I take a moment to step back

I've had a little blogging vacation (a vacation from blogging, not a vacation that I blog from) due to work, snow, illness and something in the basement that we have decided to rename "Frankenboiler."

As I start to nudge myself back on-line, I'm going to be taking a chance to think about just what it is that I am doing here compared to what it is that I set out to do and what I would like to do.

To prepare for the process, I notice that there is a meme going about where the blogger is required to list and discribe the first post of every month of 2007. Let's have a look.

• January - I discuss my then ongoing Jean Shepherd phase. The phase died out after I hit a few too many instances of race related humor that, while not hateful, could be described as "of its era."
  
• February - I briefly note my unwilling participation in the "2007 Boston Mooninite Scare."
  
• March - I discover the existence of a "Stephen Fry Talking Alarm Clock."
  
• April - A perusal of the first episode of Spender invites me to ponder on how my brain compensates for driving on the opposite side of the road when I am abroad. I don't spell it out, but the thing that inspired it was the subject of the screen grab - the hand-held camera is being operated from the front passenger seat, but my brain translates it to being the driver's seat. This freaked me out as I momentarily believed that someone was actually operating a video camera while driving.
  
• May - Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls!
  
• June - I apologize for not blogging.
  
• July - I share a video of Brother Ali in performance. The second half of the selection is his "Forest Whitaker" rap, which I am quite fond of.
  
• August - I enjoy a collection of maps from the end papers of old books.
• September - I share a youtube video of the film His Girl Friday with all of the words removed. Youtube seems to have deleted the clip, thus completing the process.
  
• October - In the course of looking at New Yorker ads, I muse on the Triumph TR7. A commenter joined in with memories of the family TR7: "The electrics went and it didn't start on damp days (not a good thing for a British car). My father sold it to a teenager who took it on a test drive on a sunny day."
• November - I discover that my blog is written for the reading level of a college undergrad. (Semi-related snatch of overheard conversation between two English Lit professors yesterday: "You know, I am always surprised by how much the undergraduates enjoy Rabelais.")
  
• December - Inspired by my accidental purchase of Peril Island, by Percy James Brebner, I vow to write a post on every chapter, thus wringing value from mishap.