Detour

We're all busy. Here's the executive summary: a few months ago, I pulled the plug on this site (well, lazy version: made it invitation-only, and didn't give the invite to anyone); I then spent far too long tinkering with a "new and improved" site that was meant to be Esquivalience 2.0 (you can go ahead and read those paltry few posts here); I simply could not get used to the new site and its ahistoricity; today, I tentatively decided to re-open shop back here.

Er, with a few alterations. Which you'll discover if you browse back about eight months or more.

A word or two about the new self-censoring: (1) Purists, take heart. The original text is still on the site and very easy to someday restore. (2) I really did struggle to come up with a semi-coherent and systematic set of rules for what got the axe marker. Some was easy: anything related to work processes or procedures got the cut. I did deliberately leave up first-person accounts of adventures in India. Stuff happened; I related it. That much seems fair. More controversially, and probably more haphazardly, I decided to cut generalizations that went beyond first-person accounts, as well as (largely humorous) assertions that might not play well out of context. I don't, to be frank, feel terribly good about cutting those. Worse, those instances tended to result in a line or two getting stricken from the midst of an otherwise acceptable post, and the overall effect, I think, suggests the hidden text was far, far less innocent than it actually was. (Confused yet? Youtube to the concept-illustrating rescue.)

It feels lovely to be back. This site, kludgy as it is, feels like an inelegant but nicely broken-in pair of shoes.

The exercise wasn't a complete waste of time (at least for me. Apologies to those of you who have to update your links and/or feeds yet again). We learned a little bit more about CSS, and we're going to continue the wedding singer conceit -- if only out of pure self-indulgence -- born of the interim blog. We're going to attempt to continue to walk the straight and narrow vis-a-vis bloggerly work rules, and we're going to aim for a posting schedule of at least weekly. And no, we can't promise you which day of the week. There's ambitious, and then there's just plain silly.