It's Been Awhile...

Quite frankly, I'm at a loss as to where I should begin.

I will say this, my time away turned out to be quite a bit longer than I originally anticipated. The reason for this is quite simple. As many of you know, back in March I accepted a temporary appointment to the U.S. Census Bureau. I had planned on working until mid-April or early May, but for some reason, they kept extending my appointment. What I had expected to be a six to eight week job turned into eighteen weeks.

Obviously I tried to keep up with both the 40+ hours a week I was working and the blog, but then I had to deal with a minor health issue, and it just sorta took the wind out of my sails. For a couple of weeks, I gave you guys no original content, just shared content I discovered elsewhere. In the long run, that just wasn't fair to my readership.

When my health improved, I had quite a bit of material to write about, but a fair percentage of it is work-related, and for obvious reasons it wouldn't have been prudent to write about my government job while I was actually working at it. It would have been even less prudent to continue down my regular path of poking large corporate bears with an increasingly sharp series of sticks. (I'm not done with you Monsanto... especially since someone from your legal department is STILL checking my blog once a day... even though I haven't posted since April.)

So we've got a lot of lost time to make up for, and I've got a lot of material to fill the space with, once I figure out how to write again.

Some of you have mentioned that you are disappointed that I started the graphic novel, but left it hanging after the first two installments. Those of you who are familiar with my writing and storytelling style know that it is a truly an organic process, and things are subject to change. That's exactly what happened in this case. I determined that before I continue with that project, quite frankly I need to get home for a few days, and spend a little bit of time with those of you I have based characters on. Don't forget, it's been two years since I've seen any of you, so I would be remiss in my duty as a fiction writer if I didn't revisit the people and places that make it possible for me to write. Relax. I'll be back to that one in the fall, I just need to see some of you first.

Tomorrow, we get back to the real deal with a special Tuesday edition of "Weekend Wanderings"

For now, a little something for the peeps that give me my strength back in New York: