{"id":16670,"date":"2026-05-05T13:55:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/?p=16670"},"modified":"2026-05-05T13:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:55:08","slug":"ok-heres-the-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2026\/05\/05\/ok-heres-the-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"OK, here&#8217;s the deal&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-style-twentytwentyone-border\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/meme_blogging-flogging.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16671\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/meme_blogging-flogging.jpg 640w, https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/meme_blogging-flogging-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Be careful what you wish for.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Alert Gazette readers will remember that a couple of months ago, I <a title=\"Gazette post from March, 2026\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2026\/03\/16\/taking-a-break\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a> that I was taking a sabbatical to contemplate the future of this blog. I was extremely humbled and gratified by the support and affirmation many of you expressed, and I&#8217;d be lying if I said that didn&#8217;t weigh heavily in my thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Welp. I&#8217;m still taking a break until June 1<sup>st<\/sup>, as I announced, but I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve figured out from the lame graphic above that I&#8217;ve decided that I can&#8217;t let the Gazette go, at least not for the forseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, I <em>have<\/em> decided to make a change but it is more procedural than substantive. Last year, I announced that I was no longer going to post notices on Facebook of new articles, in the hope of convincing readers to subscribe to the free (and ad-free) emailed notices. A number of you took me up on that, but there are still a lot of regular readers who have their own legitimate reasons to not to have another email show up in their inboxes. So, at great personal cost to me in terms of the 60 seconds or so it requires, I&#8217;m going to resume posting a notice on FB whenever something new shows up on the Gazette. (I continue to be disproportionately grateful to my subscribers, though; I know your mailbox space is valuable.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In closing, while I&#8217;m not posting anything currently (<a title=\"Gazette post: From Dirt to Detonation\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2026\/04\/24\/from-dirt-to-detonation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this article was a one-off exception<\/a>), I am continuing to write and I&#8217;m building an inventory of posts that I&#8217;ll release \u2014 not all at once; don&#8217;t be [too] scared \u2014 when I reactivate the Gazette on June 1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, thanks for the votes of confidence, and I&#8217;ll do my best to make sure you don&#8217;t regret them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, no promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-style-twentytwentyone-border\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/meme_doyouknowwhatarhymeis.jpg\" alt=\"Meme about rhymes that don't rhyme\" class=\"wp-image-16674\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/meme_doyouknowwhatarhymeis.jpg 600w, https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/meme_doyouknowwhatarhymeis-281x300.jpg 281w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A blog is a terrible thing to waste, but that won&#8217;t stop me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-navel-gazing","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/header_dronesunrise.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16670"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16678,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16670\/revisions\/16678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}