Day: June 2, 2002

Categories
Weblogging

Blogicon needs a new home

The Blogicon needs a new home.

The work to maintain it is minimal – add a new entry every once in a while (I have 3 pending now), using standard HTML. A better approach would be to have an application that allows people to add their own entries, so I’m hoping whoever will take it on has web development skills. I’d write the application myself, but with my move, I don’t have time.

The Blogicon gets a nice, steady flow of visitors – good way for you to meet new webloggers. I can set up a link with my content system to forward visitors on to your web site if they go to the current location.

My preference would be to have one of the University of Blogaria take on the page, but didn’t want to put anyone on the spot.

Send me an email if you’re interested and we’ll work out the details.

Update

Jason DeFillippo of Blogrolling fame has kindly offered to take on the care and feeding of Blogicon. Thanks Jason!

end of Update

Categories
Weblogging

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

A few days ago I wrote in a posting that I was taking a short break from weblogging. This is not a big deal. I take breaks, you take breaks, we all take breaks.

Weblogging isn’t a job or a marriage or parenthood whereby we’re committed to supporting it 100% of the time. Weblogging is a hobby. Something we do because it gives us pleasure, allows us to be heard, enables communication with others, sell books, products, services, explore technology – pick one.

If you’ve checked out the comments for this posting, titled “Burnt to a Crisp”, then you’ll see that some folks think I was taking a break because I expressed the views about the SFSU demonstration and the Blog Burst and then didn’t want to stay around to take the heat. I’ve commented back – most of which was pulled because I spoke from anger. A great deal of anger. Time to stop speaking from anger.

I was taking the break because I’m in the process of closing down a corporation I’ve had for over six years, as well as preparing for a move 2000 miles away. These are time consuming events, as is the book writing. In addition, I wanted to spend some time playing around the neighborhood so to speak – play tourist.

However, my reasons for wanting to take the break are not why I’m writing now. I’m writing now because I shouldn’t have to provide a reason why I’m taking a break. I feel I have to now because I’m kind of a proud person, and I really don’t like people believing that I would run from a fight. This was something I just couldn’t blow off.

Respect. It all comes down to respect.

This weekend I’ve been thinking a lot about respect. I’ve thought about some of the things people have told me in the last few months – some based on anger, some based on kindness, but all intertwined with this concept of respect.

Recently someone who I consider a very close friend told me that I wear my heart on my sleeve – meaning that whatever I think and feel goes online for all to see. Well, this is true to some extent. However, there is more to this iceberg than what shows above the water line, so to speak.

Regardless, this statement gave me pause – there’s that respect thing again. Am I coming across as this whiney thing that starts a fight, and then tells those who show up to stop picking on me? I would be appalled if this is true, because that’s not how I am. That’s not how I want to portray myself.

I’m stronger than that. I’m better than that. If I am portraying myself as this emotional wimp, then I’ve screwed up royally in how I communicate. And if I’ve lost respect because of what I write, then I have to seriously take a long look at my writing, and the value of this weblog.

Categories
Connecting

Control

Leaving the parking garage for my lunch appointment on Tuesday, I found the exit blocked, yet again, by the construction crew of the new condo across the street. I tapped my horn and when a couple of members of the crew turned towards me, I pointed to the pallets blocking the way. One of the guys holds up his finger in a gesture of “one moment”, walks over and moves the pallets — but not the huge truck behind them, basically giving me just barely enough room to turn the corner and not scrape the sides of my car.

As I fought to move the car around the obstacles, other construction crew members stopped working to watch and laugh at my efforts.

Last week when I took my car into the Ford service center, I missed the regular entrance and ended up driving through the actual center itself. At the center exit, a car blocked the way out, with a mechanic standing beside the car talking to another mechanic driving the car. I waited, not saying anything, not sounding the horn — I was a stranger in a strange land in this place. Eventually, the two guys finished their conversation, the car started to move, and I started to go…

…when I was stopped because the mechanic who had been standing by the car walked directly in front of me, slowly, looking at me, making sure I realized that he “owned” this territory, and that I pass by at his sufferance.

These two acts go beyond issues of courtesy. They were about power. These two individuals were the gatekeepers and I had to pay toll.

With the construction crew, my toll was to be humiliated as I tried my best to drive around the obstacles. At the service center, my toll was being made aware of the fact that I didn’t belong in this place, and I had best remember it.

There are well established (though often ignored) laws about driving to ensure we don’t kill each other. There are roads to enable driving from any point A to any point B. There is also a mapping and addressing scheme that works remarkably well in regards to location of same.

All of which can be arbitrarily shut down by one person who, in a moment of ultimate power, controls my only access to the organized but open system of the road.