Rethinking

I am rethinking this new blog thing. Yes, it only took me two months to start rethinking this endeavor. What started me thinking was Nick Cernis’ well-written post called “Rise of the Tablog”. I discovered this via Merlin Mann on Tumblr. It got me rethinking why I blog.

The answer is the same: I enjoy writing - when I can. I want to put my thoughts down on a variety of subjects. I never enjoyed using pen and paper because my penmanship is horrible. My tool of choice has either been a typewriter or a computer. Sure, I don’t necessarily need to publish what I write on a blog, but I enjoy it. It’s something I’ve been doing since 1999. Plus I find putting what I write on a blog more liberating, even now more so since I don’t have comments enabled. If someone reads it, then great. If not, then so be it.

When I started this new blog, I had hoped to write more. I set a low goal of 500 words on any subject, with the hopes of posting once a week. I’ve done ok, posting almost every Thursday. But I really had hoped that I would write more often than I have. I’m sure it will come with more thought, time, and effort.

Cost per Post

Since I don’t write often (yet), it is difficult to continually justify having this blog on a web hosting service. There are many reasons why I wanted to use a web hosting service instead of WordPress.com or Tumblr. One reason is having full control of not just my content but the whole website. I have been using Laughing Squid as the web host. I’ve always wanted to try their service and it has been great. I also like that they are local to me. But in this economy, even their least expensive plan of $8 a month is difficult to justify four blog posts a month. After all, I could use that $8 for two Venti Mochas, which can fuel my brain for the day.

Where and Why

And so I have moved the content I generated over to this Tumblr account. Why Tumblr and not Wordpress.com?

As part of this rethinking process, I also wanted to decide where would be the best home for what I wanted to do now. It would seem Wordpress.com would be a natural choice since I use the WordPress CMS for the hosted website. But when I’m on Wordpress.com I realize how much “I can’t do” as far as customization or other tweaks that I can do with a hosted version of WordPress. This annoys me. I’m comfortable with what Tumblr can provide. Clean and simple. But the ‘Tumblarity’ score really bothers me. I need to not pay attention to that sidebar. I’ll hopefully get past this annoyance.

So right now I have two active Tumblr accounts. One is used for reblogged content, and the other is for content I (hopefully) actually create. I can envision these merging (Why have separate accounts?). But at this point, reblogging is an effortless task I prefer to keep separate. I would really like to have an account where I can post a long rant on a subject and not have it seem out of place with the rest of the posts. At this point, it makes sense to me to have two separate accounts for this.