Sunday, January 23, 2011

Blog Maintenance Day

One day, about a month or two ago, I was talking to my good friend Nate about my blog. Nate is one of my biggest supporters of this profitless endeavor, and just like any other profitless endeavor, support from friends is one of the few things that can keep an individual motivated to continue. What's more, for those of you that know me well enough to also know Nate, you might also be aware that he too enjoys writing, and he is good enough at it to always have my ear when it comes to assessing tasks such as this one.

And advice he gives well. Frankly, it's the kind of advice I wish we could all get on every aspect of life, the kind that is complementary of everything accomplished to date, but also loaded with constructive guidelines to aim for moving forward. Really good advice from a really good friend. Anyway, on that particular evening our conversation took an interesting turn to an episode of the show 60 Minutes, an episode about the show itself, more specifically it's creator, the late Don Hewitt. Nate started telling me about it, but he didn't have to; I too had seen the show and also remembered it vividly. And each of us were moved by one immortal slogan expressed by Don Hewitt that evening, one that in all it's simplicity, took the show to unquestioned greatness, captivating audiences and dominating the ratings. That slogan: "Tell me a story."

Now, I am not Don Hewitt and I don't pretend to be anywhere near as interesting as 60 Minutes. Nonetheless though, I found it to be incredibly fascinating that two friends, writers known only as such by their small circles of acquaintances, would have the exact same vision of the direction that this blog...my blog...should attempt to evolve to. And it's a great concept. After all, Nate and I both, above most other things, LOVE to be told a story. And we all have them. We come across them everyday, in almost every aspect of life. They might not be grand enough for a stage such as television, but my gut feeling is that almost any story, about anything, can be interesting if delivered properly. Actually, now that I think about, this holds true to television as well.

So I created this blog and started writing. I like writing about sports, so that's mostly what I've done so far, but more than that I just want to tell you a story. Sometimes a short story or a story within a story. A story within some analysis. Or some analysis within a story. And sports are full of stories, so I'll keep writing about them, but I'd very much like to write about other things too. My friend Rob, a sportswriter, has a blog entirely dedicated to sandwiches...and it's great! Great, because in his own way, Rob is telling a story. I intentionally gave my blog the name, Time You Will Not Get Back, not because I found it to be particularly clever, but primarily because it does not limit me to writing about anything specific. I can waste your time writing about anything at all!

But alas, wasting your time is not really my objective here. I would, in my own way, telling my own stories, actually like to entertain you with this whole ordeal. And thank you to all who have been reading, this I really appreciate. This blog site allows me to track, not who is reading, but how many of you are, and I've been greatly encouraged to see the results to date. And for those of you that have offered your thoughts to me, whether in person, on facebook, by email or most appreciated of all: the comments section of this blog, thank you for that as well!

Moving forward though, I have a new agenda regarding where I'd like this to go. First off, I'd like to see it become far more interactive between myself and my readers. Before my computer required service and the holiday season with all it's distractions happened, I wrote a blog that involved a poll. I really enjoyed seeing people vote in that poll and continue to be ecstatic to see any and all new comments at the bottom of each blog. Naturally, I would like to see much, much more of this involvement in the future, and I think I've come up with an approach that might allow for that.

What I've decided to do is allow you the reader to decide the subject matter that you'd enjoy reading about, or the topic that you'd most like me to weave my story with. I will merely nominate some subjects for you to vote on and you can nominate subjects as well in the comments section! And then using a poll...we decide the next blog subject. Sound good? I sure hope so, because your participation will be critical in order for this to work out!

And so I'll begin with some subjects for you to vote on right now. This particular poll will close Wednesday night, January 26 at 10:00. Hopefully, I'll get an early idea for which subject is likely to prevail, so I can begin to prepare it and have it out to you relatively quickly. As for those that do not win, well some might remain for the next poll, and hopefully with new ideas of my own, as well as suggestions from you, I will have a new poll for you to vote on along with my next blog. This could be fun, at least it sounds like a good idea to me anyway. Here are the topics for this time:

Zack Greinke
The Royals Off Season
A College Football Wrap-up
The College Football Tournament That Should Have Happened
Shin-Soo Choo
The Centenary Men's Basketball Team
Those Joke Telling Shows On National Public Radio
Casinos

Thank you all for your participation to date and please take the time to cast your vote for my next blog!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Royals offseason. Talk about Big 12 basketball soon. Later.

ileyssilver said...

What was your favorite childhood book?

will said...

Tell us about the time you were I the Congo.

Anonymous said...

big 12 basketball.

Anonymous said...

Let's here about the KC Royals off season

Unknown said...

Shin-Soo Choo is an interesting story what must people don't know about, so that's my choice. My only request is that you leave your overrated fantasy baseball team out of it.

Anonymous said...

I vote the congo! LOL! Or what you are currently reading...miss hanging out with you guys :-)

Hugs!
Christi