The first month is always the hardest in academia, and for we department chairs it's worse. I just put out the first draft of our program review self-study yesterday, felt the weight come off my shoulders for about twenty minutes and then an email came saying I had three business days to get the spring schedule to the dean. Three days. Somebody forgot to put the memo out, people who do this all the time called over -- not me, because self-study means self-absorbed, 24/7 -- and they blithely issue short-fused grenades ("count to three, but quickly, boy.") Scheduling is one of the basic jobs I have, and I usually take about ten days to do it. I've got five if I work all weekend.

Luckily, I'm not on NARN tomorrow. Lucky for you too, I guess.

Part of the routine of my day is to check traffic and linkage after lunch, but today not so. A reporter from the STrib called for a quote about some rental ordinance down in Minneapolis. I spoke to him from a dealership showroom while getting my car's oil changed after lunch. Ran back to the office, started on schedule and then given a personnel situation. When 5:00 came the choice was to work until seven and try to make some headway, or go with my friend for a beer at a smoky joint I hadn't been to for a couple of months. Not a hard decision.

Got home, visited with Mrs. B and the LS, and toddled down to the family room about an hour ago. Bring up my counter page. Holy shit! Click the last guests.

http://www.lileks.com/bleats/index.html

NO. The busiest day of the month, and I miss his linkage? Yep.

(At the blogger party last month, King Banion opened my fridge and asked �does it always look like this?� It does. I have a shelf devoted to sodas, and every day they get replentished so there�s always a full assortment. Do all the labels face the same way? What do you think?)

Yeah, I noticed, but that's how the name's pronounced by Americans. (Armenians wouldn't even spell it that way, but that's how Immigration spelled it, and as long as they let you in they can spell it any way they like.) I also noticed today I was getting comments from people I had never seen before. I hope some will stick around.

Last night several NARN members received very kind praise from designer/blogger Derek Brigham.

NARN and Hewitt have inspired Jr. Varsity blogs like myself at FreedomDogs to sprout up around MN and the rest of America, and for the foreseeable future, they will only get stronger even if many of them only reach 25 people a day.

...What story will they explode next? Tune in and keep surfing. Who knows, you could be the specialist that contributes the next piece of otherwise useless information to a story that changes the world.

You're right, you never know. One night you've got your head in somebody's fridge being a smart-ass because it doesn't look like your Ghostbusters-lab-wannabe fridge, and the next thing you know a bunch of new friends are reading your blog.

So, after all that, thanks James. Don't forget the Ani in the closet. I'll bring more next time.