Considered and discarded

I didn’t bother posting yesterday for two reasons: I was busy enjoying my Sunday and what blog time I did have was spent in an abandoned experiment.

Yesterday was a really good day. It was sunny, warm, and I spent a lot of time with Nigel—it really doesn’t get any better. I joined him for his The Third Colony Internet radio show on qnation.fm, which he does every other Sunday at 3pm our time (Saturday at 9pm eastern in the Americas). It was a lot of fun, as always. Later on, we went out for dinner, which was the perfect end to a nice day.

I mention all that because I don’t often say that the reason I don’t post isn’t always that I’m too busy (though that’s often the case). Real life comes first—yeah, sacrilege, I know, but this was one of those times.

However, I wasn’t away from the computer entirely. I’d been thinking that it might be a good idea to put my posts on US politics into a separate blog. I set one up, minimally, and figured out how to export my posts/comments from this blog so that I could include all my previous posts on the subject.

This idea had been swimming around in my mind for awhile, really ever since I made changes to my podcast, and for similar reasons. I was starting to talk more about US politics, including regular shows with my friend Jason. That led someone to comment on iTunes that my podcast was “too political”.

I’d been thinking that discussions of US politics didn’t mesh well with the main themes of my podcast—my life, New Zealand and life in it, as well as stuff related to being an expat. So, in February 2009 Jason and launched a new podcast, 2Political, its name proudly based on what had been intended as some sort of criticism of my first podcast.

That fixed the problem of too much ill-fitting US politics mixed in with the usual fare of my podcast. But I felt the same sort of bad fit here, especially for folks simply looking for information on New Zealand (including New Zealanders who may not be interested in the US at all). My solution was to explore a separation similar to that of my podcasts.

Turned out to be a bad idea: If US politics go there, what about religion? It’s also not really related to the main subjects areas of this blog. Or what about discussions of US history? US culture? What about international politics? Clearly it was a lot more complicated than I’d realised.

But the main reason I backed off of separation came from an epiphany: The folks who read this blog regularly pretty much know what to expect from me. If they’re not interested in a topic, they skip the post. Obvious, I know, but I didn’t think about that.

That left the issue of people only looking for information on New Zealand or being an expat, but this epiphany/realisation also brought with it an idea for a solution that doesn’t involve splitting this blog at all. But that’s a topic for another day, when I have something to share.

In the meantime, this blog will continue as it has been. You have been warned.