I've been thinking about how to mark the departure of Meteor Blades with something better that trying to figure out the reason for his departure (which I don't know but which I expect is known to some close friends.) While he's gone, whether for now or forever, I choose to remember him for what he wrote.
I suggest a new tradition -- one befitting a gifted writer who cares so much for his work. We'll see if people like it. Maybe it will happen just this once, or maybe for a few days, once a week, once a month, once a year. I suggest that we do this in the evenings or overnight, not because we need to honor his "Open thread for night owls" feature but because I hope doing so puts less stress onto the search engines. (If the search engines start to seize: stop searching. Spread it out as necessary!) And, to best honor MB: if you want to break these rules and do it some other way, follow your best judgment.
The idea is this: pick a date in the year that is important to you. Don't make it your birthday or anniversary, if you don't want to invade your own privacy, but just something that is a personal red-letter day. Then do a search limited to the first time that that date occurred after you joined Daily Kos, for comments made by Meteor Blades. (Searching a single day for a single author will reduce the burden on Search.) I started here in September 2006, and the date I chose is March 18, so my search will be for March 18, 2007. I'll use it as my example.
Now for some technical writing:
1. Under the "The STATE of the NATION" in the upper right of the masthead, you'll see a box that says "Search" next to a button that labeled "GO." Click "GO."
2. You are now on the main search page. Click "Comments" in the menu below "Search Daily Kos."
3. You will see five lines of boxes for fields. The last line contains two boxes.
4. Leave the top three lines blank. In the fourth line, labeled "Author," type "Meteor Blades".
5. In the final line, type the single date that you want to search into both the left and the right box. For example, I would enter "03/18/2007" into both boxes.
6. Make a phone call on behalf of a progressive candidate and then click Search. Just kidding -- just click Search.
7. You will get a set of results. For my date, I get 14 hits. Some days will have no hits -- the guy's only human, after all! In that case: improvise and choose another day! You're an activist, you might as well learn how!
8. Read as many or as few of the comments as you wish. Chose one of them to republish in a top level comment below. Title your comment with the day you chose, and let the comment speak for itself.
This is the first and, I hope, the last of these I will do myself. This will be the community's project or no one's. I hope that this will not be the last "Meteor Shower" I see.