Down for Maintenance - Blogger, Not Me

Is it my imagination or is my mug shot bigger today? Beats me. It's been more than a week since I last wrote a blog but it's not completely my fault. I was too busy for a while, that's true. The difference between writing a blog and a daily newspaper column is that with a blog you don't have an editor breathing down your neck. You don't call in from the hospital and report that you just had your gall bladder removed and have the managing editor say, "Have you got tomorrow's column ready?"
So anyway, I tried to write one of these things Wednesday but Blogger was down for maintenance. I didn't mind because it was late in the day and I was tired. I tried again Thursday and had just completed more deathless prose when that message came up again: Blogger down for maintenance. I just wish they wouldn't do it on my time.
It reminds me of the days when computers were first used by newspapers. At that time Mike Lopresti, now a sports columnist for Gannett, was writing sports for the Palladium-Item in Richmond, Indiana. After covering a Richmond-Rushville basketball game he went back to the Pal-Item office and wrote the story on one of the new-fangled computers. Just as he finished typing the last sentence it all disappeared somewhere in cyberspace. So he wrote it again. Just as he finished typing the last sentence it disappeared somewhere in cyberspace.
At that point he had several options. The one that leaps to mind is finding a sledgehammer and sending that computer to a well-deserved grave. Mike, being a bit more logical in his thinking, wrote the story a third time and wonder of wonders, this time it worked without a hitch. When it was all over and Mike still had a shred of sanity remaining he wished he could see all three stories. "I'd like to see which one was the best," he said. He might have said a few other things as well, of course. I know I sure would have.
And yes, for some reason my mug shot is bigger. Despite what some people might say, that has nothing to do with the size of my head.

Visit me at www.dickstodghill.com