As an early birthday present to myself, this blog will die a peaceful death effective today.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy blogging … it’s just that as the blog has taken off, it’s also taken on a life of its own.  What started as a fun way to learn, connect, and share the things I’ve learned on my journey to become a better father, a better provider, and a better man has instead become a chore and a responsibility that often gets in the way of the things I should be doing or would rather do toward those same ends.

The bottom line is that I’m decluttering my life and this blog didn’t make the cut.  It was a fun few years though.

I have met a lot of interesting people and learned a lot from most of them.  My sincere thanks to all of you for that! I hope I’ve been a small and happy part of your online life in the meantime.

The blog will still be available for a short while (until my hosting plan is terminated on  July 3rd).  Until that date, feel free to pillage the contents for your own use or repost.  The contents will be unavailable after that date, and I’m not keeping copies anywhere.

My sponsors links will remain active until July 3rd as well, as I believe they are a valuable resource.  I thank them for their patronage.

I’ll still be browsing a lot of your blogs, though as part of that same decluttering process, I’ll be doing less of that as well

I’m moving on to other things – mostly focused on my real passion – writing.

So, to paraphrase from a master:

This blog is no more! It has ceased to be!  It has expired and gone to meet its maker!  It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it
rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now history!  It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, It’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-BLOG!!

And here is the original sketch that language was stolen from – one of my all time favorites:

Monty Python Parrot Sketch