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captainsblogSince I've added more than a few Friends in recent weeks, and been added by some as well, it seemed a good time to do a quick getting-to-know-us kinda post about this blog, some others, and about the lives behind the curtain.
If you're one of those everyday kinda people who don't need that sort of background,....
Oh. You're still here. Welcome.
This blog is careening wildly toward its seventh anniversary, and, if I manage the karma about as well as I did a few other years, that will also be more-or-less the day I post my 3,500th entry on it. For most of the past few years, I've kept up well over a post-a-day average, and I haven't missed one yet in 2011. They range from the personal to the political to the occasionally ranty.
I'm 51, almost exactly half of that span having been spent as a bankruptcy-and-similar stuff lawyer in Western New York State. The first third of my life was spent on Lawn Guyland; the most recent third, here in and around Buffalo; and the middle years were divided among here (for law school), Ithaca (for my English degree) and Rochester. There, I took my first job, met the love of my life Eleanor (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
plantmom in these parts), and, with the even greater assistance of said spouse, brought an amazing daughter into the world; Emily is now in Rochester herself, finishing her first year at RIT.
The other main characters you'll read about here are of the four-legged variety. There are currently three cats (Tazzer, the old man of the bunch, is almost 12; Michelle the middle child around 8, and Zoey, she of the icon, pushing terrible two-ness); the dogs are both lab mixes (Tasha, about to turn 11, Ebony just turned 8); all of them are adoptees from various pounds and SPCA organizations, they all live on in relative harmony, and keep this place from being an empty nest.
You'll quickly pick up my politics (left-leaning, but with a healthy dose of skepticism of party lines and leaders); religion (a devout United Methodist, if there is such a thing, but tolerant of anything and everything else); and fandoms (seasonal, with Doctor Who and Dexter sadly in hibernation, Nurse Jackie about to come out of hers, and old standbys from Serenity to Star Trek always there). I am also a regular reader and plugger of things I read; I keep a running tally of my year's books read on the right sidebar, and am now a credited editor at the wondrous world of Candlemark and Gleam, run by one of our wondrousest Friends here. (From that, and about 200 other clues, you can probably figure out my full name, but I never fully reveal it here, so as to keep the bots away from it. If you ever want to know, just ask, but the answer will be in an email or a screened comment.)
As for this blog itself: most entries are public, but all default to friends-only, which means I make a conscious choice to open each one. I usually do, unless they include references to work, finances or other shizzle I'd rather not have Out There. I firmly insert my foot in my online mouth at least once a month, and will not hesitate to take back the hurtful or the stupid if I am called out on it. I'm also on Facebook, and occasionally link entries here to there, but never automatically. Once in awhile, I'll embed a statcounter in an entry, just to see if any new lurkers are out there; I may reference someone's appearance, or an odd name of their server, location or filter's name, but never by name or otherwise blatantly identifiable.
I have two other blogging efforts in various stages of rigor mortis. One is Metphistopheles, one of a couple dozen fan blogs devoted to the New York Mets, who I've been following for over 40 years. I don't post to it much in the off-season, but come spring and summer, depending on my life and theirs, it can get pretty busy. I also had a mad ambition last summer to do a Boston-to-Seattle roadtrip along I-90, stopping in every one of a dozen major league ballparks on or near that route. A late-July flurry of emergency bankruptcy filings canceled the effort, but at least one encouraging reader still thinks I'm gonna do it. My mom was from Brooklyn, where the motto was always "Wait till next year!"
The other one bears the same name as this one, only on Dreamwidth; that's been mostly dead for months, but it had been, and soon again will be, chronicling a serious effort on my part to get into better shape. Since I started this in earnest (actually, I started it in a liquor store, owned by Neil, not Ernest;), I've lost something pretty close to 30 pounds, have meaningfully rearranged the 260 or so that I still gots, and am hanging in there in a "Biggest Loser" kinda kompetition at the gym where all this has happened. If you're over there, readinglist me (they don't call it being friends).
But I do. Although I've maybe met 10 people IRL from this site who I didn't know beforehand (and that counts a few of a lunch-hour or less apiece), your words, thoughts and actions are among the best I've ever encountered, and there's nothing I would not do for any of you. Within reason.
So. If that brings out a Friending (or, I suppose, a defriending from someone who thought I was someone completely different), there ya go:)
If you're one of those everyday kinda people who don't need that sort of background,....
Oh. You're still here. Welcome.
