My 2000th Blog Entry

And what better to celebrate than by including this snapshot of fireworks over one of my very favorite places, Dodger Stadium?  Oh, wait, I have another picture to share.  Fireworks over another of my frequent Los Angeles haunts, the Hollywood Bowl.

Two thousand days.  This blog has now doubled the complete term in office served by President John F. Kennedy.  This means that I'm either very prolific, incredibly wordy, or just smart enough to avoid riding in a limousine through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

Truth be told, I've written up these blog celebrations before.  Always when I hit the anniversary of its premiere, which is in mid-March.  Or whenever I achieve a particularly round number of blog entry posts, which #2000 is most certainly a particularly round number.   In the past, I've honored the occasion in a myriad of ways.

I've re-posted the very first post of this blog and added commentary in retrospect.

I've answered questions from readers.

I've answered questions as if they were posed by James Lipton on "Inside the Actor's Studio."

I've provided a behind-the-scenes look at one writes a daily blog.

I've done a complete inventory of the wardrobe in my walk-in closet.

Okay, I didn't do that.  But I just as easily could have.

While I still have no problem filling up the contents of these virtual pages on a daily basis, I have a big issue figuring out what to do with these commemorative posts.  

Gang, I've run out of ideas on how to celebrate me.  I mean, this is not like the old Johnny Carson Tonight show which used to do an anniversary show and give us for the umpteenth time Ed Ames throw a tomahawk.  I don't have tried-and-true clips that I can rerun.

Ah, but I do practice that already.  Embedded in those 2000 posts are some repeats.  While there are a few videos that I have shown multiple times because they are just so damn funny, the feature where I have tended to repeat myself is in my Sunday Memory Drawer, which the Blogger stats will show is my most popular day of the week.

Indeed, the Sunday Memory Drawer started as a weekly paean to my grandmother who used to regale me every rainy or cold Sunday afternoon with stories from the last week or seemingly the last century.  It has turned into a virtual memoir for me and is now forming the outline for a screenplay. 

That said, I find myself returning to the same memories again and again.  In much the same way that Grandma repeated stories herself, I'm falling into the same habit.  I rationalize this practice by saying that there's a completely different pack of blog readers today and old stuff is still new to them. 

I try to refresh the tales if I repeat them.  For instance, I wrote about Freedomland five years ago but was able to remember some new elements that made it a completely different saga which I ran last Sunday.  Sometimes I revisit to uncover a new perspective or look to the same old story.  While I told the memory once before, it might be even better with granite countertops or hard wood floors.

There was the Sunday Memory Drawer where I told some story from my childhood, only to discover days later that I had already written about the same memory three years earlier.  All of a sudden, I am my own grandmother, asking my readers.

"Did I tell you this already?"

At the end of each day in the last 2000, these are essentially nothing but words.  Hopefully crafted in a way that gives you a smile or a laugh or a shrug or a hoot or a holler or maybe all five of them.  After a creative reboot several years ago, I started to avoid doing too many pieces on the political landscape.  First of all, there is nothing I or we can say about the deplorable situation that has been perpetrated by the politicians of our nation and that goes for both sides of the aisle, gang.  But, still, I also discovered that I actually have friends amongst the readership that are very intolerant when it comes to opposing viewpoints.  Okay, we're polarized enough around here.   There's no need to fan the flames of dissent in this blog. 

But, still, in the next three months, how am I going to be able to avoid discussing just a little bit of what promises to be the dirtiest and ugliest Presidential campaign in American history?

But I'll always endeavor to stay on the funny side of the street.  I started doing this blog as a means to giving myself a daily writing exercise.  Of course, a true writer figures out how to work the blog system and layer in periods of non-productivity.  For instance, my "This Date in History," which runs every Wednesday has been written so far in advance that I'm already starting on the month of October.  At times, I have so many future blog posts in the queue that I can take a whole week off from writing.

When I began this journey in March of 2007, I certainly didn't expect to be doing it every day for the next 2000.  But this has become as much a part of my life's routine as showering and eating, which are two daily functions that I have yet to figure out how to do simultaneously.  I discover that everything in my life can wind up here on the blog.  I have actually gone to a movie that I know I will detest, simply because I know that I will get a particularly snarky blog review out of it.  And I've become much more attuned to my surroundings.  If I see or experience something interesting, you just might read it or see it here. 

And I sincerely hope you will enjoy.

So, in my attempt to figure out one more way to commemorate long term success on my blog, I have apparently settled on a theme for today's celebration. 

The rambling, incoherent, self-congratulatory piece that says absolutely nothing. 

I promise to be a bit more creative when we get to Blog Post #2500.  See you then.

Well, actually, see you here.  Tomorrow.   And every day.

Dinner last night: Omelet with egg whites and ham.