Some Thoughts About Lewes

Here is a small selection of Lewes-related posts from my blogging history. In no particular order.

• Marking 25 years in Lewes (June, 2012)
• In memory of Mayor George HP Smith (September, 2005)
• In memory of Howard Seymour (December, 2004)
• In memory of Mayor Al Stango (May, 2008)
• Thanking Barbara Vaughn for her time on council (February, 2012)
• Preparing for the Lewes Zoning Code public hearing (May, 2010)
• A letter to the editor encouraging citizen input
• A slide show presenting the Zoning update to Mayor and Council
• On the (at that point) new Canalfront Park (November, 2009)
• On the land-use issue that preceded the new park (October, 2004)
• On the loss of a manufacturing use in Lewes (January, 2008)
• Thinking about Lewes' blue-collar history (December, 2007)
• On John Ellsworth, an early neighbor (November, 2007)
• On the need for connecting neighborhoods (September, 2007)
• A symphony concert in Lewes (August, 2006)

...So Far

Just for fun, I ran the RSS from the blog through Wordle to see what the word cloud of recent posts looks like. Recent travel and Census stuff seem to predominate.

In Which I Shut Down my Tumble Blog

There’s nothing wrong with Tumblr, it is a perfectly good blogging tool. The problem is that my experiement with Tumblr -- What Fell Out -- has negatively affected this blog, my more established web property, which I have been writing since 2004.

I had originally started the tumble blog as a place to put things deemed too small for a formal blog post. But the nature of blogging is changing. Shorter items, photos, qoutes, links to other content are becoming more common and long-form article-writing has waned.

Twitter has emerged as the go-to tool for quick thoughts and links. Facebook is where we place personal notes. I need to go back to more frequent, if shorter, blog posts on my main site.

Mad-Libs Spam!

My work blog, DGDC News, gets a healthy amount of spam comments. Most are caught by the spam filter; I delete several hundred every few days. But a few make it through to comment moderation and I have to decide whether to let them be published.

Today, my inbox held three comments for moderation, all from the same IP address and all similar, but not quite the same.

Take one:

Advantageously, the article is actually the freshest on this deserving topic. I harmonise with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your approaching updates. Just saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the extraordinary clarity in your writing. I will immediately grab your rss feed to stay informed of any updates. Solid work and much success in your business endeavors!

Take two:

Comfortably, the article is actually the freshest on this noteworthy topic. I harmonise with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your incoming updates. Saying thanks will not just be enough, for the tremendous clarity in your writing. I will immediately grab your rss feed to stay informed of any updates. Gratifying work and much success in your business endeavors!

Take three:

Easily, the article is really the greatest on this notable topic. I fit in with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your approaching updates. Saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the extraordinary lucidity in your writing. I will at once grab your rss feed to stay informed of any updates. Delightful work and much success in your business endeavors!

I think it's a new sort of Mad-Lib:

ADJECTIVE, the article is MODIFIER the on this topic. I JOINING-STYLE WORD with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your TIME-RELATED WORD updates. Saying thanks will not just be ADJECTIVE, for the ADJECTIVE SUCK-UP WORD in your writing. I will grab your rss feed to stay informed of any updates. SUCK-UP WORD work and much success in your business endeavors!

Obviously, I have lost track of my parts of speech (it's late), but you get the point.

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Governor Markell

Our Governor here in Delaware, Jack Markell, has just launched his blog. He used the occasion of our recent doubled blizzard and the response and reaction from people within state government.

Last week, he had sent all state employees an e-mail thanking us for our work during the storm (no credit to me, the emergency personnel and the snow-plow folks are my heroes) and asking us for our stories of survival and assistance from or for our neighbors. He sent a follow-up today saying that he'd heard many stories that inspired him. he gave a few samples and then announced his blog.

As he explains in the first posting on his blog, much of what he heard back was about the sung and un-sung heroes among the state workforce.

For that reason, I’m launching my blog today and dedicating it to our very hardworking employees across Delaware.  I’ll be sharing stories from citizens and colleagues about acts of bravery, as well as important issues that affect us all.

I think this is a great thing. The Governor already has a twitter account (@governormarkell) and is perfectly up-front with the fact that he splits the posting duties with a few members of his staff; tweets that end with *B are from Brian Selander and those that end with *F are from Felicia Pullam. Both Brian and Felicia, by the way, maintain their own very interesting and useful twitter accounts.

