firstpost (lastpre?)

Having just gotten back from 10 days in ecuador, I'm not in the mood to work. At all. So, it seemed like a good plan to copy my cousin Jamie and start a blog for this [still] new year. It seems like a good plan, both because it involves imitation of someone I highly admire [ie: Jamie], and because I often have a lot of things to say, and not much opportunity for saying them. This lack of opportunity is due both to the fact that most other people like to talk (so I often find myself in the role of listener), and to my own fault of being too sensitive to other people's interest level in what I have to say; if I sense that their attention is wandering, I prefer to be silent.