Another Story

Last night I took a patient, her son and her sister to the airport to be medevac-ed by the US military. Dr. Dan earlier made the case, I just had to deliver the patient. Her son is active US Army in Seoul who came on leave to get her to Florida (she already had a green card). She had a pretty serious wound on her leg that would require a lot of care, beyond what we could provide here. There were a lot of politics, etc., but they finally cleared her to go. As we were leaving, her son, the soldier, shared this:

 

He told me how people stop him in the airport and around town and thank him for his service, calling him a hero. But now, working with us, he knows what heroes really are. Everyone down here helping the Haitians get back on their feet is a hero. He was expecting to come back here to bury his mother, but now she’s alive and well.

Progress...maybe

Today was an interesting day. It started out slowly enough. Being the weekend, most of our colleagues back home were off, which slowed down the communication and gave us all a little bit of breathing room. There’s still a bunch of shipments coming in we’re trying to coordinate, as well as teams coming and going, but it’s all starting to come together a little more.

 

Then the curve balls started coming. First, there was the team of almost 20 that showed up, unannounced. Not from MTI or one of our partners, but planned by the Haitian woman who is normally in charge of the hospital. This is the SECOND time this has happened. The teams have been more than happy to move on to other locations where the needs are just as real, but it shows underlying communication and trust issues. I heard “I don’t want to talk to you, I want to talk to a Haitian” more than once today. I don’t know what more we could do to gain trust, but, apparently, there are at least some people who are struggling with that.

 

After that resolved, and before they came back for a second discussion, some boys from the US Army showed up. Turns out there’s a WHO depot with tens of millions of dollars of medical supplies a 3 minute walk from our hospital. They’re there to protect it and help with distribution. So they wanted to know what we need. I believe the exact instructions were to make a wish list and they’ll see what they can do. This is HUGE because we have some very specific, and hard to come by, needs. They can also help us with some facility needs, like repairing the security wall around the compound and finishing the electrical on top floor of the building. They also have a helipad (well, landing area), which comes into play because of the news we got last night.

 

Bill and Dr. Dan have been working on a number of partnerships, not the least of which is with the US Military, specifically the USS Comfort that’s here treating patients. They’re doing a lot of surgeries, but their capacity is limited by their ability to transfer patients out to other facilities, making room for more. We’re now in a position to take a large number of those patients, which they would deliver via helicopter. This also gets us into the military supply chain, which helps us out a ton. If we’re their partner, they’ll make sure we have the things we need.

 

This, of course, means the hospital will be growing. Which means we’re all going to be a lot more busy.

 

 

 

 

About that Time

I don’t have a ton to report on today. A handful of people left early this morning and another handful arrived. Some more supplied, but not our critically needed phones or satellite dish. Those two items have been major problem points for us, but there’s not a whole lot that can be done from here. So we wait.

 

We’re starting to stabilize logistically, which is nice. I’ve been working on getting the team schedule together, figuring out who’s coming and going and when. We have a lot of great doctors here, but they have to go home sometime, and that’s still a little difficult. There aren’t flights out of Port-au-prince, which leaves us with driving half a day to the Dominican Republic. Hopefully things open up soon.

 

There’s a lot of stories coming from the doctors that I wish I could tell, but they’re difficult to collect and sort through. I posted a story earlier today that’s pretty typical around here. It’s weird that a story like that is typical.

 

We feel a couple tremors a day, but nothing has turned into a real earthquake yet. That’s good, but the Haitians are still terrified to go in buildings. And it makes us a little edgy too. A constant reminder that hell could break loose at any time.

 

I’m still busy working to coordinate the logistics of people and supplies getting in and out, or at least this end of it. It’s a lot easier to deal with things in Haiti than getting them here. So thanks, Catherine, for handling so much of that.

 

Unfortunately, politics are starting to flare up. I remember the same thing after Katrina, and it’s sad. Once the initial rush and adrenaline of helping people wears off, groups start to get territorial again. It’s especially hard down here with very limited communications. There’s all sorts of expectations and conditions from all over the world to meet, and most people here just want to help save lives. I’m an office person, so I understand the challenge of balancing the two. There’s a lot of negotiation happening, and thankfully, the people handling it are better than me. But the situation changes several times a day, and it’s hard to keep up.

 

It’s about time for us to head back to the house, so I should go. Thanks everyone.

