Two Years

I’m one of those cats who remembers anniversaries … usually. I can tell you the day that I graduated from college and when I arrived in California and, above all, the day on which I had my first date with a certain brunette who went on to become “The Counselor” in these pages. But, I recently missed one: the second anniversary of the launch of Under Western Skies.

I launched Under Western Skies on November 4th 2009. My ambitious goal was to write five days a week on whatever interested me, and to do so well enough that it might interest others, too. After a year of that regimen I pulled back to a biweekly schedule, which — give or take a week — I’ve done. Two years later, this is the 298th blog entry. In total, those blogs must contain well over a thousand photographs perhaps half a million words. You, faithful readers, have provided more than 22,000 hits. Thanks. Truly, sincerely, thank you. Together, we’ve traveled across the U.S. and a few places outside our borders. We’ve explored an eclectic, varied range of subjects; some have been serious and some have been fairly wacky. My very special thanks go to The Counselor, who has read every one of these half million words and has consistently made productive suggestions and corrections.

Change is constant, and some things have altered while the world whirled twice ’round during this time. I was — I imagined — firmly set in my career in the corporate realm when I began Under Western Skies. I started the blog as a spur to drive me to explore a more creative side of writing after nearly 30 years spent writing every day in a business context. Now I am self-employed. That change makes available more of my time for writing Under Western Skies, while simultaneously putting a higher premium on any time NOT spent developing my business. I’ve tried to strike a balance between those opposing positions, and have taken advantage of the occasional free hour to go see some local point of interest that I might not have visited during the precious weekends (especially the stories on LAFD Fire Boat 2, the Nike missile site and the coastal gun emplacements).

The spur now is on the other foot. I plan to apply this practice of regular publishing to a business-oriented blog that I’ll launch soon. I find that to be an interestingly ironic shift. Under Western Skies will continue, and I look forward to having you here with me. Certainly, the world will never lack for things to captivate us. I’ll let you know when the business blog launches, and you’re welcome to read along there, too, if you like, but it’ll be a different animal stabled separately from UWS.

Thanks again for all the hits, comments, likes and re-posts. It’s a big world out there. Who knows what we’ll find?