Long Break No Read

Hello everybody (not everybody, but this blog's readers, and not even all of these, just the ones who still stick with this place here after this long break)...

... after I (the blog owner, for those who forgot) heard from several sides this blog is starving/drying up/gone orphaned/otherwise abandoned, probably the time has come to expand the notes I kept making in a small text file on the desktop into a full-blown bells-and-whistles spankin'-sparklin' new blog entry! Hold ya seats!

There were several reasons that made me stop... or interrupt... the common flow of posts here. I can only try to point out a few ones, without any guarantee for completeness, truthfulness, or anything.
One was my last trip to Italy, which took a whole lot of time to organize, and which was so chock-full of impressions there was not only no time to blog it, but hardly any time to sort those impressions. Then I got myself a new notebook (whose nameplate is still kind of up for grabs, several names vying for acceptance), and which made me learn a whole new user interface language and programming environment and ways of hooking up accessories and stuff, so this had a huge impact on free time as well. Third, I delved a bit deeper into my ever-growing stack of Chinese textbooks, mags, and learning tools, got a new teacher/learning partner, and since ole PJS is the original one-trick pony, this took its toll on free attention mass as well. Smoerebroed had its maladies, too. Happy, unhappy, know, no-know... everything happens in time.

But one by one.