Hiatus ending soon, sort of

After a couple of weeks away, I figure there are two things I want to do with blogs. First, I want to keep in touch with my friends, and I WILL eventually drag their sorry butts into the blogosphere so we can all stay in touch without those "Hey, just thought I'd e-mail since I hadn't heard from you in a few months" e-mails. Second, I want to blog about music.

If I stay focused on music, maybe that'll help me resist the temptation to get sucked into the pointless sociopoliticamedia discussions that pass for intelligent discourse in the blogosphere. Sure, I may have pointless arguments about music, but that's OK. And I least I can debate aesthetics without feeling like I have one hand tied behind my back because I'm still employed as a journalist.

So this is probably my second-to-last post here. The last will be to tell you my music blog is up and running ... or that I've had another change of heart and will do something very different.

My personal blog will be back up and running shortly. Most of you know where it is. E-mail me if you don't. And start your own danged blogs ... I'm tired of preaching to a bunch of invisible strangers.

On hiatus

Or, for Friends fans: "We're on a break!"

I've decided to take a break from all this -- writing blogs (work use aside), reading blogs (work use and wife's blog aside), commenting on blogs, etc.

I wouldn't say I'm disillusioned with the whole shebang. I'd just say that, for the moment, I've gotten as much out of it as I'm going to get. On other blogs, I've found myself making the same points over and over. On my own blog, I'm writing for a very small audience.

And I don't need to do that. I need to work, I need to spend time with my family, I need to do yard work, I need to watch some soccer and I need to get my sorry butt back in shape. I'd also like to make a dent in the stack of books I've accumulated on my night stand. I might even refocus myself to get some free-lance projects going.

To do all this, I need to get out of the habit of flipping on the computer as soon as we put the little guy to bed each night. I'm not really doing anything constructive. I'd probably have a larger audience if I stood on my back deck and yelled, and I'm not that interested in attracting an audience of strangers unless I have a compelling topic.

I'd love to use blogging as a way to stay in touch with my friends. But for some reason, the only friends of mine who blog are the ones who live in Greensboro, NC, or Athens, Ga. That's not doing much to shake my notion that Greensboro is a strange exception to the rule that most bloggers are either techies (like my Athens friend) or a bit cranky.

If my friends start blogging, or if I have something compelling to write about, I'll come back to this soon. Otherwise, I'll probably take a break for the spring and summer and come back when the weather isn't inviting me to the yard, the playground or the bike trail.

When my dad remarried a couple of years after my mom passed away, he told me he'd had an epiphany -- being an old curmudgeon up on a hill was no way to live. He's right. That's not to say he can't be a curmudgeon on occasion or that I can't blog on occasion. But sometimes, you have to come down off the hill, walk around and live in the real world for a while. That's what I'll be doing.

You can still reach me, of course. Any comments left here will trigger an e-mail my direction. And I'm not giving up e-mail any more than I'm giving up the microwave, cable TV, central heating, my new iPod, my car, my lawn mower ...