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| Interior of a library, from Boethius |
I do appreciate the few who actually stop by here daily², but ...
Be back in a day or so, or not. This blogging thing is becoming wearisome.
Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood.
We'll see what a good night's sleep does.
Going on the road Sunday, grandchildren are involved. Might help my morale.
Who knows?
Ciao.
¹ I n a bad mood, maybe ...
² All 90 of you as of 1830 Friday ...
Enjoy those grandkids Sarge and keep an eye out for those other drivers on the trip, driving skills for so many have gone out the window since the Pandemic. Nobody Sarge? We, the few.......the tired....the sore.....(spent yesterday working in the yard and clearing/prepping the garden out)......the bifocaled......read this site every day and give thanks for all the thought and effort put into this blog.........:)
ReplyDeleteHate to say it but the driving skills of your average American, while better than most in the world, were never that great to begin with. In Little Rhody they were really bad. But yes, after covid everyone seemed to get a lot worse. (Caveat, I drove in Germany for seven and a half years, the Germans really do know how to drive. The rest of Europe, worse than us, far worse.)
DeleteI was being really crabby yesterday, all the yard work getting done before traveling didn't help. But the blog reads were WAY down on Friday. The faithful were in attendance (like you) but I guess everyone else was celebrating May Day, or something.
You have to do what's best for you and your family.
ReplyDeleteBut l'm reminded of an anecdote by RA Heinlein. He started writing to pay off his mortgage. Task accomplished, he stopped writing. After about a month he was feeing out of sorts. He mentioned it to one of the circle of friends who were also SiFi writers. "Do you know any retired writers?" the friend asked. "What's that got to do with it?" "Well, you know retired accountants, retired doctors, etc. but no retired writers." "So?" "Once you start writing, it gets in your blood, it's an addiction. We can't NOT write." A few weeks later, he started writing again, suddenly all was good with the world.
I think you're still adjusting to being retired.
Is a writer a writewright?
Yes, this writing thing is addictive, whenever I take time off, I get antsy after a couple of days. Which will be happening in the coming couple of weeks. But as the kids are still in school, I should have some time, provided I have anything to write about.
DeleteI’m here every day! I don’t comment much, true. But I find the military fiction entertaining and educational, and it often prompts me to do more reading.
ReplyDeleteYes, you're one of the faithful, the few, the proud, the Chanters. I do need to get back to the Franco-Prussian War, my creativity stalled out in the face of yardwork!
DeleteMe , too. I don't comment often but this blog is my second stop every morning.
DeleteSecond? Man, I need to up my game. 😉
DeleteAdd JB to the faithful but often silent. I've occasionally submitted some stuff, having a less serious case of writer-compulsion.
DeleteBeing retired (especially after decades of practice) my schedule and commitments (and maybe the pace of accomplishing any of the above) seems to eat up a lot of time.
Safe travels, and that is indeed what you should be doing if you want too.
Running a free ice cream stand is a voluntary pass time. Patrons will delight when they get some, and some might even grump if they get none for a spell. Let them go start their own free ice cream stand.
Lex's "Talk amongst yourselves" was a good soution, at least for him.
John Blackshoe
Good advice, I'll probably be a lurker myself here for a couple of days. My grandkids aren't going to spoil themselves!
DeleteSarge,
ReplyDelete1) Stick forward
2) Ailerons and rudder neutral
3) If not recovered, maintain full forward stick and deploy drag chute.
Out of control Bold Face for “Our” jet, the F-4. Worked to get the Phantom back under control. It’s been my mental mantra to get things back under control when events are spinning out of it. Had to memorize it exactly as printed in the Dash-1. Haven’t forgotten it still.
Translated— Hang in there Sarge. Things will get better. Take some R&R, you’ve earned it!
“juvat out!”
The yardwork was much more enervating than I had anticipated. Put me in a flat spin it did!
DeleteI hope Mr. Heinlin is write, or whatever. However, you and your family come first and we will survive. Trying to track Virgil in the real world. I believe that I did it a few years ago, but I have no notes and no memory. I will keep trying for a while and see what comes up. Mark
ReplyDeleteI am awfully worried about old Virgil. Thanks for chasing that down, Mark!
DeleteMight ask about VX pver amongst the Lexicans.
DeleteJB
There is a backchannel effort underway over there.
