Slowly but surely putting this blog out of business -- and it's not a bad thing

No, Second Effort isn't going dark anytime soon, although it might have looked like it this week as I very nearly finished an appellate brief that has taken up most of my last six weeks. I even missed a few updates on The Blog of Days this month because of the brief.

But, lately, as I've come up with ideas for posts about legal topics and even some personal ones, I've more and more been tempted to use my 'real life' blogs as an outlet. Sometimes I actually do so.

And the world hasn't come to an end.

As for my occasional political posts, well... I included this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic in a February Frivolous Friday post... and it struck me then as uncomfortably close to true.

It still does. (Even if there's no such thing as "retirement" anymore, there is a traditional retirement age... which I'm creeping up on... well, you know where I fit on this graph if you've ever read one of my political posts.)

Even so, for the most part, when I've tried to present political ideas here I've done my best to be civil. But, as an anonymous blogger, especially one who's not trying to be controversial, or as one who's tried to speak of controversial matters in a non-controversial way, I'm just shouting into the Internet's hurricane headwinds. If I have opinions worth sharing, I should strive to have the guts to do so under my own name.

The family stories -- well, they're one of the principal reasons I started this blog -- and one of the reasons it will continue. I still think the cloak of anonymity is important for my wife and kids and, as an anonymous blogger, I don't have to worry about unintentionally hurting anyone's feelings.

Yes, I know, that's sort of the opposite justification for Internet anonymity than is customary. Usually, Internet trolls like to be anonymous so they can spew vitriol and invective without fear of discovery. (What would Mom think?) I never was any good at following trends.

In order to keep the blog from lapsing into long periods of inactivity (and losing the handful of readers that remain) I may even try and develop some focus for the blog -- something family related. Who knows? I may even grow traffic here.

But that's a task for a different day.

Today, having largely finished the brief project (I noticed this morning there's apparently still one more email I have to answer) I discover that I'm six weeks behind on timesheets and billing. And, much as I hate these tasks, they must be undertaken.