This is going to be short and not sweet.  I’m getting sent to Missouri for a few days to help out Trahern’s friend Jarvis.  Seems he’s heard about  my computer skills and wants me to work my magic on their system.  I’ll be working alongside  some Paladin named Jake.  That’ll be fine as long as he stays out of my way and takes orders well.  Brenna mentioned that she knew the guy, and asked me to tell John Doe hi for her.  She laughed when she said it, and even Trahern snickered a bit.  Obviously there some private joke I’m not understanding.   Even so, I’m still not used to seeing the big man smile so much.  Creeps me out some, to tell the truth.

Anyhoo, I won’t be gone long, thank goodness.  Every time I leave, the guys around here spend all their waking hours screwing around with our server just so I have something to untangle when I return.   I haven’t been able to prove it, but I suspect Cullen and Lonzo are the sneaky s.o.b.’s behind the pranks.  Devlin thinks it’s funny, so he refuses to kill them for me.  That’s all right.  They all have to sleep sometime, and then we’ll see who laughs last. 

So anyway, I’ll be back to answer questions again next week.   Try not to miss me too much–

                Devlin needs to get a life.  Well, the is trouble he already has one, but she’s out of town at some kind of medical thing.  Every since the big guy dropped Dr. Laurel Young off at SeaTac Airport, he’s been like a bear with a thorn in his paw.  Secretly, everybody but Trahern is jealous  of what Bane has found with our lovely Handler, but it doesn’t make him easy to be around when he’s not seeing her on a regular basis.  That lucky bastard, Trahern, has his own woman to help keep him in line. 

                I mean, is it fair that Devlin has been chewing on me all day because I’m late posting on the blog this week?  He said I should have had plenty of time to write something yesterday because the barrier has been behaving itself.   But you tell me—what does Sunday in America mean to you?  That’s right, back-to-back football games all day and all evening.  I suppose I could have scribbled something on one of the pizza box lids at halftime, but I busy surfing channels looking at other games. 

                Despite my favorite two teams losing, it was a good day.  Lonzo and I have taken upon ourselves to indoctrinate Barak in the finer points of American’s pastimes.  He’s come a long way in his understanding of baseball, but football is still sort of mystery to him.   Barak’s turning out to be an okay guy.  Heck, he even paid for the first pizza delivery, even if it was vegetarian. 

                So that was my weekend.   A good time was had by all.  So far, today has been good, too, except for Devlin’s bad mood.  Not only is Doc Young gone, but Col. Kincade  has been on one of his rampages.  That never sits well with any of us, but it’s Devlin who bears the brunt of it.  Maybe I’ll see if Trahern and Barak want to drag Devlin down the gym and find some rookies to bruise up some under the guise of training excercises.    Works for me.  Until next week . . .    

            The sun is just cresting the Cascades to the east when DJ enters the cluster of desks that he shares with Cullen and Lonzo outside of Devlin’s office.  It’s an hour before any of the other Paladins are due to report , but he has a new project he has to work on.  The last thing he wants is any of the others hanging over his shoulder making suggestions or giving him grief.  After booting up his computer to run through its morning routine, he starts a pot of coffee.  While it  finishes brewing, he picks out  a doughnut from the box he’d picked up on the way to the Center and plops back down at his desk to eat it.  

            Staring at the blinking cursor, he flexes his jaw, feeling a little residual soreness left over from the discussion he and Devlin had indulged in the evening before.   There was no getting around the fact that Bane had a mean right hook, especially when he had a point he wants to underscore.  To give the man credit, he was right in that one of these days DJ was going to have to learn how to control his mouth.  So far he hadn’t had much luck in that department, and once again, he’d shot his mouth off when he should have shut it. Now he was stuck doing this new project, all because some hotshot in the Regents had decided that the Paladins needed “online presence.”   No doubt Devlin thought the whole idea was as bogus as DJ did, but there’d be no getting him to admit it now.    Not when he’d taken such great pleasure in giving DJ his marching orders, especially in front of Trahern and Cullen Finley.   At least he’d said that DJ only had to blog once a week—unless he did something stupid.  Again.              

Time to get down to it.   Leaning back in his chair, he puts his boots upon his desk.  With the keyboard  in his lap, he cracks his knuckles and then starts typing . . .  

Okay, today’s entry is going to be short and sweet.    I’m going to introduce myself to great listening public , assuming anyone is out there reading this.    My name is DJ Clayborne, and I live and fight in the great city of Seattle, Washington.  If you’re a Paladin with a taste for action,  the Pacific Northwest is where you want to be, right in the middle of a whole string of volcanoes and tectonic plates.   Mostly we have brief periods of peace and quiet, followed by moments of absolute insanity.   When I’m not swinging a sword or my favorite ax, I spend a great deal of time at my computer.  Cullen Finley and I share the duties of keeping our system up to date and secure.  Some folks seem to think I like to indulge in a bit of hacking on the side, but so far no one outside of a few close friends know that for sure.  I’m not bragging, you understand, I’m just that good. You want details?  I’m in my late twenties, but probably look younger.  Part of the whole Paladin package is a tendency to age slowly, but more on that later.  I’m built on the lean side, but make up for it by being quick and sneaky.   I have brown hair that I wear short when I remember to get it cut, and I have blue-gray eyes.     

I grew up in this area because my old man was stationed here in Seattle, but that’s all I’m going to say on that subject. 

Enough about me.   So after this, I’ll be blogging about whatever seems interesting at the moment.  By the way, I don’t see why I have to be the only one to have to do this, so I plan on having guest bloggers on a regular basis.   And Brenna Nichols, Trahern’s woman, has asked that I start writing the occasional article for her on what it takes to be a Paladin.  We’ll see how that goes. 

He stops typing to listen.  Someone is coming down the hallway.  He quickly types one more line:  So that’s it for this first installment.  Welcome to my blog.       As Devlin comes into view, DJ hit “enter” and clears the screen.  Time for a cup of coffee.