A Story

This was written by Marlene Minor, VP of Communications, here in the room with me.

 

When the earthquake hit, Tamara, 29, and her family lived on the second story of a four-story apartment building.

 

The structured pancaked in on them.  It killed their four-year-old son immediately.

 

Tamara, 29, was trapped in the building for 10 hours.  Her husband, Peterson, 30, friends and relatives rescued her from the rubble.  Her leg was crushed ... and she was close to delivering a baby.

 

Peterson also carried with him his deceased son and a pair of shorts that belonged to his now lifeless son.  Tamara emerged from the building with her leg crushed ...just days from delivering a baby.

 

Tamara and Peterson huddled together for shelter and comfort in a local homeless "tent" city that sprang up in their neighborhood.

 

Then, friends brought her to King's Hospital as her leg got worse.  There our doctors operated, saved her leg and she began to recuperate in our triage area.

 

After they fixed her leg (its in a cast) she was laying out in open air triage area and went into labor.  Ann barely got her into the hospital onto a bed to deliver the baby.
 
The whole time she's in labor the husband is crying and holding up the shorts of their dead son.
 
Thankfully, their new baby girl was born healthy yesterday and is doing well.  This morning, Ann and I walked up the hill.  Ann told me this story in a minute.  Held the baby for some "baby therapy" before returning to the land of operations and amputations.  She said, "This is life.  This is hope."

I told the mother, "Belle" for beautiful about the baby and we were off.
 
As we were rushing off as Ann had a crowd issue to attend to as more patients lined up, she told me the baby girl's name, Jesula, translated to Jesus There.
 
Amen.

Airport

Today was a day spent primarily at the airport. We had three flights come in. The first was a cargo flight with an “Interagency Emergency Health Kit (IEHK).” This is something we have on order in Holland, ready to be shipped anywhere in the world. It contains basic medical supplies and medicines, most of what you need to run a hospital. It’s enough to treat 10,000 people for three months. We got 6 pallets worth of this stuff, which is amazing. About the time we finished clearing customs and dropping it off at the hospital, we were late picking up the next team that arrived. And at that point, we just waited for the final flight and took all the supplies and people back to the hospital. So many new faces! There’s well over 20 medical professionals here now.

 

Things at the hospital are running smoothly, even more so now that we have so many personnel. The IEHK will help with supply, but there’s still some larger equipment and other things we could really use. We’re working as many angles we can. I’m hoping for a military contact personally. Our phones should arrive tomorrow, which will be a huge help, and I hope our satellite Internet doesn’t get delayed any more than it already is (Monday). Once that’s installed and the operations have stabilized, I’ll be looking to head home.

 

The work the doctors are doing is incredible. So many lives literally saved. The surgeons are booked up most of the day with back-to-back surgeries. We have some amazing orthopedic surgeons that providing critical care. There have been some sad cases of people beyond our care, and we’re working on finding ways to medevac them. We also need crutches, lots of them, for the post-ops. With so many amputations, most of our patients need assistance when they’re discharged. Crutches or prosthetics could be the difference between street beggar and “normal” life.

 

I’m having a great time with the team. They’re all very friendly and we laugh a lot. Also getting to know my MTI coworkers much better. I’m trapped between two sides: knowing the needs of HQ and how things run there and knowing the field needs and how things run here. I try my best to reconcile those two to make everyone’s life easier, but it doesn’t always happen.

 

But I also miss home, my wife, cheeseburgers, showers and cold weather.

 

 

 

 

Pictures Uploaded

Just a couple.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/matthew.turkington/Haiti

 

Also set Dr. Dan up with a live Skype video interview. Look for it on the KGW news at 11.

Another Day in Haiti

Today was a day chock full of things, but let’s see what I can remember. It seems most of my time is spent doing very operational things, not all of which are very exciting to report on.

 

First, I was woken up at 6-something AM by people yelling and a gentle shaking sensation. I didn’t know what was going on, but everyone was running outside, so I ran outside. About that time, I realized we were having another earthquake. Also about that time, it ended. Everyone is fine and there’s not much additional damage to our facilities. The biggest downside is that Haitians are now even more terrified and unwilling to go into any building than they were before. This is hard, because to be treated, they have to go into the hospital.

