My goodness, how time flies…it seems like just yesterday that I was writing about the one-year mark of the Terrible Catsafterme. Although eighteen months isn’t really a significant anniversary by any means, it assumes a spot of pivotal importance in my head. For a long time, I have had a basic plan (or at least an idea) of a timeline for completing the work on my past life chronology. (Hopefully the creators of Lost have a better understanding where they are headed…but I digress). From the moment I decided to chronicle the events of my life – with a huge chunk of pop-culture observations and collectibles and a generous portion of current events sprinkled along the way – I have estimated that this would be a three-year project.
That number is based on absolutely nothing concrete. It just sounded right to me. I may be way off the mark, but I thought I could probably tell my story in less than 1000 postings. So for the first year-and-a-half, I have faithfully made one posting per day, with varying degrees of merit and acceptance. I have strived for accuracy and completeness to the best of my ability, but have occasionally fallen short. All of the this brings me to the point of this posting: the plans for the ‘second half’ of this venture.
It would be maddening and nearly impossible to keep up the pace of one posting per day if I didn’t have so many of those simple little ramblings that I can do between the larger, meatier, and infinitely more time-consuming postings. For instance, there were my numerous celebrity encounters of 2005 and 2007, my autographs of the mid-eighties, and the celebrities of Hollywood ’80 – all of which are now either completely or nearly exhausted. Yes, of course, I have more of these (namely the autograph initiative of 1997-98), but my supply is running low and I am left with more and more eras, vacations, and postings that require more time and consideration. (You may recall that in the early days of the website, one vacation – such as Florida ’75 or Florida ’80 – was stretched over the course of five or six separate postings, while more recent postings have only taken one or two postings to both share the memories and display the 20+ photos of each vacation).
Also…in order to remain ‘accurate’ and ‘complete’, I often go back and insert additional photos or items I come across after the original posting about any given topic. Sometimes more information becomes available, and sometimes I simply find that the original information was incorrect. This adds yet an additional dimension to the already time-consuming job. I have actually accumulated a small box of items I need to go back and add to previous postings – not to mention all of the photos sitting in the scrapbooks and albums of various family members of which I’ve only scratched the surface.
And finally, I have been toying with ways to get some of those home movies that I have talked much about actually uploaded to YouTube and linked onto the relevent postings. This will add the icing on the cake to completing the chronological events of my life – but will take lots of time to learn and do.
It is for all of these reasons, that effective immediately, I will only be posting new postings four times per week: Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. The other days – in addition to enjoying many of my other outside interests – will be used to make the corrections and additions to previous postings and prepare the longer, more difficult postings. So on those odd days when there aren’t new postings, you might check out the main page for updates.
Apologies to all of those who have come to rely on a daily dose of the Catsafterme with their morning cup of coffee. At least you might be more productive when you should be working!
And by the way, can we all agree that that early-March blizzard totally blew?
March Madness
Did you seriously “rake” the snow?
Denise
March 13th, 2008
I understand the reasoning behind all that you say, but I can’t help but be disappointed.
There are only two “personal” blogs that I follow regularly (and for which I’ve read every single posting): yours and Bill Cappello’s. Cutting down on the Catsafterme postings is going to leave a major void in my daily readings! Anyway, of course I do understand and congratulate you on your 18 month birthday.
And yes – what’s up with the rake?
Peter
March 13th, 2008
I totally understand! This is a really big commitment and you’ve been doing an enjoyably great job. Even 4 times a week is a big commitment of time consuming efforts, but I think you not only enjoy it, but also are very proud of your work (as you should be). I’ll still look forward to reading 4 X’s a week, and just have to be patient when a day is missed. Hats off to you Brad.
Bev
March 14th, 2008
Alas! More time for me?
Jackie
March 15th, 2008