Milestones

Five recent milestones:

1. Passed the 600,000 visitor mark. This is a big deal because after 600,000 visitors, the 600,001st is half-price.

2. Passed Pg. 150 in Left Behind. At this pace, according to the calculations at If:Book, it will take me roughly another 80 years to work through the rest of the series. I suppose I'll either need to pick up the pace or begin training an apprentice.

3. For the first time in my life, I changed a baby's diaper. This was not a complete success — apparently I mistook Big Bird and Elmo waving "goodbye" for Big Bird and Elmo waving "hello," and so put it on backwards. But the customer herself did not complain, so I'm counting it as a Milestone Achieved.

4. My car has now taken me more than 200,000 miles. I'm trying not to sound like one of those cult-like Honda owners, but my '96 Civic has now nearly doubled the combined, lifetime mileage of my previous three cars (a Ford and two Chevies).

Driving a Honda draws the occasional complaint that it's better to "Buy American." I never heard those complaints when I had my Ford Escort, but here's the thing: the Escort was built in S. Korea; the Civic was built in Ohio. My sympathy for the Buy American argument has more to do with the location of the autoworkers' jobs than with the home addresses of the majority of shareholders.

5. Five and a half months have passed since I switched to an overnight shift at the paper. I realize that milestones are usually nice, round numbers, and five and a half months doesn't sound like a milestone figure, but when I started working this shift, several people told me, "Eventually, those hours are going to really start getting to you." As it turns out, "eventually" hits at about the five-and-a-half-month mark. Thus, among other things, the dearth of posts here lately. My apologies. I'm hoping to improve on that in the days to come.