Dispatch from the off-line #WriMo Zone, Day 6

Today's number is 6, not as exciting or loaded with portent as yesterday's 5. That it symbolizes both ambivalence and equilibrium seems somehow appropriate. The real obstacle is not being connected. tl;dr.

Blame it on CenturyLink. I'm definitely not happy about it but helpless to do anything. The disconnect should be resolved by now but is not. If I can't connect by midnight, I'll have blown November #nablopomo challenge, even though I am now writing it now. On the other hand, the challenge is for me -- not BlogHer. I'll write off-line and post when I can with a scheduled back date. If that does not count for BlogHer, it still does for me.

The lessons of the challenge are to show myself I can still do it, train or retrain myself to sit down and plow through no matter what, work out my own personal toolkit (or blogger's sonic screwdriver) of tricks and fall back formulas for post. These posts are formulas. Boring when I go through the motions but fun when I get engaged and inventive plugging in the elements. Yesterday it was with number symbolism, "this day in history" and Guy Fawkes Day.

There's something poisonous in being so serious and always earnest. The condition may be inescapable on precarious faculty, but I intend to avoid it here.

November 6 in history

355 - Emperor Constantine II crowns cousin Julianus keizer of Britain
1153 - Treaty of Wallingford (Oxfordshire) signed between King Stephen and the Empress Maude
1528 - Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca becomes the first known European to set foot in Tex

1813 - Chilpancingo congress declares Mexico independent of Spain

1860 - Abraham Lincoln (Rep-R-Ill) elected 16th American President
1861 - Jefferson Davis elected to 6 year term as Confederate president

1862 - NY-SF direct telegraphic link forms
1865 - American Civil War: CSS Shenandoah is the last Confederate combat unit to surrender after circumnavigating the globe on its cruise that sank or captured 37 vessels.
1869 - 1st intercollegiate football (soccer) game (Rutgers 6, Princeton 4)

1900 - Republican President William McKinley and his Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt, defeat Democrats' William Jennings Bryan in the US elections
1903 - USA recognizes independence of Panama

1941 - Einsatz Gruppe kills 15,000 Jews of Rovno Ukraine
1941 - Japanese fleet readies assault on Pearl Harbor
1942 - Nazis execute 12,000 Minsk ghetto Jews

1945 - House Committee on Un-American Activities begins investigation of 7 radio commentators

1962 - UN General Assembly adopts resolution condemning South Africa
1966 - 1st entire lineup televised in color (NBC)

1986 - President Reagan signs landmark immigration reform bill