Gone Fishing

Well, not really...but I'm putting the blog on hiatus at least for the month of August. Ruth's last post probably gave you some notice that there were going to be some changes, and this is it.

Although I'm a little burned out after 4+ years of daily blogging, that's not the main reason I've decided to take at the very least a long vacation. I've had a new health issue arise and I need to pare down some of the pressures in my life. I can't quit working or I'll lose the health insurance I need to deal with that health issue (a special "thank you" to the 111th Congress), so I'm cutting down on some of the smaller things that take up time and energy I need to focus elsewhere.

Will I turn the lights back on in this joint in September? I'm not sure. Probably, but the emphasis might be a little different. I just don't know.

Now for some housecleaning before I lock up:

First, and most important, Ruth, probably out of an overabundance of politeness, failed to let you know that she will continue blogging. You'll find her at The Seminal-Firedog Lake, where's she's been posting for nearly a year. At some point, I really hope she takes the plunge and opens her own shop. She's a gifted thinker, analyst, and writer, which a whole lot of you know. Please encourage her.

Next, thanks to a lot of other bloggers in our community who blog-rolled us, the Cab has grown in readership dramatically. Thanks to all of you for your support. A special thanks, however, goes to people like Mike at Crooks and Liars who linked to us a lot, skyrocketing our hit counts to what I considered unimaginable heights and who validated Ruth and my belief that it was possible to blog rationally, yet passionately, on all sorts of issues, even those pretty much ignored by everyone else.

The biggest thanks, however, goes to Avedon Carol, the Cab's Official Fairy Godmother, who not only linked to us when no one had any idea we existed, but continued to do so on a regular basis, even when she disagreed with what we had to say. I think that Avedon has done more for community building on-line and in meat-space than anyone I know.

So, me, I'm taking a month off from blogging, but I'm not taking a month off. Besides continuing to go to work so that the cats and I have food and a roof, I intend to start exploring life in the consensual real world. The 2010 elections are coming up, and I think it's time I do a little hard time working towards getting people elected who aren't (at least at this point) in the hip pockets of the monied interests. I'm going to start with the local pols, because, as the debacle of the California budget problems have showed, when it counts, politics are local.

I also am going to try to train myself to sleep beyond 3:00 AM Pacific Time so that I can have some kind of social life in which I deal with like-minded people who stay up after 7:00 PM Pacific Time.

But I still will show up on line, probably at Atrios's Crack Den, at least when the troll frenzy isn't too annoying, and certainly at those blogs I've enjoyed reading regularly.

So, it's time for lights out.

Take care, rational people.