This blog is careening wildly toward its seventh anniversary, and, if I manage the karma about as well as I did a few other years, that will also be more-or-less the day I post my 3,500th entry on it. For most of the past few years, I've kept up well over a post-a-day average, and I haven't missed one yet in 2011. They range from the personal to the political to the occasionally ranty.
I'm 51, almost exactly half of that span having been spent as a bankruptcy-and-similar stuff lawyer in Western New York State. The first third of my life was spent on Lawn Guyland; the most recent third, here in and around Buffalo; and the middle years were divided among here (for law school), Ithaca (for my English degree) and Rochester. There, I took my first job, met the love of my life Eleanor (
plantmom in these parts), and, with the even greater assistance of said spouse, brought an amazing daughter into the world; Emily is now in Rochester herself, finishing her first year at RIT.The other main characters you'll read about here are of the four-legged variety. There are currently three cats (Tazzer, the old man of the bunch, is almost 12; Michelle the middle child around 8, and Zoey, she of the icon, pushing terrible two-ness); the dogs are both lab mixes (Tasha, about to turn 11, Ebony just turned 8); all of them are adoptees from various pounds and SPCA organizations, they all live on in relative harmony, and keep this place from being an empty nest.
You'll quickly pick up my politics (left-leaning, but with a healthy dose of skepticism of party lines and leaders); religion (a devout United Methodist, if there is such a thing, but tolerant of anything and everything else); and fandoms (seasonal, with Doctor Who and Dexter sadly in hibernation, Nurse Jackie about to come out of hers, and old standbys from Serenity to Star Trek always there). I am also a regular reader and plugger of things I read; I keep a running tally of my year's books read on the right sidebar, and am now a credited editor at the wondrous world of Candlemark and Gleam, run by one of our wondrousest Friends here. (From that, and about 200 other clues, you can probably figure out my full name, but I never fully reveal it here, so as to keep the bots away from it. If you ever want to know, just ask, but the answer will be in an email or a screened comment.)
As for this blog itself: most entries are public, but all default to friends-only, which means I make a conscious choice to open each one. I usually do, unless they include references to work, finances or other shizzle I'd rather not have Out There. I firmly insert my foot in my online mouth at least once a month, and will not hesitate to take back the hurtful or the stupid if I am called out on it. I'm also on Facebook, and occasionally link entries here to there, but never automatically. Once in awhile, I'll embed a statcounter in an entry, just to see if any new lurkers are out there; I may reference someone's appearance, or an odd name of their server, location or filter's name, but never by name or otherwise blatantly identifiable.
I have two other blogging efforts in various stages of rigor mortis. One is Metphistopheles, one of a couple dozen fan blogs devoted to the New York Mets, who I've been following for over 40 years. I don't post to it much in the off-season, but come spring and summer, depending on my life and theirs, it can get pretty busy. I also had a mad ambition last summer to do a Boston-to-Seattle roadtrip along I-90, stopping in every one of a dozen major league ballparks on or near that route. A late-July flurry of emergency bankruptcy filings canceled the effort, but at least one encouraging reader still thinks I'm gonna do it. My mom was from Brooklyn, where the motto was always "Wait till next year!"
The other one bears the same name as this one, only on Dreamwidth; that's been mostly dead for months, but it had been, and soon again will be, chronicling a serious effort on my part to get into better shape. Since I started this in earnest (actually, I started it in a liquor store, owned by Neil, not Ernest;), I've lost something pretty close to 30 pounds, have meaningfully rearranged the 260 or so that I still gots, and am hanging in there in a "Biggest Loser" kinda kompetition at the gym where all this has happened. If you're over there, readinglist me (they don't call it being friends).
But I do. Although I've maybe met 10 people IRL from this site who I didn't know beforehand (and that counts a few of a lunch-hour or less apiece), your words, thoughts and actions are among the best I've ever encountered, and there's nothing I would not do for any of you. Within reason.
So. If that brings out a Friending (or, I suppose, a defriending from someone who thought I was someone completely different), there ya go:)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-13 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-13 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-13 10:54 pm (UTC)Sad to say, though, I have to introduce myself to you by way of an obituary:
Rick Martin, part of French Connection, dies at 59 (http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/sabres-nhl/article366076.ece)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-13 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-13 11:19 pm (UTC)I'm not from the area - I grew up in NYC and live in SC now - but Steven is from Bradford, PA and grew up listening to Ted Darling give the play-by-play on his little transistor radio.
We're headed into Raleigh in a few weeks for the next Sabres-Canes game.