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	Phil's Blogservations Tuesday, November 29, 2005 Posted by philgomes 6:53 PM Half A Life Later, A New Blog Policy When I was around driving age, Mom would give me the safety litany on the way out the door. Those of you fortunate enough to have such loving moms know the drill. Buckle up your seatbelt. Don't drive too fast. Keep your elbows off the table. Don't trust the creepy guy on the corner who looks like the cover of Jethro Tull's Aqualung. Don't talk with your mouth full. Follow the three-second car-following rule. Don't play your music too loud. Look before you cross... Hopped up on Mountain Dew and JuJu Beans (while quickly gaining a rather early taste for black coffee), the young Phil thought that the safety litany took entirely too long. Teenage distractions wait for no not-quite-yet-a-man! After all, there were rally band gigs to play at, band practice with "Mile Zero" — and, later, "Of The Gods" — and, somewhat rarely, a date with any girl whose feet I hadn't already turned painfully black-and-blue during the most recent school dance. So, at one point, Mom and I reached a compromise. The "safety litany", in its entirety, was condensed to a simple number: 62. I'm not sure how we arrived at that number, but all I do know is that it cumulatively put almost a year back into my adolescence. (And, while no one has said anything, hearing a mother yelling the number "62!" to her son as he bounds toward his car must've seemed a bit weird to the neighbors.) Now, as Ron White says in the middle of his famous "They Call Me 'Tater Salad'" tale, "I told you that story to tell you this one." I think we need to similarly "numberize" the "blog hiatus post" that people inevitably put up when life intervenes and days go by without updates. You all know the kind. Here's an outline. [Somewhat breathless title (e.g., "I'm back!" or "Whew!")] [Apology.] [Dramatic description of the voyage, journey, adventure, or technical difficulty that prevented new posts.] [Promise to be more diligent.] [Links to stuff that was deemed interesting upon a quick review of a stacked-up inbox, social bookmarking tool, or aggregator.] [Another promise to be more diligent.] [Signoff.] Henceforth, the "blog hiatus post" will be known as "38". (My non-Y2K-compliant year of birth, minus the day, minus the month.) When I write "38", there will be a link to this post. You'll know what I've been going through. You might even say to yourself or a colleague, "Man. What's up with Gomes? [Pron. "goams", one syllable, rhyming with "roams".] He's totally gone '38', you know?" In any case, maybe this might put some time back into my thirties. *8-) I'm in Chicago this week, NYC through some of next week. Hopefully blogging throughout. | HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil's demented imagination. Hell, to be perfectly honest, even Phil disagrees with what he thinks sometimes. This site has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Clicking on a link doesn't automatically send a 1/2-cent donation to UNICEF. You can't buy, sell, auction, swap, find a date, win friends, influence people, cross the chasm, or decode the human genome using this site. You won't get free email. You won't win a PalmOne Treo or a Playstation2. This site will not end world hunger, foster peace in the Middle East, help you smell better, teach you how to swing dance, or move the global economy from petroleum to hydrogen fuels. You'll learn a lot about this site's master, though, which amounts to a haphazard collection of strange and useless facts that pretty much won't help you at all.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This is the blog of Phil Gomes, VP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes.com View my page on PROpenMic SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.