Ok – I’m back. For those of you complaining that I haven’t updated my blog, here it is, but don’t expect much – I’ve read my home mail, my council mail, my work mail, my council e-mail, my work e-mail and most (still have 450 left) of my yahoo email, read the dailypage forum, dane101, madison.com forum, read several local blogs, the plan commission packet, most of the council agenda and packet, but I still haven’t read the daily papers, I did quickly flip through the Isthmus. I’ve also checked in with all my staff, various community members and board members. Interesting what happens/doesn’t happen when you have a week out of the country/disconnected from the world . . . and interesting which of the above was most useful in telling me what I needed to know to get caught up. I’d have to go with a few key people, the on-line info and email, if there was anything in newsprint that was relevant, it was referenced on-line.
Will try to update the lobbying contacts ASAP, but there’s alot of scraps of paper all over the place and I’m not quite organized, it may take a while, so you may find a gap of information, but I’ll start getting current.
Don’t have much time for anything substantive, but I posted this on the dailypage today about why I blog . . . it’s partially a response to Jason Joyce’s blog on thedailypage and partially a response to forum comments – thought it may be of some interest.
Note: Sorry, it’s unedited and it needs editing, but again, that’s kind of the point of a blog . . . ya can’t take this stuff (grammar, spelling, punctuation) too seriously folks! Life is to short to obsess over commas. If you understand the communication, close enough.
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JJ – I don’t blog to entertain you or anyone else. Read it, don’t read it, I don’t care.
What I use my blog for is:
1. Explaining something that takes more than a sound bite. Our political viewpoints on just about anything are limited to about 12 words, and if we’re lucky (or sometimes unlucky) it our actual words and not a paraphrase that may or may not hit the point we were trying to make.
2. It is a useful tool to refer people to when they ask you a question that you have already answered. Check out my answer here. Makes it so that I don’t have to repeat myself.
3. Sometimes, I just have something to say, its not a news story, its not a big deal, but something irritating me that I think people should know about, so I write about it.
4. Sometimes, I want to respond to something and don’t want to spend my time cutting it down to a 200 word editorial someone may or may not print in a few days.
5. Sometimes, something is on my mind, I need a blog topic and I just say it.
6. My Dane 101 blogs are usually something that would be a letter to the editor that I would write to the WSJ or Cap Times, that they probably would not print or not print in a timely manner.
7. I don’t know why I post on Madison.com . . . except my theory was . . . I might reach a broader audience . . . not sure its working.
8. My blog also has my (un-updated) lobbying contacts, which I wanted to be somewhere for public viewing – It was the catalyst for my starting my b log.
If these aren’t good enough reasons for reading my blog, don’t read it. Its not for everyone. Some people like it. Before vacation I was getting 100 – 200 people looking at 200 – 400 pages a day. Even while I was gone and had a notice I was gone 20 – 60 people looked at my blog each day.
Am I going to respond to every Larry Palm entry about IZ, never. I’m sorry I even got into the back and forth with Paul Soglin – its a waste of my time since he hadn’t looked at, and doesn’t care about the details of the ordinance, he only wants to make the global political point – not create affordable housing for the city or talk about how to make an ordinance work.
Why I blog is probably a bit of an organizing tool, a bit of a chance to blow off some steam and a bit of a chance to respond to some things I’m hearing that I think are wrong or things that have been said about me . . . I have so many people spinning what I think, I hardly ever get the chance to say what I want in my own words . . . and to tell you the truth, I’m still trying to figure out blogging, but so far, its worth it.
Now . . . as to the time issue . . . I don’t spend more than 20 minutes on any one post, and it probably shows . . . but that was kind of the point, I’m not going to spit shine and polish every entry . . . it was supposed to be a quick way to convey a message or information . . . hence, the run on sentence issue – I can write with proper grammar and punctuation if I take the time . . . but i dont’ have time . . . and the blog actually ends up saving me time everytime i can refer someone back to it . . .
(this entry alone probably could have been a blog if I wanted it to be and I’d have my blog entry for today . . . in 10 minutes or less)