DeleteCrusty Old TV Tech here. Been lurking, but rather busy of late both at work and at home. The Powers That Be are requiring all working for a certain employer to re-apply for their existing job with another, so much scrambling for old documents, resume writing, etc. has been happening here. To top it all off, I wished to post a comment a few days ago, and got the "thy post, it has not been made so!" message multiple times...hopefully this gets through. Juvat's Dash-1 recovery technique seems like a good place to start. And, I was loving the Franco-Prussian War story. That was a conflict that basically laid the foundation for WW1 and WWII (not WW Eleven...), you found an interesting way to tell the story, retroactively.
ReplyDeleteLol, World War Eleven ... She is really something isn't she, and not in a good way.
DeleteYour "The Powers That Be" sound like a real piece of work, re-apply for the job you already have, I have heard of such nonsense. Probably the CEO's idiot brother-in-law deleted all the existing files. I've seen that happen!
Long time visitor, almost never comment, but you are a daily read and are much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dave. I do rely on the hard core Chanters for my morale. I can count on the Old Guard, I also need to stop looking at Blogger's statistics, I know they're way off and horrible but still ...
DeleteNice avatar, love the BUFF!
Have a Snickers
ReplyDelete🤣🤣🤣
DeleteSarge - I feel your pain. If I look at my daily "numbers", they are about the same (versus what The Lords Of Google say, where I am in the hundreds of thousands every month now). And I cannot write a solid post in less than 30 minutes (plus editing), so it sometimes feels like "just one more chore I have to do".
ReplyDeleteAnd then I do it, of course. Sometimes it really does feel like a chore - but sometimes I just get rolling and all is right with the world. Sometimes I am lucky enough that something that I write impacts someone (even more lucky if they tell me). And then I remind myself why I do it all over again.
One of my bigger challenges has simply been with the changes in my life over the last two years, I am struggling to find that new "normal" about what I write about. So I just write and choose to believe (maybe foolishly) that it will appear when I need it.
I very appreciate your dedication to the blog and the craft and you (and all the authors of the Chant and the commenters) are one of my daily stops.
I do think - to some of the comments above - a lot of people have either stopped commenting regularly or stopped reading entirely for various reasons. At least for me, some of my regulars do pop in from time to time, enough to continue to encourage me to keep going. And I (and I suspect you as well) get new folks wandering through.
Delete(Yet another reply to a reply -really?) Weird note: If I look at my page now, the most recent post that shows up for The Chant is two days ago. Thanks, Lords Of Google.
DeleteTB #1 - That's a problem for me, when it feels like a "chore." I do this because I enjoy it, at least most days I do. As things change, my interests change as well, so that throws me a curve every now and then. But I'll keep at it. I will be (maybe) taking a break while I visit the grandkids!
DeleteTB #2 - Feedback is essential, to me at any rate. If people aren't commenting, or old commenters go away (and some never return) I get panicky. Like the current search for Virgil Xenophon. Did I piss them off? Did they die? And that latter thing is definitely a concern. I know people, some younger than me, who have cashed in their chips and joined the choir invisible. I hate losing people, I've never gotten used to that. Hope I never do.
DeleteTB #3 - Yes, Blogger/Google has been very inconsistent/weird lately. One day I get 20,000 hits, the next I get 200. I know it's nonsense, but I also know computers. Are Blogger/Google's programmers that bad? Or is there something I'm not seeing?
DeletePerhaps we should replace "The Lords of Google" with "The Lords of AI"...
DeleteOMG
DeleteI, too, stop by here every day; first on the list even though I seldom comment! Your efforts are deeply appreciated, even though you often send me off into the weeds down in the rabbit hole!
ReplyDeleteWhen you go down that rabbit hole, remember, I've probably already been there.
DeleteThanks for being here, dgf.
RE: Stats- Over on a forum I moderate we sometimes see over 2500 guests on line at once, and every one of the bots probably doing undiscovered mischief. We rally have about 25 regulars, and 200 signed up to post (some of whom are probably bots.) Illegitimus non carborundum.
ReplyDeleteJB
Yup, the stats are remarkably inaccurate.
DeleteI know about the driving. I'm an old paratrooper, have served on, "More than 4 continents, damn it," and only enjoy driving in the mountains of Appalachia. Enjoy the kids, I have kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. I lost a niece this week, but I am determined to live for the rest.
ReplyDeleteOne foot in front of the other ...
DeleteDrive on.
I take a look every day & appreciate the time you folks put into this. And I enjoy your fiction Sarge.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rob.
Delete