Opening Salvo

It’s time to move my blog.  I started this thing a few months ago on Tumblr, but that’s proved to be a rather clunky format.  So I’m moving it here.  I’m retired now, and with that comes the time to bloviate about anything that spins my propeller.  I won’t write every day—heck, I’ve never even written on a regular basis.  Besides, who has something important to say every damn day?  I can’t promise I’ll always be interesting or entertaining, either.  But I’ll write, and I’ll either find an audience or I won’t.  I’ll write about the things that interest me—politics, running, porn stars who schtup Presidents, whatever.  We’ll see what happens.

But the name.  You want to know about the name.

Some years ago, my wife and I took the kids to Europe.  Our  excuse was that Sweden was celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Stockholm Olympics by running the Stockholm marathon along the original 1912 course.  I had a step-sister in Stockholm whom we had promised to visit one day, so I had to sign up.  

We toured Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.  In Copenhagen, we visited the Royal Museum, which had a timeline showing every Danish king since the time there was something that could recognizably be called Denmark.  The first three kings had the best names I’d ever seen.  The first was Gorm the Old.  I don’t know why that cracked me up so much.  Maybe it was because “Gorm” is a funny-sounding name, or maybe it’s because “the Old” is such a dubious sobriquet.  I mean, it doesn’t quite measure up to “the Lionhearted,” or even “the Terrible,” now does it?

The second king was Harald Bluetooth.  And sonofagun, that’s whom Bluetooth technology is named after.  Who knew?  Not I.  You have to wonder how he got that name.  Dental hygiene being what it was in the early Middle Ages, I’m guessing we don’t want to know.   

But the third king—ah, now there was a name.  Sweyn Forkbeard.  Never in the history of medieval Europe has there been a fiercer name than Sweyn Forkbeard.  What knight could fail to soil his chainmail knowing that he was heading into battle against a foe whose very facial hair could pierce his armor and send his immortal soul to Valhalla?  Fear the beard!  

Thus was born an alter ego.  Whenever I am feeling particularly cantankerous, or iconoclastic, or imperious, Sweyn Forkbeard emerges to slay the dragons of ignorance and unreason, bend the arc of the universe towards justice, and redeem the just and the righteous.  So now you know.  Welcome.