 

I’ve been trying to work some connections to find ways for us to get supplies into Haiti. I took a trip to the US Embassy, which wasn’t nearly as helpful as I was hoping. After the soldier at the gate said he wouldn’t let me in just because I had a US Passport (and I reminded him that he has to), we sat in the parking lot. I found another soldier who was far more helpful and agreed to try to find someone in the military who knows about supply flights. We’ll see if anything comes of it.

 

We also got the big generator running. This is HUGE news because we’ve been unable to power the entire hospital until now. So we can finally run at capacity. And tomorrow we have several supply shipments coming in, along with teams. Still working on more reliable Internet, though.

 

Also getting a lot of media attention. Seems like I spend a couple hours a day playing media secretary for Dr. Dan and all his interview requests. We hope to do live video via Skype tonight with KGW, so that will be cool.

 

I really hope to get pictures and videos going to share the story of what’s going on here. We just haven’t had the time, but I know it’s important.

 

The Haitians are amazing people to watch. This morning, they gathered outside the hospital, laying hands on it and praying loudly for safety. Every night, groups are found sitting outside singing and praying. There is so much hope and joy, despite such sorrow and loss. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere else.

 

Thank you, everyone, for your prayers and support.

 

And, yes, it’s still wicked hot here.

 

 

On the Ground

Well, I’m in Haiti now. It’s really hot here. I mean REALLY. The sweat feels like a waterfall down my body. It’s disgusting. Haiti itself reminds me of rural Indonesia. In the part we’re in, it’s hard to tell what’s destruction and what’s just normal workmanship for these parts. We’ve setup shop in what I’ve heard called the “nicest hospital in the country.” King’s Hospital was scheduled to open next month, but that timeline has been accelerated a bit. As a result, it’s not exactly finished. The room I’m sitting in now is just bare cement walls. There’s wires hanging where power outlets should go and holes for pipes and lights. It’s been cleaned up and put into service early, but it’s performing admirably. Right now we’re at capacity, but we hope to expand into the unused floor if we can get more cots.

 

Most of the work seems to be orthopedic in nature. Lots of crushed limbs and the like. We have two operating rooms that stay pretty busy. They’d stay busier, but the power keeps going out, which makes the sterilization cycle start all over. There’s a giant generator in the yard, but we don’t have the cables or skills to hook it up. Hopefully we can get it going, though. That would solve a lot of problems. That and getting the water running right. But one thing at a time. Then there’s always the whole getting shipments here thing.

 

I also visited the UN base today when we went on a supply run. Now THERE’S chaos! They have much larger facilities, yes, but also a whole lot more staff. But it just seems like chaos. No triage and no record keeping. We’re taking in some of their post-op patients this evening so they can take in more pre-ops. We have a really good relationship with them, which is good for the bypassing the red tape.

 

Dr. Dan (of Creation fame) is serving as the hospital administrator and is responsible for most of these relationships. He’s also organizing this place in a way that keeps everyone sane. There are departments with directors and coordination and record keeping, just like a real hospital. Imagine that! I’ve been asked to serve in a “Director of Operations” role, basically just trying to keep this place physically running. I’m not quite sure what all that entails at this point. But Bill Essig said it means I get a raise, so if anyone back at MTI is reading this, make it happen!

 

Haiti itself isn’t quite what I expected. Or maybe it’s this disaster that is different. Food is scarce, but we can eat two meals a day. There’s enough water. The power is sometimes on. It’s not quite the barren wasteland I was preparing for. A lot of team members have been surprised. I know there are places that are better and worse – this one is probably in the middle. There’s also no reporters out here. Probably because it’s not quite as exciting.

 

The funniest thing so far has been the little Haitian kids who reach out and feel my arm hair. It’s confusing because I’m white, but have black hair. They just sort of point and say “black.” Apparently this is unusual. I was carrying on a conversation while a little boy was running his fingers up and down my arm, trying to figure something out. Took me a minute to figure out what was going on.

 

I think that’s about it for now. Not much time left on the battery. Thanks for all the kind notes. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to upload some media tomorrow.

 

Did I mention how much I want a shower?

 

Headed to Haiti

As many of you have heard, I’m on my way to Haiti. And that seemed like good a reason as any to start blogging again.

 

I received a call at 7am this morning from my VP at Medical Teams asking if I could be on a noon flight to Fort Lauderdale, heading on to Haiti. “No,” I responded flatly. Over the week since the earthquake, I had been scheduled to go twice, both times cancelled due to logistical complications. During that time, I had been working on a deployable communications package to provide better operational support to our teams on the ground. The plan was to send me with it when it was complete, but I thought I would have at least a couple days warning. Actually, in the back of my mind, I suspected this might happen, but didn’t prepare nearly as well as I should have.