I will assume that posts on this new blog are probably a team effort as well. That doesn't mean they are any less the thoughts of Governor Markell; it is, after all, his blog. And knowing him just a little, as I am happy to say that I do, I would not be at all surprised if he did a lot of the writing himself.

In any case, this is another source of information from our Governor. That is a good thing.

2009 Metrics: A Slow Blogging Year

There's no question; 2009 was a slow year for blogging for me. I posted only 142 times during 2009, the lowest annual total in my blogging history.

I averaged just 11.8 posts per month in 2009. The most active month was August, when we traveled to Hawaii and had lots to write about. That month I managed 22 posts. The slowest months were April, October, and December, in which I posted only seven times.

By contrast, my chattiest year was 2005 -- my first full year of blogging -- when I posted 272 times. Looking back at that year, though, I think it is safe to say that many of those posts were short and externally-referenced -- links to other places. This is the sort of thing that I now handle with posts to my Twitter account or to Facebook.

I've started an effort to try to increase my blogging this year, but we'll see.

Changes for a New Year

I took some flak from family members over the holidays for the slow-down in blog posts over the last few months. I have let my on-line energy be soaked up by twitter and facebook, of late. I've decided to try to bring some of that back here. As part of that, I've started moving to a three-column layout. Things may change a bit over the next few days as I settle-in and settle-on a new look.

Such a Busy Week

This week has been Geography Awareness Week and Wednesday was GIS Day. It was a busy week for me, in my role as GIS Coordinator for Delaware.

On Wednesday, I volunteered as part of a large group of GIS professionals working with groups of fifth-grade students attending a geography field day at the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base.

A real hit was a new event for this year; a Geography Game Show presented by visiting artist Neal Nichols, Jr. He drew a large wall-map of the United States, by hand, used it as a fun teaching tool.

I took lots of photos of the kids, and had time to get some shots of the museum as well.

On Thursday, I spent the day at the University of Delaware for a Geospatial Research Day event in which there was a selection of presentations on research, using GIS and geospatial data, throughout the University. I took notes using twitter and turned those into the word cloud posted here.

I also wrote these events up for the DGDC News blog, which is a new blog I've been writing as a communications tool for the Delaware Geographic Data Committee. Between that and the NSGIC News blog that I try to keep up with for the national GIS coordination group, I've had less energy to write here.

It's been a busy, busy week. But fun. And interesting. And fulfilling.

New Blog!

I released a new blog into the world today. It is meant to serve as a communications tool for the Delaware Geographic Data Committee -- the DGDC -- which is a part of my set of responsibilities for the state of Delaware.

I already maintain a standard web site for the DGDC. The new blog gives me a chance to create an on-going conversation and regular news updates. I have also created a new twitter stream for DGDC; it is called DelawareGIS.

Both were created under a new social media policy (PDF) approved by the Delaware Department of Technology and Information. (Full disclosure: I sat on the committee that helped draft the policy)

The policy allows us, with approval from agency leadership, of course, to use some of the new tools known generally as "social media" to increase our communications among state agencies, with county and local government and other partners, and with the public.

I'm an information-pusher. Putting information out is what I enjoy.

An Anniversary

This blog -- Mike's Musings -- turned 5 years old yesterday. I almost missed the date; I'm more focused on Karen and my 21st anniversary coming up on Thursday.

I've made 1,100 posts since I started this thing with a "had to start somewhere" post on September 6, 2004. Based only on the labels I've given to posts over the years -- and labeling didn't become available until after I'd started -- most posts have had to do with Delaware, culture, photography, politics, blogging, history, golf, vacation, family, and travel. That seems to match my interests fairly, though not in that order. And music, which I'd have placed in the top ten, is at number 11.

Of course, given the limited on-line music-sharing (legal) choices, I've been less inclined to blog about it. And someone once said that blogging about music is like tweeting about architecture. Or something like that.

Looking back in a non-scientific way, I think I started out with a broader view and commented on a great many different things. I was often looking at politics. As the Delaware blogosphere has grown and matured, I found myself less and less inclined to talk politics, leaving that to the political blogs, which have had a fine run over the last few years.

I've also noted a down-turn in posting this past year. I'm not sure whether that has been due to a feeling that I've already commented on everything (and I'm too lazy to come up with new thoughts) or that it is due to the growth of LinkedIn, FaceBook and twitter and the move to posting more things using those tools.

I assume I'll find a balance and will report that back to you a year from now.

I Hereby Challenge #1

I hereby challenge former Lewes City Councilperson and several-time Sussex County Council candidate Judson Bennett to Get Your Own Blog (GYOB).

