The Bull in Full

Dude, what happened to your blog?

So this happens to be a question (paraphrased) I've been asked a few times recently.  I know there's been radio silence here, so I thought I might try to briefly explain.

First of all, in addition to working in an office which is currently rather severely understaffed, there's an item which will probably make a more regular appearance here if I do start blogging more often.  I've alluded obliquely in the past to my involvement in the effort to start a new cooperative grocery in Durham.  Now is probably as good a time as any to elaborate a little on that, and hopefully with a few more updates in the future.

Here's the basics: this venture is now officially incorporated as an agricultural products cooperative with the state, with the working name of Durham Central Market.  The steering committee, which I've been a part of since the beginning, has now transformed into an official board of directors.  And here's where my absence from the blog comes in -- I've somehow ended up as President of the board, which doesn't mean a whole lot other than just being a board member, except that I have a few more responsibilities to call board meetings and to a limited degree be the person that talks to the media and other folks with questions about it.  I've promised Monica Chen at the Herald-Sun that I'll give her the scoop (in exchange for her holding off snooping around earlier this year when we were still going through the motions of forming, and really weren't ready for a full load of publicity), but the general gist of the status right now is that we're busy putting together the business plan, working on the website (which is what I'll be doing immediately following finishing up this post), continuing to do preliminary location investigation, but most of all, gearing up for an ownership drive.  (If you know me personally, expect to be hit up for a share purchase sometime in the next few months.  On the other hand, if you want to just hang out, I'll be just about living at our booth at the Festival for the Eno in a few weeks.)

Blogjacking

I had to do something today I don't like to do, which is unpublish a comment.  Now, in the past, the only reason I've ever done this is when it was blatant commercial spam.  In this case, it was someone who seems to be frequenting this blog more and more, largely with the purpose of posting things related to a single personal issue that has been only tangentially related to the topic at hand.  Up until now, I'd let it slide.

In general, I'm going to let anybody say whatever they want here, regardless of how nutty.  Usually, as in the case of frequent pseudonymous commenter at Barry's and more recently here named Locomotive Breath, eventually the commenting becomes so self-contradictory until there's really no need for me to argue, much less delete the comment.  (LB's most recent one had me so in awe of its admissions that I still haven't managed to respond due to the shock.)  My general take is that so long as comments are not in violation of law, communicating threats, and are at least making a passing attempt at engagement in a discussion, it's far better to address them than to go about deleting -- even in cases where I couldn't possibly disagree more strenuously with the point being made.

However, there's comments of an entirely different sort, where the point becomes not engaging either me or other commenters in a conversation, but simply finding a place to drop whatever they happen to say, almost graffiti-like.  (Incidentally, this fits in more closely with the original definition of electronic "spam," which took its name from the Monty Python sketch where the Vikings singing "spam spam spam spam" over and over finally drowned out the conversation the waitress and her customers were trying to have (about spam).  Bloody Vikings...)  The most recent comment finally crossed this line, in my mind, and so it got deleted.  If you want a place to publish your own opinions or issues, get your own blog -- they're either free or very cheap, depending on where you decide to let it live.

On the other hand, if you want to complain about my editorial decisions, this post would be a fine place to do it.

Site cleanup

Finally got around to the long-threatened blogroll cleanup.  I'm sure I missed some people I wanted to include -- beat me about the head if there's some obvious ones I missed.  (I left off the ever-multiplying Durham food blogs.  I can't keep track of them all, and you can get to plenty of them through Fallout Shelter or Bull City Rising.)

In the meantime, BiF extends a very belated welcome to Angry Grrl, Aidil at Uplift East Durham, and Carl Kinney at REV-elution.

A bit of meta-blogging

A few general housekeeping items...

First, folks who check in regularly (bless you) have probably noticed yet another lull in postings.  I think it's time for me to quit apologizing for these, and just assert that it's how things are probably going to be around here for a while. 

My current job is one where work can come in fits and starts, so I can end up with long stretches during the day, waiting on a variety of things, or I can end up with 10 hours of non-stop stuff to do.  At the same time, I'm also pretty heavily involved in some community work around the Central Park area. (Hopefully more to come on this in the new year.)  Combined with my other non-work activities (taking geography classes, sporadically singing with the church choir, watching basketball, etc.), there are times when I just don't have the time or the energy to blog, and after thinking about it a bit, that's probably not going to change any time soon.  I really appreciate folks checking in regularly, and I wish I could keep up with the regular postings the way many of the other Durham bloggers seem to.  I tried to hold myself to this for a while, but it didn't work.  The posts are just going to have to come in bursts for now, I think.

