We're Back

After a small hiatus, we have returned. New look, new identity, same old non-essential stuff.

With my horribly inept coding skills and an unwillingness to ask anyone for help, I spent the last week mucking up various templates trying to create a more unique look for the new blog. I didn't want to debut with something off the rack. But now I know why they hire people to do this stuff. The site looks good on Safari, but when I switch over to Explorer it's horrendous. If anyone can help me fix it, please chime in with the necessary fixes.

Lots of people have written, curious about my recent tangle with a local civic organization. Unfortunately, my being discrete on the other blog may have led to the illusion that this tangle was somehow fraught with tension and litigiousness. The reality, I'm afraid, is rather banal.

The head of the organization, having been referred to my post, emailed me with his phone number asking if I would like to discuss. The message was brief and, I assumed, perfunctory. Just a president offering to fix a situation if desired.

For me, the celebratory festival itself was merely background, allowing me to take a tiny detail and exploit it as a touchstone for the current divisive politcal climate. And to be funny. I didn't want to give my epistolary friend any further concern, so I responded with a nice note saying that I enjoyed myself at the festival, had no beef with his organization, and if he wanted to explain why they made such an inflammatory, if subtle, remark, I'd be happy to relate that to my meager readership.

I really assumed this would be the last of it. I couldn't imagine him being that concerned with this tiny blog. Instead, he responded with a tome of an email. Pages in length detailing the good works his organization had done, the lengths they went to creating said festival, the financial hardship faced from declining support and membership, and the indignity thrust upon him by casting dispersions upon his patriotism. He concluded by relating a small, not-untouching story regarding a sunset, a famous French beach, and memories of war.

All this with the boldly typed rejoinder that his organization had not even been responsible for the inflammatory poster.

Of course, I felt obliged to apologize for attributing the francophobe insult to his people, and said I would right the record. I also complimented him and his organization for their good work, thanked him for his service to god and country, and then backed away slowly.

The whole thing gave me pause with regards to my public identity on the blog. As I mentioned in the last post in the place that is not someplace else, I never thought I would have a problem with what I wrote. I didn't care that others saw what I had to say, mainly because I hadn't intended to be controversial, obscene, personal or boring. Instead, this marked the third time a previoulsy unknown person had commented on my blog in a manner that suggested my words were being taken more seriously than I intended. To put it another way, the blog was being treated as public pronouncements, when I saw it as off the record fun. The mic was hot, but I, naively, was unaware.

Couple this with an increasing unease with the ability to triangulate all sorts of information via electronic databases, I thought it best that I absent myself, the Doctor and SkyGirl (cool psuedonyms, eh?) from the blogosphere.

I will still post lots of pictures, mainly because that's mostly what people want to see, but also because I'm not really anonymous, just in hiding. I consider the possession of the url as the "shave and a haircut" of this non-descript door in a Chicago back alley. If you know the knock, feel free to come on in and look around.

Thanks for bothering to stick around. I hope you like the new digs.