Jud is a prolific e-mailer. He maintains a private mailing list he calls the "Coastal Conservative Network" to which he sends a constant stream of updates which read, to this jaded liberal reader of conservative thought, as blog posts.

Here are some subject lines from Jud that are still in my inbox:

• Future Scan-the Development of the future of Lewes?????????
  Repeating charges from some no-growth activists that a regional planning initiative by a local group is developer-controlled.
  
• Group threatens to stop Prayer at Sussex Council Meetings/Prayer Breakfast
  Jud is shocked that Americans United for Separation of Church and State object to explicitly christian prayer before county council meetings.
  
• Legislating or "Dictating Morality"- A Response
  A sort of "comment -rescue" in which Jud forwards a rebuttal by a local pastor to something he (Jud) had to say in a newspaper column.
  
• The sailing ships Nina & Pinta-coming to Lewes
  Cool local news.
  
• Marine Corp Band to Perform in Lewes JULY 1st !!!!
  Also cool, local and news.
  
• Lewes Council Goes for Carrying Capacity Study
  Lewes City Council agrees to try to get funding for a traffic study.
  
• Sussex County Council will sue DNREC ??????
  Jud questions the wisdom of the county suing the state.
  
• I endorse Joan Deaver
  Jud had recently lost the republican primary and endorsed the democrat running in the race. Big news locally.
  

I'm know I've deleted a few others over the months, and I left out several purely procedural e-mails. But there's enough here to illustrate my point: Jud is a blogger without a blog.

There was a period of time when Jud was contributing a regular "Jud's Rant" to the "First State Politics" blog (which became Delaware Politics after some other name, which escapes me). But that stopped. And he does appear occasionally as a "from the inbox" post on Nancy Willings' Delaware Way blog.

Other than the occasional guest spot, Jud continues to generate content that is only going out one-way and is not really part of a back and forth discussion (except when contrarians like me pester him back with argumentative e-mails).

I think the Delaware body politic would be better served if Jud left the closed-circuit of e-mail and entered the world of blogging, on his own blog. I think "Coastal Conservative" would be a great name. Blogger and Wordpress are both easy to use.

So... I hereby challenge you, sir. Get Your Own Blog.

10 Years of Librarianiana

Happy BlogsDay (a few days ago) to Jessamyn West's Librarian.net. Ms. Jessamyn started her library-focused blog ten years ago on April 20. She's just catching up to the anniversary now.

I "met" Jessamyn on-line about five years ago through the group-blog Metafilter, for which she serves as a moderator. Metafilter was my entrée into this world of on-line communities. I count Jessamyn as one of my inspirations for starting Mike's Musings, which will celebrate a half-decade this fall.

Ten years is a long time for a blog, though there are some older out there. In her anniversary post, Jessamyn muses on the slowdown in posting that all bloggers eventually experience. I think sometimes it is the case that we reach a point at which we've covered all of our personal "evergreen" topics and become reluctant to repeat ourselves. So we count on real-life activities for inspiration. And there are times when the things that happen at work, or in our families, are not really appropriate to share with the world at large.

So we slow down a bit. and, as new technologies emerge, we spread our communications over new channels, some of which stick while some fade. Bloggers, if I may generalize for a moment, are people who want to communicate with a broad audience. We're excited by new possibilities and new tools. Hopefully, we return to home base often enough to keep a blog alive.

And on occasional anniversaries, we like to look back at who we were then. Jessamyn ends her anniversary post, as I will, with a link to the first few days of Librarian.net.

Who were you ten years ago? What were you thinking? What did you write?

"Buckle-up..."

I had a call the other day from a local government PR guy. He had decided to add local bloggers to his news release e-mail list and wanted my e-mail address and my thoughts (I used to be in that business, many years back).

I had the sense that he made the change only grudgingly. Local bloggers, here as elsewhere, enjoy criticizing government and have become something of a source for the public. Rather than ignore them, or fight them, he had decided to offer his employer's point of view directly to them. I think that's a good idea.

But this new relationship won't be the same as that between PR folk and the traditional media. The difference is the activity of reporters. Reporters are trained in researching and questioning what they get from the PR folks. And they bring a cultural proclivity towards balance and objectivity to their work. At least, we hope all these things are true of reporters. Most bloggers tend to come from other traditions and start with a clearly subjective point of view, one that is not usually threatened by much research or questioning. (Yes, I know, there are expectations)

I was reminded of this as I read a fascinating piece by writer and internet-thinker Clay Shirky, Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable, which examines the issue of "The Death of Newspapers" that is so much discussed these days (and seems to cry out for capitalization). In it, Shirky explores the idea that we are now (and will be for a while) between the end of one era (ad-supported paper publication of news) and the maturity of another (we have no idea what it will be, but it is starting now).

