Introduction

I'm a writer, professional, in fact; meaning I get paid for the things I write. They just aren't the kinds of things I would choose to write, given all the time and/or money in the world. I'm also nearing that legendary "mid-life" point of my life where men are reputed to question the decisions they have made in the process of getting to where they are. I kinda like where I am, but there's always the "what if" things that bother you, and I suppose it's no help that I've spent most of my life reading and thinking about "what if" kinds of writing.

So I wondered out loud with friends at a restaurant, and my wife announces that I need to start a blog. She believes that the things that I have to say have some merit to them. I'm not so sure (a disturbing and profound weakness in someone who is wondering if they have what it takes to be an author), but I love my wife for, among other things, thinking that I might. So I'm going to give this thing a shot, trying to write frequently enough to get in the hang of it and eventually do it for publication.

You can find out more about me by connecting to my slightly out-of-date home page, http://bellsouthpwp.net/t/a/tarqas/. I haven't been updating it primarily because I was using Dreamweaver to do the job and when I changed computers, Dreamweaver didn't come with me nor can I find my disks. So, we may ascribe the lack of updates to laziness, but it is a highly technological laziness. At any rate, I'm sure I'll be touching on more of the ideas and items on my home page as we go on, but I thought I would include the highlights here:

• Born and raised in Raleigh NC (which while not important to a lot of hypothetical readers, if you are from the area, it really means something)
• Married, for a little more than six months now
• Four cats
• Lifelong fan of North Carolina State University (and a graduate, too!)
• "impact" shouldn't be used as a verb unless you are referring to teeth
• Geek who reads speculative fiction and comic books...and then thinks about them

And I like wordplay. Thus the blog title that is a pun about making puns. And perhaps also because I think more highly of my sense of humor than I might should. At any rate, welcome, my hypothetical reader.