General Apology & Explanation

Setting Disraeli* at defiance --

It's come to my attention that I've dropped a couple balls recently.

Some of you already know this about me, but for those who don't -- I actually do the work I get paid for in about two months of the year, comprised of a few eight- or nine-day sprees when I vanish from sight and work feverishly. The rest of the time, the picture Dave painted of me in a recent comment, as loitering in my cubicle surfing the web and commenting on blogs, is embarassingly accurate. I run through some routine work and send a few emails and monitor a bunch of automated processes, and tinker with this and that, but I'm not really focused on the job.

Then something urgent and interesting comes up and for a a week or two my mail goes unanswered and my blog goes unupdated and I skip shaving. (I'd say that I don't answer phone calls, but to tell the truth, I never answer phone calls.) I'm just coming out of one of those periods now, and I'm discovering all sorts of things that I should have done that I didn't. So if I owe you email or some such, it would be wise to remind me of it.

*Who said, "Never apologize; never explain."