And he makes this statement, which I think is true:

Society doesn't need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.

There's nothing wrong with bloggers, or the roles that we play. We should criticise and cajole government, industry, and the public, from our own subjective standpoints. We should explore and discuss the world around us. But we cannot, and should not, replace reporters and the work that they do.

In fact, for blogging to work well, we depend on reporters to do what Shirky calls "society’s heavy journalistic lifting."

...from flooding the zone — covering every angle of a huge story — to the daily grind of attending the City Council meeting, just in case.

When we bloggers attempt to comment on what we call "the news" through our own direct experience, we run a large risk of getting things wrong -- missing minor details that bring the big picture into focus -- or missing things altogether. But when we have the work of journalists to build on and react to, we can fill a valuable roles as commentators.

So my friend in government PR should send his news out to the bloggers. It can't hurt and may help spread word on stories deemed too small by the newspapers or TV stations. But he shouldn't -- and won't -- expect bloggers to take-over the role now filled by reporters working for shaky "old media" institutions. We still need them, even if we're not as willing to subsidize their work.

This will make for an interesting period of time as we transition from the old model to a new model that we may not yet be able to imagine.

...there is one possible answer to the question “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” The answer is: Nothing will work, but everything might. Now is the time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments, each of which will seem as minor at launch as craigslist did, as Wikipedia did, as octavo volumes did.

Should be fun.

A Milestone

Though I did not realize this until a few days later, I passed a milestone of sorts as a blogger last week. My Monday, January 19, 2009, post about an echo of the "Dean Scream" found in a novel I was reading was the 1,000th Mike's Musings post I have written since starting this blog back in September of 2004.

As of the 19th, I had been blogging for 1,597 days. I calculate that over that span I averaged a blog posting every 1 and a half days. Obviously there were days of too many blog postings and weeks when I was away doing other things.

Of course this is not my only blog. Since January of 2006 I have been blogging for the National States Geographic Information Council on the NSGIC News blog. And during 2008 I mini-blogged the books I was reading. That is not to mention my new twitter addiction. All things considered, my desire to write has been well satisfied over the years.

And, as we move forward, I find satisfaction in the fact that the first posting of my next 1,000 set of Mikes Musings was about the start of Inauguration Day and the feelings of re-beginning that I was feeling.

A Year in Books

I read 63 and one-half books in 2008, an average of one book every 5.7 days. That's one of the findings of my year-long Reading Log experiment.

Starting a year ago today, with Custer’s Brother’s Horse, and running through The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, which I started on December 29 and was halfway through as the ball dropped between 2008 and 2009, I have kept a blog-style reading list. I have recorded title, author, publication date, publisher and a few short thoughts about each book that I have read.

The word-cloud that decorates this post (thanks wordle!) is built from the tags I used for each post. It suggests that I prefer fiction to non-fiction and favor historical fiction and fantasy (often in combination). Most books I read are set in the US or the UK and many had to do with war or its effects on folks.

Just over 56% of the books I read (36) were from the Lewes Library. Of the remaining 44%, most were books I bought or was given as gifts, except for a few that were loaners from my brother Matt.

The overwhelming majority (60) were novels. Two were collections of essays, one was organizational self-help, and one was biography.

I'm not certain how to carry forward into 2009. I know I'll keep reading. I always have, as far back as I can remember. But I don't know that I still want to "blog" my reading. I have a day or two to consider, while I finish 2008's final book. Then I may create an on-line spreadsheet, or look for some twitter-like tool that will let me keep track.

Any suggestions?

Changes Have Been Made

The column on the left side of this blog was just getting too long. Changes had to be made.

I have replaced the lists of Delaware blogs, political blogs, media blogs and other blogs with a shorter, simple blogroll. For a while now, I have tried to link every Delaware blog I can find (using del.icio.us) and listing them all (at least the active ones) in the sidebar. Too long.

I have instead limited the side-bar blogroll to sites I visit regularly, sites by good friends, and sites by people I admire. I have included links to longer lists of Delaware, non-Delaware and media blogs that have caught my attention. I will continue to update those lists.