 

It was determined around 9:30am that I would be on a noon flight to Florida to catch the 4am charter into Port-au-Prince. I left the office in a mad dash to collect supplies and pack. Meanwhile, folks back at MTI were packing bags of supplies to be carried in (I’ve been called “pack mule” and “Sherpa” many times today). Despite driving entirely too fast to the airport and arriving 20 minutes early, I wasn’t allowed to board the plane. This was especially bad news, given it was already the last flight into Fort Lauderdale that would arrive before the 4am departure.  And that flight had been given special permission to land in Port-au-prince, something we don’t know when we’ll get again.

 

The particular Delta desk agent was, honestly, unhelpful. It wasn’t until another agent came over in response to the pleading that we finally got somewhere. They could get me into Orlando at midnight – a 3 hour drive down to Ft. Lauderdale. It would mean driving all night to catch the flight, but I agreed and made a rush for the gate.

 

Now I’m on a plane outside Orlando. In the belly of the plane are several bags of vital supplies and communications equipment. I’ve been watching CNN for the last couple hours, catching up on the situation. During the course of this flight, Larry King and friends raised $5 million for the Red Cross and UNICEF. Right now, Anderson Cooper is reporting live. It’s heartbreaking to see the situation I’ll be walking into. He’s talking with CNN’s chief medical correspondent/neurosurgeon. They’re bewildered that more doctors and basic medical supplies aren’t getting into the country. They’re desperately pleading for more help. I know firsthand it’s more complicated than it often appears to get help in. We’re working on it! I want to find him while I’m there and show him what we’re doing. My friend Jordan is on a Navy ship off the coast. I hope to find him too.

 

I hope to provide regular updates, pictures and video if the connectivity allows, which is sort of what I’m there to do. I hope to take some of the operational load off the medical professionals so they can do what they’re there to do. I don’t know what all my responsibilities will fully include, but I’m just there to help.

 

It’s remarkably similar to my deployment after Hurricane Katrina. I was called up at the last minute to head down to the Gulf Coast to lead a team of volunteer network engineers in building a wireless communications infrastructure to replace what had been destroyed. We were able to provide phone and data services to hospitals, police, fire, government and relief camps along the entire coast. While my scope this time around will be much more limited, the need is still certainly there.

 

I’d like to thank Robert, Tammy, Mary Ellen, Catherine and the others at MTI that worked so hard to get me and this cargo in the air. My mom and the folks at St. Vincent’s for getting me the medicines I need for my safety. Thank you to everyone who has supported the work of MTI, enabling me and others to go and provide life-saving services. Last, but certainly not least, my loving wife, Taylor, for being so supportive and letting me go. I love you.

 

More from Haiti.

 

Links:

http://www.medicalteams.org/haiti

http://www.twitter.com/mturkington

http://picasaweb.google.com/matthew.turkington/Haiti

Skype: mturkington

 

 

Worse Than Epic Fail

You know how everyone knows not to send money to Nigerians? (if not, please read this) Well, apparently Citibank missed that memo. Consider the following letter:

Dear Citybancs,

We are to requesting wire of our funds in the amount of USD$27 millon to the attatched listing of acounts. The enclosed check for US$50000,00 is meaning to cover any cost you would have to be incur to complete thsi transfer. Please send funds emmeidately as we are to needing them now.

Thank you,

Ethipoia

Guess what they did? Ok, so that letter's made up. But the fact that they sent $27 million to a Nigerian scammer isn't.

I can't stop laughing about this. How much you want to bet they're going to be asking for more bailout funds now?

Update: The government may end up owning 40% of Citibank. Coincidence?

One, by U2

Is it getting better

Or do you feel the same

Will it make it easier on you

Now you got someone to blame

You say

One love

One life

When it’s one need

In the night

It’s one love

We get to share it

It leaves you baby

If you don’t care for it

Did I disappoint you?

Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?

