I have a follower!

Does this mean I can start a cult now? Although, on second thought, maybe the cult angle isn't the way to go. As comedian Tim Wilson says, one of the hazards of being a cult leader is that every time you get a good crop of followers, the government comes along and wants to kill them. So forget that.

But I--more accurately, this blog--haz a follower. I don't know if you're supposed to keep the identity of such things secret or not, so I'll just say that AL is the first follower, which I appreciate. As I've said, I'm trying to leverage this whole Internet thing into relevance, career-wise, so every click, follow, or RSS subscription helps. Thanks muchly, AL.

You know what's stupid to do, when you've already got twelveteen dozen unfinished projects? Starting another project that will take hours and hours and hours to complete. So of course that's exactly what I did. I've begun scanning all the pictures I and The Lovely Missus have accumulated over the years so that a) we can share them with friends much more efficiently than driving to each friend's house like we had to do previously; b) so that I can burn a DVD or 50 of them, then store those DVDs in a fireproof box for posterity (because succeeding generations need to see pictures of that one time it snowed in March in Alabama, not to mention that party we had in college where everybody pigged out on Bama-Bino Pizza, may it rest in peace); and c) so that I can upload those pictures to my online file backup site. Why yes, I am kinda mental about that kind of thing. Thanks for noticing.

On the plus side, I've got a decently fast scanner, and I'm already learning how to hack it as far as going ahead and stuffing the next picture in while it's still processing. (By the way, that impatient gene has evidently been passed down to my progeny. If things he's interested in don't progress quickly enough for his liking, Jacob starts fidgeting his hands and feet like the Skipper used to when he got frustrated at Gilligan.) So I should be able to finish this by the time I'm 90.

On the negative side, by looking at these pictures, I'm reminded of a hazy yesteryear, where a much more hirsute, much less bloaty Jim roamed the earth, which is funny-sad. And I've found forgotten pictures of people who have died, which is sad-sad. (And now I'm singing the Drive-by Truckers' version of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died." Great. I just earwigged myself.)

Changes a-coming to this blog. Instead of just one epic, life-changing post a day (snort), I'm going to post a few more times a day. Nothing that huge or anything, just the standard-issue Internet detritus. Some of that will include scanned representations of my old incarnation, so if nothing else, it'll give y'all something laugh about.

Forecast high for World Blogging HQ today: 82. Yee-haw!