After 3 1/2 years ...

Oh, hi there. How've you been? It's been a while, hasn't it?

What?? Three and a half years since we last met??? That was back in, what, 2002?

OK, enough hokum. Hi, it's me, and yes, I'm back. The interface isn't as challenging as it once was, so I'm going to give this another try. That's one reason I'm back. Another reason is that ModBlog, where I put my first blog that lasted for more than a few days, has gone dark since Monday morning--over three days ago. Their website apologized profusely for all the downtime and promises on their honor that they'll get it together and won't have a problem like this again. Or words to that effect.

For their sake, I hope they can. I really enjoyed ModBlog for the "community" feeling it had. You had regular visitors and friends that you got to know from all over the place. I've made friends from different places in the U.S. as well as Australia and England. We joke with each other when times are good and try to solve each other's problems when times aren't.

I started writing on ModBlog in May--over four months ago--and it became a part of my life. But it's out of order, at least for now, and it's frustrating. I'd like to know what my friends are doing, what they're getting into. My mom, who is 83, is in the hospital, and I've been spending a lot of time there recently--my wife and I were there about four hours today, not counting the hour-long drive each way. The story has gone out all over the world, and many of my readers have said things to cheer me up and encourage me. And I'm really grateful.

As I wrote, the Blogger interface is a lot easier than it used to be (way, way back in 2002, almost before the printed word, almost). Last night, I wrote something that was a lot like what I'm writing tonight, on the built-in post hole digger. But when I went to publish it, it asked for my username and password again, and when I backed up to the post writing page, all my beautiful words were gone. Vanished. Poof! Lost in cyberspace.

This is for shit, I said to myself, and shut down for the night.

But tonight things look better. I tried to copy all my writing before posting it, but Blogger doesn't seem to want to do that. Grrr. Anyway, when I posted, it did was it was supposed to, and my wonderful, thrilling writing now appears on the blogpage.

By the way, to judge by the interval between my first blog entry here and my second, the next blog entry will appear around June 2009. But somehow I don't think it will be that long.

I love ModBlog, and I hope they can get their act together. But by writing this entry here, I think you can see that I'm hedging my bets.