You act like you never had love

And you want me to go without

Well it’s too late

Tonight

To drag the past out

Into the light

We’re one

But were not the same

We get to carry each other

Carry each other

One

Have you come here for forgiveness

Have you come to raise the dead

Have you come here to play Jesus

To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much

More than a lot

You gave me nothing

Now it’s all I got

We’re one

But were not the same

We hurt each other

Then we do it again

You say

Love is a temple

Love a higher law

Love is a temple

Love the higher law

You ask me to enter

But then you make me crawl

And I can’t be holding on

To what you got

When all you got is hurt

One love

One blood

One life

You got to do what you should

One life

With each other

Sisters

Brothers

One life

But were not the same

We get to carry each other

Carry each other

One

One.

Video Roundup

Some videos I've been enjoying (many found through fellow bloggers whom I won't credit here):

Nice web, Mr. Crack Spider.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc)

Carl, shut the baby up.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r03IphXh1dI)

Everything is amazing, no one is happy.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbIGbZ6gq_Y)

Chicken Police
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybVb3t560oY)

Logistics Fail!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7fkAF4nElA)

Go Vote

Go vote. Really. I don’t know what kind of persuading you need. Here in Oregon, they’ve made it about as easy as possible. You get a ballot in the mail and you just have to drop it off by 8pm tonight (too late to mail it back!). Drop-offs are all over the city. You have the amazing privilege of being involved personally in your government – something unheard of in many places around the world. Thousands upon thousands of men have died over the years to preserve that right for you. Exercise it, and thank God for the freedom we have in this country.

But with that privilege comes a responsibility. I would encourage you NOT to vote if you don’t know anything about a candidate or an issue. If you can’t say, “I support XXX for reason(s) YYY,” don’t fill in that bubble. If you simply have an emotional reaction to a person or issue, stop. Take a few minutes and learn some facts, then vote. Remember that you don’t have to vote in every contest; skipping a section does not invalidate your other votes.

Above all else, pray. No matter which way the presidential race goes, this country is (and will continue to be) in a difficult spot. Pray for leaders who seek God and will lead this country back to Him. Rest knowing that He is ultimately in control and His purposes will not be thwarted.

Work Stuff

Wow. So I failed pretty miserably at this “return to blogging” thing, huh? I had good intentions, really! When I have interesting things to write about, life is moving too fast to find the time or energy to blog. And when life is slow, well, there’s nothing interesting to write about. I have new respect for those professional bloggers who faithfully produce for the rest of us. And I’ve been a little…distracted…with most of my free time. 

I haven’t really written anything about work since my trip to Indonesia, and that’s a fairly easy thing for me to ramble on about, so let’s start there. Things at MTI have been good, but we’re certainly feeling pressure from the economy. We’re completely dependent on people’s generosity, and when they’re worried for their own well-being, it’s (understandably) harder to give, especially substantially.  It’s different than for a “normal” company, where we could sell more widgets or raise prices or something. The consumers of our services are not the ones paying for it, and there’s no fixed price. And the people most likely to support us in a big way are also the ones who stood to lose the most in the meltdown. So things have been tight. Budgets have been slashed, and it doesn’t appear to be over. They say markets always jump after an election, so hopefully we’re only a couple weeks away from a major turnaround. Of course it will probably crash hard again once that new president starts enacting Marxist programs, but that’s a post for another day. 

Here are updates on some of the key projects I’m involved in: 

Website Migration
This is the big one right now. We’re moving our website off Convio and to a platform we will be hosting in-house. This is a big deal for a number of reasons. One, bringing it in-house means we’re responsible for keeping it up now. As a major fundraising tool, that’s a little stressful. Two, it means every single page has to be re-created inside our new platform. There are over 500 pages on the current site. That’s a massive undertaking. Three, our webmaster left at the start of this project. Three of us have taken on the migration (one of whom was just named the new webmaster), but that also means we’re changing a lot of things. It’s good because none of us have the personal attachment to certain things on the site, but there’s so much we want to change we have to be careful about taking on too much work. Four, the new site will be a major improvement for our constituents. A major impetus for this change is to improve the donor experience on the web. This new platform (Blackbaud’s NetCommunity) integrates with our CRM (Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge) so we can link more information to the web. This will be a MAJOR plus to our donors. And finally, there are technical challenges. We chose to use another CMS along with NetCommunity, a product named Sitefinity. We found NetCommunity to be lacking in a lot of basic content management areas, and didn’t want to put undue burden on our content managers. So we’re building the bulk of the site in this other tool and all the CRM-integrated functions in NetCommunity. But it means we have multiple products to juggle and manage.

