Patriot or Piece of Shit?

I’ll take Door Number 2, Monty.

h/t TacJammer

November 27th came and went, and I forgot to note that I posted my first entry three years ago on that date. At that time, I really didn’t know where it would all lead, and I suppose I still don’t. However, I am very pleased about what these three years of blogging have given me.

I have written lots of things, some good, some OK, and, I’m sure, some real stinkers. I like to think that the good and OK ones outweigh the stinkers. I have spent countless hours being entertained and informed by the contributions of other bloggers. In addition, every day I am humbled by the huge amount of writing talent that is out there.

I am thankful to all the peeps from all over the country (and some out of the country) who find this place worthy a few minutes of their valuable time. It is impossible not to be flattered by that.

One of the best things that has come out of this experience is having had the opportunity to meet numerous other bloggers (the folks on “Mr. Blogroll” followed by an asterisk). It is difficult to imagine a more engaging and truly likeable bunch of people.

Again, I must thank my Cousin Jack for turning me on to blogging and Craig for keeping this place up and running. Without his help and patience, this site would not exist.

Looking forward to Year Number Four.

Holiday Christmas gift giving has commenced at Two Nervous Dogs. Day One, the Gift, is definitely not a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

The web connectivity had been spotty for the past ten days or so, which was moderately annoying, but that was about it — annoying. However, when I fired up the site and saw the big “SUSPENDED” screen, I felt like a guy who was arrested, cuffed and photographed doing the “perp walk” into the police station for fingerprinting and mug shots. All of a sudden, things went way beyond annoying.

Craig of mtpolitics (The Nicest Guy in the Blogosphere), who deals with the band of merry men at the hosting service, had already written me a note explaining that he had submitted fix “tickets” (they’re called something like that) to the hosting service, followed by nasty e-mails, all of which were being ignored. Finally, after twenty-four hours or so, he managed to get their attention and speak some serious Geek to them in order to get them to fix things.

As frustrating as the experience was, I was most flattered by the e-mail from folks asking if everything was OK and offering me the keys to their place so I could post any “valuable updations” (Apparently a term of art used by the folks at the hosting service) I might have. A special thanks to Eric for posting the PSA to let everyone know that I was not in Blogger Jail. In the end, the concern and the offers of help were way more gratifying than the outage was annoying.

Thank you all very much.