For those who encountered worrisome security warnings when trying to view my blog at
https://asorrybowl.blog -- sorry about that. I'm trying to work it all out.
Meanwhile, here is the first (and, so far, only) post:
# Hello, World!
I'm **baslow** (not my real name), This is **A Sorry Bowl**, my blog. To begin with, I guess I should address some burning questions:
### What Is This?
I've suffered from *life-long* writer's block; I have been interested in writing since I was a child but, with a few feeble exceptions, I have never made a real effort to actually write anything intended to be read (or otherwise absorbed) by the world at large.
I'll be 70 years old in August. I am now, as Montaigne was (and Cicero before him), learning to die. This could be (possibly my last) attempt to write something that goes out into the world.
All aboard!
### Why Did You Call Your Blog "A Sorry Bowl"
I wish I had a good story to tell you but here's how it happened: I couldn't think of a good name for my blog so I settled for an anagram of my real, birth-certificated name. Since I'm going by **baslow** (not my real name) here, I'll leave it to the reader to work out what my real name is. I don't think it will be too difficult. I've been using the *nom de Web* **baslow** for decades... (see Appendix below)
### What Will This Blog Be About?
Well, damn...let's find out!
## Appendix
For those consumed by the question of *who I really am* I offer this earlier appearance of **baslow** (not my real name) on the WWW more than 15 years ago:
> Baslow was studying sociolinguistics at the University of Texas at Austin when, seeing too many fellow students getting jobs as cab drivers, he decided that a change of path was needed. After long, careful (and increasingly desperate) consideration he joined the U.S. Customs Service in NY to become an Import Specialist Assistant. In that capacity he helped defend our shores against the international flatware conspiracy and, almost single-handedly, protected us from the ravages of under-priced rawhide dog yummies. The romance was short-lived, however, as he soon heard the siren song of Electronic Computing. Over the course of the next twenty-two years he learned COBOL and became an Assistant Programmer, fell under the spell of Unix and shell programming, and ended up writing Perl programs and administering litigation databases in a bad part of town. Along the way he has written children's puppet shows, published bad prose poetry in an obscure literary journal, married and begotten two children. He is unemployed and overweight.
