I Sold My Blog

It's always strange to have big news to announce at the beginning of April. You can't do it April 1st, because everyone will think it's an April Fool's Day prank. But, you also can't do it March 31st or April 2nd, because there's also the possibility that everyone will assume you're too early, or too late, with your joke.

I can't reveal my news tomorrow, because April 3rd is the anniversary of the start of first successful Pony Express run from Saint Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California.

Saturday doesn't work either, because April 4th is the anniversary of the death of my favorite president, William Henry Harrison. He gave the longest inauguration speech on record, without a coat or a hat, and died of pneumonia 30 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes later.

Sunday, is, well, Easter.

Monday's no good, because everyone will be celebrating the anniversary of the designated hitter rule in American League baseball.

Tuesday is, of course, the Internet's birthday. (Technically, it's its conception day, but you'll be partying just as hard.)

Everyone who hasn't finished their taxes yet will be too busy looking for hidden deductions in "Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co." on Wednesday. That's the case whereby the Supreme Court declared the unapportioned income tax to be unconstitutional. Don't bother, there aren't any there. I already looked.

Thursday the 9th's definitely a no-go. It is the anniversary of Georgian independence. No, not the peach state, the country of the Five-Cross Flag.

Friday, April the 10th is the anniversary of House of Wax (1953), the first 3-D film from a major American studio. You can rent it from iTunes ($2.99) or buy it from Amazon ($5.99). Just make sure you don't get the 2005 version; I hear that Vincent Price isn't in it. He died in 1993.

Saturday, I'll be too busy moving dirt, I'm sure.

Sunday the 11th, will be Sunday.

Monday also won't work because April 13th is Eudora Welty's birthday. Although the author of Southern American fiction died in 2001, you'll no doubt remember her, because the very early email app "Eudora" was named after her in honor of her short story "Why I Live at the P.O."

Which brings us to next Tuesday: April 14th. On that day, the first run of the Pony Express finished ten days after it began. It was the beginning of an era. But like all great adventures, it too ended. Eighteen months later, two days after the completion of the transcontinental telegraph, the Pony Express announced its closure.

Completions. And that's really what this entire essay has been about, completions.

The great business adventure of my life, the one that began on November 13th, 2001, and lasted more than ten times as long as the Pony Express (and unlike that romantic mailman on horseback, actually made money), has come to a profitable end. I'm very happy to report that I sold my Business Opportunities blog earlier this week.

Fourteen and a half years as a professional blogger is a long time. For fourteen of those years, no one knew what I did. I'm sure it'll be another decade and a half before you'll understand what I'm going to do now. But, that's a conversation for another day.