the smedley log - suburban scrawl

The eve of ‘08

I’ll begin with a note to all those who might visit this afternoon or evening, wishing everyone a happy, healthy 2008.

The past year has been interesting, sometimes in a good way. Sometimes not so much. I moved this past year and I expect to assimilate to the new surroundings and reality eventually – but not quite yet. I learned a few new things about myself this year, especially in the past few months. As usual, I wish I could have learned some of those lessons without the accompanying experiences, but I’m not sure I’ve ever learned much of anything the easy way.

Still, I have hope that the new year will bring good things, as I hope it does for everyone reading this. And speaking of reading, I’ve begun concentrating my writing efforts elsewhere. If you’d like to check out the new target of my efforts, feel free to visit  .

Best wishes for the new year,

howard

Referrals

Traffic to the smedley log has dwindled over the past few months. This hasn’t surprised me in the least, especially considering how little attention I’ve been paying to it since I moved in September. I’ve come to accept my dwindling share of the blogosphere since then.

All of which made a small spike in visits all the more obvious the past couple days. Two factors went into the aforementioned spike. One was Troy Worman’s generous outstanding blogs meme, which happened to include this site. While I don’t have the energy or time to create a similar list (I’m not quite sure who would have that kind of time), I did want to acknowledge the effort Troy put into it. Check out his exhaustive list, if you can. There are a bunch of good reads on it. Troy is also currently blogging at Process Geek.

The second source of increased traffic was from an even more unexpected entity. I was actually getting hits from the Wall Street Journal website, specifically the page pictured below:

Can you see it yet? Look a little closer:

While it’s kind of cool to be getting referrals from the Wall Street Journal, it’s cheapened a little when the post they link to doesn’t really have much to do with the article on their site.

A long time ago, on blogging software far, far away…

The origins of the smedley log can be traced to four years ago today. You may feel free to either pat me on the back or ask me why I haven’t given up on this a long time ago.

In case you’re curious, here is a link to the oldest post on this site, my Black Friday post from 2003.

Spiritual reading list

Well, sort of.

I’ve been fascinated lately by some posts from a couple different regular reads of mine. They are all on the subject of God and/or religion.

A slew of these posts emanate from the furiously-typing hands of Fred Clark at Slacktivist. They all have to do with what many perceive as the strong bias of evangelicalism against homosexuality. While many in the evangelical community do differ on the subject, and broad brush strokes often do injustice to any large segment of people, Fred has an excellent series on the perception of evangelicals as “hating” gays. What he’s really examining, for those who look closer, is why homosexuality is treated in the Christian community as so much more abhorrent than the smaller sins like dishonesty, theft and marital infidelity (to name just a few). (The parts, so far are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.)

The other standout post on the subject of God is from the oft insightful Qazse, who wrote a brief piece of poetry called “The God Cage.” Having interacted on a few different virtual occasions with the pseudononymous blogger, I’m confident his spiritual expressions are anything but flip. This poem is a perfectly concise example of those expressions.

Off the grid

At least a couple folks have noticed that I haven’t been around much, at least in the virtual sense.

My internet activity of late has been sporadic at best, and the next few weeks are bound to be more of the same. While I appreciate the emails of concern I’ve gotten, I don’t want anyone else to be unduly worried by my lack of current material. I’ll be back to (my own version of) normal in the not-too-distant future; I’ve just got a few offline responsibilities to tend to first. (Coincidentally, the last haiku posted prior to this entry sort of hints at how things have been going recently)

In the meantime, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Frank is trying out some new digs at frankroche.com (after about two zillion posts at iFlipFlop)

While I was away

I’ve been neglecting this site as of late. I’ve even been a bit spotty with the haiku habit. But here’s something I would have mentioned here if I had been attending to the internets over the past couple days: Marisa got a little more pub for her Reading Terminal project in the form of a brief feature on Wednesday’s 11 o’clock news. Pretty cool.

Everything at once

That’s what’s been happening in my head lately, which is why I can’t bring myself to blog in long form these days.

Most of my thoughts will be relegated to the seventeen daily syllables seen in the upper right-hand corner, at least for a while.

