drying off after a dip. Quite a contrast with our October visit.
4. Let’s leave out all the petty but compelling details of modern life, like a car that won’t start (or, more precisely, will start but won’t stay started), or neighborhood yardsales-cum-potlucks, or concerted efforts to divest ourselves of stuff on eBay …

Now, these would sound like excuses, and probably lame ones, if I had actually committed myself to entertaining you. But I haven’t, so it’s just an explanation, that’s all, and an excuse for me to stretch my fingers.