I also moved photos of my folks' fiftieth anniversary party from an old HTML page I created in 2004, before I found flickr, to a special flickr set. That let me delete yet another left-side link; a small victory in blog-decluttering.

I have Succumbed

When we rolled-over our family of cell-phones this summer, Karen and I decided to get unlimited texting. Colleen, being a teen, seems to have lost the ability to talk on a telephone and communicates entirely by SMS text message. So it made sense for us to become texters ourselves.

Even though we are old.

As a result, I have decided to finally look into twitter. I never thought twitter would be a format that worked for me as a browser-based writer. Twitter is designed to allow users to send short-form updates -- "tweets" -- limited to 160 characters. I have never been "short form."

Still, I don't like to post on Mike's Musings from my machine at work. Sometimes I think of things I'd like to post during the day, but don't feel that I should. So I have signed up for twitter and added a "Random Thoughts" box at left that I can populate from my phone.

God forbid you should ever have to be without my, um, thinking.

So Long, Ollie, and Thanks for All the Memories

Olive Riley passed away this week-end. She was 108 years old and had been, for the last few years, "the world's oldest blogger."

As I write this, all links to her blog are failing; my guess is her site is getting hit with too much traffic as news of her passing spreads. With luck, things will settle down soon and the site will be accessible.

It's something of a stretch to call Olive Riley a "blogger." She was visited regularly in her retirement home by a punk kid of 70-something who interviewed her and transcribed the interviews to a blog site. But her site was a rich mine of memories and history as seen from the eyes of a normal woman, leading a life in Australia for all of the Twentieth Century.

Her blog was one of the great treasures I've found on-line. I'll miss her, but I was glad I had a chance to get to know her. Rest in peace, Ollie.

What Are You Looking For?

I have a few different ways to track visitors to this site. I'm not too obsessive about it, but I enjoy knowing what's brought people here.

Over the long term, I find I get a steady stream of people looking for information on getting rid of a blood clot. Installing satellite radio in a Prius is also popular as are Delaware's boundary monuments.

And I see seasonal patterns as well.

In the last two weeks, for example, there has been interest in the Fourth of July in Bethany Beach. Since June 22, fifty-eight of Mike's Musings visits were generated by web searches for some combination of Bethany Beach, Fourth of July, fireworks, and parade. That's 23.6 percent of all searches that led to the blog. ("Bethany Beach Fireworks" is the champ.)

There has also been a steady stream of visitors looking for information about the Tyler Place, in Vermont. I've posted reports from there the last several summers, and they are being found by folks researching their own trips, it seems.

We've stopped visiting the Tyler Place, but not because we don't love it. After nine summers, Colleen has aged-out of the Tyler kids' programs. It was time to make room for these other folks. I hope our reports and pictures help them get ready. But we do miss it terribly.

New Blog (and New Radio Station?) in Delaware

I just stumbled across a new Delaware blog -- WKNZ - Z88.7fm, Harrington, DE -- which will chronicle the effort of a group of local Christian folk to build and run a "25,000 watt HD Christian radio station."

The blog appeared June 10 after the group got its FCC construction permit. That alone took 10 years; the FCC is a slow beast. How long the next steps will take is uncertain, but the permit itself is a large step forward:

We are humbled, blown-away, and a little over whelmed, but after nearly 10 years, the FCC has finally given us the approval to begin building a very powerful Christian radio station on 88.7fm in Delaware. The tower will be in Harrington and the studios in Milton, DE (at least that was the plan 10 years ago!). We are currently in the process of dusting off those plans. Lots has changed in 10 years!

The blog-writers are Bill, Andy, and Elbert (with an "E"). I think Bill is likely Bill Sammons, who I used to know in conjunction with the Delmarva Poultry Industry and who I recall was leading an effort to found a Christian station some years back. I assume this is he and this will be that station, but I don't always pay as close attention as I should and so may be completely wrong.

There's a survey up now, looking for input on what sorts of things to program. I think I'll take it. I'm not particularly Christian, though the Lovely Karen is a woman of faith and we have friends among the Christians, but I applaud diversity on the airwaves. And I don't think we should automatically assume that a Christian radio station will automatically hew to the worst extremes of the "christian right."

The musical choices could be interesting. I'll make the argument, for example, in favor of playing some of the Grateful Dead catalogue. Seriously. One of the things that fascinates me about the Dead's music is the widespread use of the Bible as lyrical source material and inspiration. And their deep exploration into folk music and folk traditions included mining a vein of moral stories and cautionary tales that could fit in the new station's format.

That's my view, anyway.