tip of the hat and exit stage left

 i found out about OD through a message on Facebook.  a person i read here and am a friend with there sent me a simple message about going to OD to see what was on the main page. 

so wow, OD is going away.  it seems like this always happens, doesn’t it?  as soon as you hear of someone’s sickness or death suddenly all those that you start coming back into your life.  i have been gone along time, i didn’t mean for that to happen, but it did.  and now, i’m lamenting about the loss of a great community.  this was, truly, my first experience with "social media" it became for me a place to write, to explore, to vent, and to make great friends.  i met some great people here.  

i’m going to try and download my diary.  i’m not sure how that will work. this is, i think, my 2100th entry.  i used to post daily, sometimes twice or three times.  i hadn’t realized i was the prolific.  its going to be tough to download 2100 entries 14 entries at a time.  i have got to get this downloaded, there’s a lot of loof history here!  I’ve been here, off and on, for 12 years.  Twelve  years!  how much has the world changed in twelve years. i can’t even quantify it.  really.  i’ve diaried the destruction of the world trade center, i have diaried my move from texas to indiana, i have diaried my experiences in grad school, i diaried the deaths of the Boss (a cat), Woody the Barron von Woodster (another cat), and Copper (a poodle).  I have also diaried the death of both of my parents, the meeting, falling in love with and the breakup a of a girl who meant the world to me.  i have been silly and introduced some "characters" from my life, both real and imagined, the Boys (aka, pnut, kdawg, and loof) will, to some of my long time readers hopefully live on in their minds.  

so, it is with sadness that i realize that OD will no longer exist, though, for some reason, i hope, against hope, that somehow, someway OD will be saved.  OD has survived a lot in the last 12 years: hacks, outages, etc.  

now, to figure out how to get my diary downloaded…. and soon.