Secondly, I realize that my blogroll is a crying shame.  I've given up updating it for a while, because if I actually start adding anyone, I'll start feeling bad for the people I missed.  Okay, so that's a sorry excuse, but in place of any actual effort put into it, I've asked Kevin at BCR (or one of the other TypePad bloggers) to see if he can find a way to publish his list so that I can incorporate it.  Don't thank me, it's this kind of hard work that's my job here.

Lastly, I didn't notice it when it happened, but sometime in the last two months this blog turned one year old.  That's a little startling to me -- Barry noted at his place that he started his blog mainly as a way to record thoughts for himself to go back and read.  I think on some level, I started this as a way to drain off some of the thoughts bouncing around in my head, without filling up the comments sections on other people's blogs, spamming local mailing lists, boring my friends and family to death, or just wandering around mumbling to myself.  In danger of getting too obsequious, I'll just say that the fact that a substantial number of you seem to enjoy reading it is really a wonderful surprise.

With that, I'll just leave it saying that feedback on what you like here and what doesn't work so well is always welcome.

I know, I know...

It's been pretty empty around here this week.  I've been in training all week, and with Halloween stuff, I just haven't had time to blog.

But for local reading be sure to check these out:

• Barry's got a post on the Troika music festival, which despite the dumb name, is a fun time.
• Chuck Clfiton went ballistic (Get it before the Herald-Sun's ridiculous internet policy eats it!) on the YMCA of the Triangle for their intransigence with regards to the Lakewood Y.  I feel like I should have my normal rambling comment on this, but it's hard to add much to what Chuck said.  Of particular instance is his call-out of Farad Ali, who sits on the Durham Advisory Board for YotT.  I'm not sure I can sustain a threat to withdraw my 8 year-long membership to the Y if they downsize Lakewood like they're talking about, but I'd consider it.
• A very kind (and highly creative!) gentleman named Luther Bissett has made a YouTube slideshow of pictures on his walk to work.  At the end, if you shift the frame forward a bit, Luther dedicates the slideshow to several of us Durham bloggers.  To which I say, aww, shucks... Thanks, man.

More Typepad annoyances

Posting the Kipling poem reminded me of why I frequently get annoyed with Typepad.  The utter rigidity of this middle column really gets on my nerves.  My choices for Kipling were either to put it in variable font and let it wrap in an unsightly way, or set it as preformatted and let the text run underneath the right column and become unreadable.  The choice was obvious, but still... Grrr...

On Joe's suggestion, I even tried upgrading my membership and using the more advanced design tools.  The problem with this is, as I've noted before, I'm absolutely terrible at graphic design and layout.  If the advanced tools had let me start with the "3-column Vicksburg" that you're currently looking at and fudge with it, I would have been fine.  However, if you go to the advanced design, you're on your own for the most part, picking your own layouts, watermarks, wallpapers, colors, fonts, everything, and that's just really a bad idea for me.  The great thing about using blog software is that I can focus on the text, which is what I really enjoy, and leave all the fuzzy bits to folks who know what they're doing.

Still, when the prefab design starts to restrict what I can do...

Barry's Blog With a Funny Name

I've been slow in adding links to the sidebars, and it's certainly not for lack of quality Durham-related blogs around.  I guess I'm just lethargic in that regard.

But one very good blog I've been meaning to add for a while, but have had qualms about because of its name and because I have hangups about fully public internet sites with my name on them, is Barry Ragin's Dependable Erection, named after a very funny sign advertising a Durham fencing company.  (Where IS that sign anyway, Barry?)

I'm getting over it.  Barry's got a link.  (Sorry, Blazer, it's going to be a bit longer for you...)

Typepad annoyance

Okay, so any experienced Typepad readers out there:  I like this layout, but I really wish I could make the center column about 10-25% wider than it is now.  Is there any way to customize that, or do I have to play with their other preconfigured ones?

Any help appreciated...

We will return you to your regularly scheduled Durham programming momentarilly

I feel a little bad that I've sold this blog as writing about Durham, and over the past month or two it's become (when not abandoned due to lack of time) a bit more about myself and many non-Durham related things.  This hasn't been particularly intentional, and I'm hoping to get back to some Durham topics sometime soon.  But the impetus to write is pushing me in other directions, and until I get up the hutzpah to start up separate blogs, it's all going to go here.  Eventually, hopefully, there will be a blog about Durham stuff and a blog about personal stuff, but right now I'm having enough trouble keeping one stocked, much less two.  (Blogging is harder than it looks!)

Anyway, this is a warning, as a bunch of non-Durham stuff is coming.  So those of you who occasionally check over here for Bull City news, please bear with me.

Back to three columns...

The people have spoken.  Three columns it is.