Let’s continue forward with the discussion of whether or not writing for this blog makes sense. I’ve spent some offline time thinking, and even today I was talking to my friend, Carl King, about it. I feel like I’ve settled on a direction.

The thought of writing a blog is an ill-defined, long-term task. You never really get to the end; you never really finish. Even when you’re about to die, there’s a good chance that you won’t have the time, or possibly even the inclination, to “wrap up your life story in the blog”. It’s like an open-ended MMO video game. Never complete. Always grinding.

That all sounds daunting, doesn’t it? Yeah, I guess it does. So, if it’s that bad, then why do it? Well, that’s the profound question I’m asking myself, especially when viewing it as writing for the sake of writing. But I’ve come to realize that jotting these entries down from time-to-time can be a pocket of joy and creativity too.

I’ve been updating you all on the little hobbies I have going on, and sometimes I sprinkle in a severe weather report. Mostly this has been a tool to regurgitate a bunch of facts. Entries like this are ok occasionally, but they need to be the exception.

The fun, I believe, comes when you’re focusing on telling a story with those facts. So, that’s what I’m going to attempt to do: Write “my story”. I’m not sure how to enunciate the details of that style yet and it may take some time to find my voice. I’ll also be learning how to construct the posts it in a way that make me feel that they’re not a chore.

My point is that, starting with the next blog post, you’ll need to strap in, hold on, and pardon my driving as I get used to the new road.

Once again, months have slipped by since I’ve last blogged. And there’s no good reason I haven’t posted. As I sit here typing this, I’m thinking in real-time why it is that I don’t do this more often. You see, I have a Saturday morning reminder in my phone that pops up every week, but I end up placing it at the very bottom of my priority list in my mind. So, by the time Sunday slips away and the week rolls around, I see it as an annoying, undone task and I ultimately mark it as Completed just to declutter my list.

I’m not sure why I do this. Part of me likes the idea of spending a little time each week to document my life, if for no other reason than for posterity. I envision that the posts will be informative and paint a picture of my day-to-day life, but in reality they end up being similar posts: Why I haven’t blogged lately, and some items I bought.

I feel I’m a decent writer, in that I can form cohesive sentences and fill them with interesting words like “cohesive”. But I think maybe I don’t enjoy writing. It’s usually only fun if I like the subject matter (see: old post about writing D&D campaigns, or the probably-never-to-see-the-light-of-day book I wrote called The Yellow Emerald*).

Anyway, I need to think about this and figure out why it is that I like the idea of blogging, but dislike executing that.

* Don’t go looking for those blog entries; they doesn’t exist, even though I did like writing for those topics.

Ian just made landfall down in the Punta Gorda area. So far, all is good here except for some heavy wind gusts. Friends nearby, including us, have had some power flickers over the past couple of hours, so I think it’s inevitable we’ll lose power for a bit at some point.

Things are looking better for us with the storm. It has decided to shift and go more easterly which means it’ll make landfall about 200 miles south of us. Downside is that, since it’s been slowing down and soaking up so much warm water, there’s a good chance that it’ll turn into a Category 5 hurricane. Here are some of the latest diagrams.

We were able to get all of the storm shutters on the house yesterday. All outside items have been stowed in the garage. All hurricane prep-items are at the ready. Generator’s ready with 25 gals of extra fuel. All-in-all, we’re looking quite good.

Oh, Florida life. I’ve been keeping my eye on Tropical Storm/Hurricane Ian the last couple of days and it’s not looking good.

This is forecasted to be strong with a lot of storm surge and rain. The house is out of a flood zone and we’re not in an evacuation zone, so I feel good about that. There’s a decent chance we’ll lose power, so tomorrow I have to focus on getting storm shutters up and gas for the generator. I’ll keep everyone updated here.

Meanwhile, congrats to the DART team!

And, oh yeah – Fuck Hurricane Ian for fucking up our view of Jupiter tonight.