Mastering the media

First Scott shows up on CNBC’s Fast Money (regarding his expertise as “the Apple blogger“), then Marisa gets her own feature in Philadelphia Weekly (regarding her Reading Terminal Market project).

There must be something in the water over at Fork You studios that helps people get noticed.

A different kind of manifesto

As recent clouds of thought leave this blog lacking in fresh material, I thought it a good idea to redirect a few of you to an item from one of my regular reads.

Dave Luna, known for his unique brand of hit-and-run blogging (not to mention one of the greatest blog titles in history), has written a couple more verbose entries lately. The competitive writer in me wanted to believe he’d been keeping his posts short to mask some deficiency in his writing skills, but after reading this post about standing on the brink of unemployment, I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.

Tales from the terminal

Lest it slip my mind for even one more day, I want to mention that one of my all-time favorite Philly destinations has finally been immortalized in blog format.

Stories from Reading Terminal Market is a new spot for personal recollections about Philadelphia’s renowned farm market. Marisa McClellan, who’s got a knack for conveying just that sort of story, is the the writer behind it all. You’ll want to check it out. You may even want to reach out and share a story of your own with her.

Click here to check it out.

Giving Frank feedback

Frank posted about a prospective re-design for when he moves his blog to WordPress. I like what he’s mulling and I told him so. Maybe you’d like to throw your two cents in too.

Twittering the day away

I’ve been on Twitter, and I just found out I have three followers – does that make me some kind of minor prophet?

At first I thought I might use Twitter to post haiku. Given the space constraints (160 characters or less per post), it seemed a perfect idea. Then I realized there’s no way to impose my own line breaks. Good, bad or indifferent, I have to blame Frank for the bad influence, and Scott for making me wish I was a true twitterholic.

(My Twitter profile)

WordPress 2.1 killed my feed

…but luckily it’s back from the dead.

I’d been wondering why it seemed a little quieter lately. Then, almost by accident, I discovered my RSS feed had fallen victim to a WordPress upgrade three weeks back. It had to do with the Feedburner Replacement Plugin I’ve used since last June.

According to Feedburner, my RSS readership dwindled all the way down to four. Yes, four. Which leaves me wondering why nobody mentioned it. And who were the four kind folks who didn’t delete my feed when the only thing left was a database error message? Should I thank them?

Because I’m sure I’m not the only person to suffer from this compulsion…

Have you ever discovered a new blog you really like, and then found yourself rifling through their archives to find out what they posted on your birthday?

New kid on the block

This morning we officially introduced Ron Burkhardt as the newest member of the Philly Future team.

Ron is not only a lifelong Greater Philadelphian, but also offers some special skills and insight into social networking (which, if you didn’t already know, is pretty much what Philly Future’s all about). We’re all quite pleased to have him on board.

A rubber bullet for healthcare gap

The Rascal King has asked Philly area bloggers to voice responses on the President’s most recent State of the Union Address. The responses being sought are not for broad policy or ideological critiques, but rather for reactions to specific points of the address. My response has been percolating ever since about two minutes into the speech (though I didn’t get to hear it live, so my response time is a bit slow).

Upon hearing Mr. Bush’s plan to bridge the healthcare gap, I initially thought, “That’s great! You mean he’s going to give me a tax exemption for having health coverage?”

Not so fast. [Read more →]

Consolation for an Eagles fan

The ending of the Philadelphia Eagles’ Cinderella season is something I’ve had difficulty coming to grips with over the past couple days.

Thank God we Philly fans have friends like Matt to remind us of the good times.

It’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got to hold on to for now.

Update: for some great commiserating, I’m linking a pair of posts on the Eagles loss from the two-headed monster at The BM Rant. Here’s Matt’s. Here’s Brian’s

football finality
(or pigskin profanity)

another close loss,
with displays only condemned
when done in Philly.

Don’t I know that guy?

Of course, a Scott McNulty sighting at Macworld wouldn’t be the rarest of things, would it?

Just in case…

you have any favorite blogs (this one doesn’t count) in the Greater Philly area, nominations for a new featured blog are being collected at Philly Future through tomorrow at 3 p.m.