We are currently in the midst of a storm (comma, sand) which has knocked out our internet satellites, so I write this at 8:41 PM Iraq time, but can’t know for certain when I will be able to upload it. I have a few people out here in Iraq who read my blog, and have gotten some feedback from them, and from you, which I think is worth addressing briefly today. You can file this under “housekeeping” I suppose, but I think the following self-imposed Q & A session may go a small way toward explaining myself and this website.

Q: Why did you set up the site?
A: I set it up primarily to keep my family and close friends apprised to some degree as to my whereabouts, i.e., to answer the question on a daily (or near-daily) basis: “Is Erik still alive and well?” It also doubles as my journal in which I chronicle my experiences here, whether good or bad, happy or sad, interesting or not-so-much. All of this explains why there is a lot of travelogue on rupard.org, and why some posts aren’t really that compelling. I have a few friends who started blogs when they got out here, or shortly thereafter and then bailed two-to-three weeks later when the blog posts became kind of samey. I have slogged through the samey-ness, and if you are reading this now, so have you. Thanks, and I hope there has been something of value in each post.

Q: Where is rupard.org hosted?
A: Netfirms.com, which has been pretty good. A few outages here and there, and the support is fairly minimal, but they are a popular enough web hosting site that I have been able to find solutions to most of my initial setup problems via google. One modest downside is that they do not have an effective way (that I have found, at least), to make the page links more attractive, i.e., “rupard.org/can-sweet-can” instead of “rupard.org/?p=31″. But Netfirms is cheap ($80/year), and it does the job.

Q: Why not rupard.com?
A: When I started the site, I owned rupard.org, but not rupard.com, which was owned by a cheesy bunch of internet squatters called “Nametech, Inc.” After literally years of working their price down, I eventually bought rupard.com for around $200 in February, and eventually will mirror the site there as well. That process takes some work which is difficult to do without good net access, so will have to wait until I get home.

Q: What blogging platform do you use?
A: Wordpress, a fabulous, free piece of software which is installed on the web server at Netfirms, and does all of the fancy formatting for me. I picked a theme that I liked, altered it a bit with “plug-ins” (such as the countdown timer at the top left), and after a bit of a learning curve, was finally up and running. There are other good ones, too, including Moveable Type and the Blogspot.net platform.

Q: Do you use any blog-editing software?
A: Wordpress offers the ability to type in a post simply by clicking on the page and writing into the online editor; however, this is bandwidth-intensive, and simply does not work out here. Therefore, I could not survive out here without a simple-but-elegant piece of software called “BlogDesk” which allows me to compose offline, and then posts itself later.

Q: I know you Erik, and you are a political animal. Yet, aside from a few early posts, you have avoided politics on your blog. Why?
A: Excellent question, self. There are two reasons for this, a pragmatic one, and a more personal one. Pragmatically, my freedom of speech is somewhat abridged by my being in the employ of the US government, and having sworn to uphold the constitution when I was commissioned. Because of this, I have to be careful what I say about certain people who are in my chain-of-command, including POTUS and the Veep. The more personal reason is simply that, on the few times I dabbled in politics here, it just did not feel right. I can’t quite explain it, but there is something about being out here in uniform practically all of the time which makes me less inclined to run at the mouth about such matters. I expect this to change when I get home. If you are wondering, my politics re: the war run pretty similar to Bill Whittle’s at ejectejecteject.com.

Q: You have promised on a few occasions to write about the people with whom you work, and yet you have not really written much about them at all to-date. What gives?
A: In writing about my co-workers, I have come across a problem which I did not anticipate. Before putting their life story/pictures, etc online, I really need to ask their permission. No problem there. The problem is that if they say “yes” to me, it is hard for me to know whether they said yes because they really don’t mind being a permanent part of this blog, or because I am “the Sir,” as they refer to me in clinic (not by my request, by the way). I really love and respect these people, and do not wish to embarrass them or invade their privacy in every way. So, I have kept my discussion of my medics and other staff at a bare minimum. This may change; in fact, I hope it does, as their stories are pretty interesting, to a person. But I have to find that comfortable spot where I know that what I put out there via this vehicle will not cause discomfort to my fellow soldiers. Not so easy, as it turns out.

Q: What happened to the hermit crab?
A: It is sitting in a sealed test tube on my desk. Still. Pretty lame, I know.

Q: How many “hits” do you get a day on this blog? Who reads it?
A: My “wordpress stats” plug-in tells me that I range between 100 and 450 hits per day, with a few days higher and lower than that. These are discrete hits, so if you check it fifty times in one day, only the first one counts. There are clear trends: far fewer hits on weekends than on weekdays. The hits come from Georgia (where my family and many friends are located), the greater DC area (my former stomping grounds, and I am an alumnus of the Walter Reed Internal Medicine Program there), the Northeast (where my parents and brothers/sisters are located), scattered UT/ID/AZ hits (LDS stronghold), some Iraq hits from my colleagues, and a few random hits from elsewhere.

Q: How do I make a comment on this blog?
A: At the bottom of each of my little entries (called “posts”), there is a bit of blue-colored, bold text which says someting like “no comments” or “3 comments.” If you click on this, it will bring up a text box, wherein you can write to your heart’s content. Alternatively you can sign the “Guest Book” by clicking on the link above.

Q: Can I comment even if I am not part of the Rupard family, or don’t know you personally?
A: Absolutely! I’d love to hear from you. (Just remember: this is a “family” blog.)

Q: Why do you want my e-mail when I comment?
A: Wordpress asks for your e-mail as a default which I cannot turn off. Filling out that field is NOT required, however. If you do fill it out, that address will be for my use only, and will not appear anywhere on the screen after you hit “Send”. In addition, if you have your own website, you can enter it in the appropriate field and then if someone clicks on your name, it will go to your site.

Q: Do you enjoy writing this blog?
A: A good question to on which to end this exercise. I do enjoy writing the blog, much more so since I gave up trying to write a perfect essay every time and instead just typed out a quick draft, once-overed rapidly and then published it. This rapid-fire method causes some chaff to be tossed in with the wheat, but it makes me much more prolific, and the process of writing much less painful. Writing is enjoyable to me; revising not so much.