In September 2025, I celebrated a plateau in Thousands and Thousands. In 2025, I presented my 2000th professional lecture and wrote my 2000th blog post. That was a combination of this blog and others to which I have contributed over the years. Admittedly, most of those were here.
Nonetheless, this post is the 2000th in this blog, Florida Workers' Comp. It is a surreal moment, despite my anticipating it over the last several months. As I write that, I am not sure anticipation is the right word. I struggle to find a better one: trepidation? reckoning? dread? Mileposts can mark progress, but progress can be challenging to accept.
Each iteration draws to the next. Every reflection or citation of a past post reminds of so many hours dictating these thoughts into my phone or cleaning them up into this format. I have pontificated here regarding a great many topics. I have undoubtedly offended a few, perhaps inspired one or two, and at times even evoked a laugh. Unlikely a belly laugh, but perhaps a smile and a chuckle.
My peddling here has become much like the perpetual motion machine I have been refining in my basement these many years. I just cannot seem to stop working on it. Reflect on that, a guy in Florida who has a basement (they say a basement in Florida is called a pool, that's a good one).
I had no intention of this 2000th-post reminiscence last fall when I wrote Thousand and Thousands. Yet, these thoughts came to me in reflection. What do mileposts mean? Some people encourage us to mark all the mileposts in life. Perhaps it is merely the "progress principle?" There is merit in perceiving yourself as moving forward. But only if you are truly moving, not "ghost promoting?"
In any event, there is the danger of falling into the trap of Sarah Lockwood Pardee Winchester and her never-ending home renovation, or the Song That Never Ends.
Do you stop at some milepost and finally simply change course? Forrest Gump never really knew why he was running, but one day he just quit, "after 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours." When Forrest stopped, he said, "I'm pretty tired... I think I'll go home now." Anticlimactic as a conclusion? Or just confusing?
My first post here was posted at 13:27 on March 10, 2012: Changes at the OJCC for Fiscal Year 2013 (March 2012). If I stopped with this post, published January 22, 2026, at 05:00, I would have been writing, in the spirit of Forrest, for 13 years, 10 months, 11 days, 15 hours, and 33 minutes (including leap days), and "That's all I have to say about that." (Forrest Gump, Paramount, 1994).
Perhaps, I will keep writing this blog in some ever-insistent loop, a la Groundhog Day (Columbia 1993), until I finally get it right; in that moment, perhaps I will move forward without further exposition or explanation? Or, maybe, in the midst of that final post, I will finally "achieve total consciousness" (Caddy Shack, Warner Brothers, 1980).
So, tune in January 25, 2026, and see. Have I hit the wall, paused for a speed bump, achieved existential epiphany, or just kept on truckin? In any event, "thanks for playing my game" (Ready Player One, Warner Brothers, 2018), because it is comforting to know that "I got that goin' for me, which is nice" (Caddy Shack).
