I get this question semi-regularly. Not due to this blog, of course, as this is my first-ever post. Thanks for reading, by the way. I hope you’ll come back.
No, the reason I get this question is either because I’ve had hiatus.com in my email address for the last twenty years or so, or because I’ve had HIATUS on my license plate for nearly that long, or both. So what is this fixation with “Hiatus?”
The origin is quite unspectacular: Back in August 1986, a couple buddies and I road-tripped from Minneapolis to Chicago to catch a baseball game at Wrigley Field. The forecast was something like 78° and sunny, and so the actual conditions, closer to 48° with fits of rain, caught us off guard in our t-shirts and shorts. Naturally, miserable as we were, the game went to extra innings. It didn’t occur to us to leave early, as we were 18-19 years old and we’d paid good money for this. Eventually, the game ended (“Cubs win?” I don’t even remember), my buddy Larry got his mug on television, and we high-tailed it home.
As you might expect, we had such a terrible time that we decided to not only repeat the experience annually, but to expand the trip to farther-away ballparks, bring more of our friends, and drink more beers. Somewhere very early on, possibly even before the 1986 inaugural trip, it was christened “Hiatus”, and it continues, thirty-one years later. We’ve hit nearly all the major league stadiums currently in use, and probably at least a dozen that have since been razed.
Hiatus became something between novelty and legend; certainly, one of the high points of my summers as a young adult. Call it a mantra, if not a way of life. Hence the hiatus.com domain name, and the vanity license plate. And recently, after nearly nineteen years as a software developer, I took a voluntary separation from my job, so I’m technically on hiatus career-wise as well.
Which brings me to this blog. I don’t know if anything will really come of it; I’m not even sure what I’m going to write about. But I like to write, and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, so whatever’s on my mind is going to end up here. If I hit on anything that my reader(s) give a damn about, maybe the blog will evolve in that direction.
In some ways, I feel like I’ve been on hiatus most of my life, and didn’t even know it: I’ve always been more of an observer, less an achiever. More of a critic, less a producer. So maybe this will be a fun ride – I can do what I’ve always done, which is opine on the world around us. And maybe, in some small way, I can actually produce something worthwhile.
Until next time…