I spend my time serving as a consultant, helping the two women who are actually building the pages in the new products. I deal with technical issues as they come up and provide input on web strategy. It’s a flashback to a previous season of life spent doing web consulting, but a welcome one. Especially when there’s other people handling a lot of the grunt work!

Our target launch is the start of January, meaning this project will be completed in under 6 months. Most migrations of this scale take over a year. So we’re working hard. I’ve been posting over on the Blackbaud User Society’s forum, writing about our migration experience if you’re interested in tracking on a more technical level. http://www.blackbus.org/forum/netcommunity-bbnc/4310-mtis-bbnc-journey.html

Inventory Management System
This was the big time-consumer before the website but has recently taken a back seat. For almost 30 years, inventory has been tracked on paper sheets and Excel spreadsheets. Not a problem for a while, but now that we process ship over $100 million in donated medical supplies annually, keeping track of the inventory has become more challenging. The decision was made to go with a computer-based system and I’ve been working on developing a friendly “face” for that system. The system is now in use in the warehouse, though just in its first (of three) phase. So there will be more work on that once some of these other projects die down.

Smaller Projects (and those looming on the horizon)

SharePoint – Building out an intranet. We have some stuff already up there, but we need a one-stop internal resource for many of the tools we’re creating. This is underway, I just need to spend more time meeting with various user groups to determine what they want/need built out before we launch.

Communications – We have a fancy new phone system in our Bellevue/Redmond/Seattle/wherever-they-are-now office and would really like to get a matching one down here. But now’s not the best time to be asking to make a large purchase, even if it would be really helpful. We’re also playing with some “unified communications” products. Basically a Skype replacement we can run ourselves that integrates with email, the phone system and pretty much all our other internal systems. But we don’t really have the money to move forward much on this front.

Infrastructure – A major technical component of the website project was to ensure we have enough bandwidth to handle our web traffic, especially during a disaster time when we can get a month’s worth of traffic in a day. The best solution we (and our ISP) came up with was to do a wireless shot between our facilities (less than a mile), getting us 10 MB up/down for a lot less than bonding T1s or a fractional T3. We had a lot of problems with it at first, but it seems more stable now. We still need to replace all network switches, but, again, no money.

Branch Offices – Remember that Indonesia trip? The whole point was to develop some sort of solution for our foreign offices to better integrate their systems with ours here and take a load off them. This has come up again as that office is moving to Jakarta and will have access to more resources. Still don’t have a lot of answers, though.

Funding
Things are pretty tense here, though, with the economy being what it is. The kinds of people who generally give us the most money are also the types that lost the most in the market crash. So they have far less to be giving away. I know we’re not the only non-profit feeling the pressure. And most churches are too. I want to write about how important it is to continue giving in the midst of financial insecurity, but maybe that will be another post. Also, consider the risk of electing someone who wants to raise taxes on “the rich.” “That’s not me,” you may be thinking, “and they should pay more since they have more!” Well, socialism aside, think of all the things those “rich” support and make possible. Most of the humanitarian (and missional) work around the world is financed by people with resources. If the government starts taking more of their money away to fund ridiculous mandatory programs at home, you can forget about “saving the world.” I want to write more on this, too.

I really will try to be better about posting. It’s not that I don’t think of things to write, it really comes down to time and mental energy to make it happen. There’s a lot going on right now, and I generally don’t want to be thinking when I’m done with work. So that makes it hard. Anyway, no more excuses!

Let's Try This Again

So…I haven’t posted anything here in about 2.5 months. There are a lot of reasons for this, most of which have something to do with lack of motivation. I’ve been writing online since 2001 (still working on the very manual import process), during which time I’ve taken three or four breaks. Sometimes you just need it. Plus, I see that I’ve now fallen off the link list on a number of other blogs, so I should have a much smaller reader base now. That’s probably good. It’s a little awkward when people at church/work/strangers come up to me and say they’ve been reading. I also have reason to believe there are few NEW stalkers in the mix (welcome), so I should probably provide some fresh fodder for judging me.

You’ll also notice I made some design changes. Still sticking with an out-of-the-box template (lazy), but it’s at least been updated to use some of the cool new Google sidebar thingies. So there’s that.

Anyway, there isn’t anything substantive in this post. It’s just here to let you know I’m going to try now. We’ll see how it goes.