Jeez, this place looks bleak.
Seeing nothing here and being wise to my techno-incompetence, my buddy Sluggo sent me an e-mail questioning whether I had been fooling around with Mr. Template and, in so doing, managed to nuke the site. He may be wise to my techno-stupidity, but he’s not completely hip to my utter lack of courage when it comes to fooling around with Mr. Template. I plan even teeny changes to Mr. Template with the care that went into the preparations for the Normandy Invasion. What happened was that, upon my return from spending a week in the Land of Booze Sun and Fun, I was again reminded that this place is set up to show a calendar week’s worth of stuff, and each post automatically electro-zaps into the archives after seven days of screen time. Hence, the sorry-assed looking site.
So, with that, I figured I ought to toss something up on the blog to make sure it still sticks.
Da Vacation. It was most excellent being in sunny Southwest Florida, particularly since last week in New Jersey the weather was chilly and rainy. We got through Newark Airport without a hitch, and when we arrived at Fort Myers, four of the Usual Suspects, who had spent some time in St. Petersburg the previous week, were there to meet us and to begin the annual hepatic and digestive system assault. Our old pal in the liquor store damned near jumped for joy when we descended on the place like thirsty lab rats, flush with money for spirits. Upon our arrival at Grownup Camp, we immediately created an elegant rolling bar, which I hope to be able to provide pictures of in the next few days.
We were greeted by our pals who every year also choose that week to attend “Camp,†from places such as “The Great City of Fort Wayne, Indiana,†Chattanooga, Tennessee, Rome New York, Longview, Washington, Shelbyville, Illinois, and Ashtabula, Ohio. As strange as it seems, over the last handful of years, they have come to enjoy tolerate the presence of the Jersey Vulgarians. Go figure.
There was plenty of swimming floating about, deep conversation bullshitting, gluttony fine dining, and, of course, cocktails. This year marked the first time I got to do a bit of guitar pickin’, because Usual Suspect Jeff and his spouse, No-Fly Adie, were kind enough to pack my guitar into their car for the mondo drive from Jersey to Florida.
As evidence that the repeated annual exposure of the normal folks to the Usual Suspects is having an effect, during one tune one of the Non-Garden Staters donned his wife’s dress bathing suit cover-up and her hat adorned with red and purple feathers and sashayed up to me to drop his room key into the “Tip Bucket,†which Deb, the Master of Disaster Activities Director had placed at my feet. He looked perfectly stunning, and the room key fit right in with the thirty-five cents and one Dorito that also found its way to the bucket.
I had anticipated that a week away from the blog would result in a wave of creativity. I even brought along a nifty journal to jot down the gems that I was certain would occur to me while resting my cruller. It really didn’t happen. I guess I forgot that my Muse was also on vacation.
That being said, I did have a couple thoughts and observations that I probably will jot down over the next few days, even though I believe that my Muse is still lounging around the damned pool thirteen hundred miles away.
Welcome Home Comment Spam. One thing that Ms. Muse could not have helped me with was the 2,400+ comment spams and one hundred or so trackback spams that greeted me upon my return. Of course each of those generates an e-mail, so I had quit a mess to clean up around here. I tried to be careful in the de-spamming and deleting process, but if you find that your comment failed to appear (they are held pending approval for posts older than 14 days), or if you are receiving a message rejecting your comments, please let me know, and I should be able to fix it, as it does not require fooling around with Mr. Template.
