In one sense, this blog hasn’t changed much in the 22 years I’ve been running it. I get up early, I write stuff. For the past 20 years, it’s doubled as show prep for the Saturday NARN.
But one thing that has changed is the pace. I used to shoot for four posts a day, and frequently posted much, much more. These days, I stay consistent at 2/day – 6AM and 11AM. That’s actually a habit I picked up during blogging’s heyday – about 2/3 of the visits for the day came before 9AM, with another surge around lunch. I wanted to give people a reason to come back at lunch, so there was (and is) always a post at 11AM Central.
It’s probably a sign of how under-challenged I was back then. I sort of put career in the back seat between 2000 and probably 2012-ish; I had kids to raise. Which meant I had jobs where I really wasn’t that challenged. I had dribs and drabs of time during a not-overly-challenging workday to throw together rough drafts and story links to get to during my usual writing time, 5-6:30 AM – my “Me” time during my decade-plus with a couple of kids.
The career is back on my front burner, and going very well, thanks (knock wood); it’s been a blessing. I’ll go into more details some other time.
At any rate, two posts a day, sometimes more, is not a bad goal.
But one habit that’s not changed is the sheer volume of stories that I’d like to write about. I open them up in tabs, intending to blog about them, leaving them open until I do, and making a point of closing the tabs out when the story is done.
Which means every few weeks I have a browser with 40 open tabs, with stories I’ll never get to, largely out of date.
So what the heck – insteads of just nuking the browser full of tabs from orbit, let’s just bang out a bunch of them in one post, Instapundit style:
- Minneapolis wants to know how it’s music scene is doing. My response in one line: it was head, shoulders and ankles better in the ’80s.
- Minnesota DFL Legislative Majority rides to the Minneapolis City Council’s rescue on their Über/Lyft fiasco. Or at least they try to. Some people just don’t know enough to get rescued.
- Some people dream about living in their favorite TV show. The lucky (and fabulously wealthy) among us actually do it.
- Minnesota’s educational achievement is…mixed.
- Minimum Wage: We warned them, and warned them, and warned them some more. But did they listen?
- “Moriarty’s critics are circling“. I’m sorry, NYTimes, but it’s clear they are getting ready to pounce.
As a former life-long Minnesotan I really enjoy your site. I visit periodically during the day mainly to see who has commented on an article. It’s better now that you have deep sixed that bomb thrower from out east. But may i add that i think a few additional voices would really add to your blog. I enjoyed the guy from Como Park. He had a really neat perspective and covered topics about St. Paul that you did not. Even if you do not add anyone, I’ll still hang around. Thanks Mitch.
Gotta love the thing about Moriarty’s critics. Regarding the Londregan case, it’s not like we’ve had Brady v. Maryland in place for the past 60+ years….oh, wait. Disbar.
Echoing what Bettyboop said and adding, I really enjoyed the steps back from politics and culture especially the ones that visited history.
Never was much of a fan of popular music and bands, but every once in a while a gem came along
Agreed. Nice to have some extra links to read when I finish your blog posts. Keep doing this when your open tabs get too overwhelming.
As far as having additional writers on the blog goes, I personally miss the First Ringer history posts.