If you've read this webpage for any length of time, you've noticed a wide variety of posts to match my wide variety of interests. What process do I go through before adding a post? I never really thought of it before.

I read a lot. There is a ton of news happening in the world. Mummies discovered. Remains of a "hobbit creature" found. New life uncovered near thermal vents in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And lots of Mars and Saturn discoveries.

And I soak up those stories like a sponge and have no comment on them except, "Wow." "Wow," does not make an interesting weblog.

Then I think of stories I've written in the past. Anything to update? Any of them receive a ton of comments?

Well, the chess match with my friend on the Coast was halted after he decided to migrate to Linux which consumed any free time for long enough for us to kind of lose interest. Other computer recreations have tapered down, too.  I now enter the world of EverQuest only a touch over one hour per week. It's basically now simply my weekly chat with a friend from college.

Only two of my posts have gotten some rather serious feedback. My endorsement in the presidential election divided people up nicely. You either were tickled by it, or you hated everything about it. My sister couldn't point out what was specifically wrong with it, but then she thought more research into Kohlberg would have led me to a different conclusion. The other post that caused a stir was the one I wrote about my friend Steve. The feedback was uniformly positive and supportive. Steve is in Iraq now, and he's doing fine over there.  We're looking forward to him coming back to the States in a month or so.

[UPDATE (3/28/05):  Steve is back!  The story of the way he manufactured a surprise homecoming to Jacquie is the stuff "chick flicks" are made of.  We're all glad he's back!]

When all else fails, maybe a comment on society by looking at something happening in our schools will do in a pinch. Well, a bus driver was killed by a student. Then again, there are some schools where sobriety tests are given regularly. On second thought, I don't think I have the stomach to muster up a comment on these.

So you see, sometimes it's hard to come up with something to write about. Then again, there was a student of mine who was in the same boat. I had asked him to write in his journal for ten minutes. He could not think of anything to write. I said, "Why don't you write about that?" After he gave me an appropriately puzzled look, I started writing this on the board:

I guess this post is kind of like that lesson.