Looking Back!

I started this blog a year ago on December 15 although it doesn't seem like that long ago.

In the first post I listed my reason for blogging as follows:

I want to share my experiences as I go through the process of building and opening an independent bookstore on South Padre Island. It will be a way of keeping family and friends informed about what I am up to and may be interesting to others who have the dream of opening a small business.

I also want to introduce myself to the SPI community and get a virtual dialogue started which can be continued in person once Paragraphs on Padre Boulevard opens next fall.

I'm not sure I completely accomplished all that I had hoped, but I have met some good people and have had a modest amount of interaction with my readers. I hope those faithful readers will stay with me as we enter the final phase of getting this bookstore open and operating.

Thank you to everyone who has been so kind over the past year and offered me so much wonderful advice and encouragement.

Time for a Change

I started posting here at the beginning of 2008 and it is time to try something different.

Actually, as I started to add more links, photos, widgets, and had more archived material, I noticed that there were too many graphics embedded in the template to allow the site to load quickly. Since I am just happy if someone stops by this site, I certainly don't want to test her patience by making her wait for some background colors or fancy graphics.

I hope you enjoy the new look.

Something New - Should I Twitter?

I have noticed the Twitter widget on a number of blogs lately. It seems there is no end to the gadgets, widgets and places where people are setting up social networks. I barely have time to read the few blogs I find particularly interesting and while I am always thinking to myself, "I want to blog about that," or composing blog posts in my mind as a way of outlining and clarifying my thoughts, the time never seems to be available to get the writing done. I know there is a way to make a blog post from my mobile phone, but I have as yet not been able to do this very efficiently or successfully.

I have been trying to find an effective means of garnering all these fleeting thoughts in one place, similar to what many of the early Americans did by keeping a commonplace. They would copy sections from books which they found relevant, thought-provoking, or selections which they liked and wanted to remember. These journals would also include personal reflections and ideas relating to the individuals reading or experiences.

So, when I read this in The Daily Dish I was intrigued.

John Dickerson makes the case for Twitter journalism:

We can all agree that journalism shouldn't get any smaller, but Twitter doesn't threaten the traditions of our craft. It adds, rather than subtracts, from what we do. As I spend nearly all of my time on the road these days reporting on the presidential campaigns, Twitter is the perfect place for all of those asides I've scribbled in the hundreds of notebooks I have in my garage from the campaigns and stories I've covered over the years. Inside each of those notebooks are little pieces of color I've picked up along the way. Sometimes these snippets are too off-topic or too inconsequential to work into a story. Sometimes they are the little notions or sideways thoughts that become the lede of a piece or the kicker. All of them now have found a home on Twitter.

I think I may have to give Twitter a try. What I find particularly inviting is the possibility to use my mobile phone, which I have available much more often than I am near the computer or have access to a pencil and paper. This may be the answer to sharing my thoughts on books I have read without needing to write a full review.

Personal Reflections on a Monday Morning

The need to be part of a group-to be listened to, to feel as though I have something to contribute to a discussion, to be respected for what I have to offer- drives me to the computer and the online SPI Forum.

Then, like any introvert, who after the party, reflects on and punishes herself with recriminations over words said, speeches made, jokes shared; so am I after a weekend of spirited online posting over the town of South Padre Island going wireless with a Municipal WiFi netwok.

What an inane topic to pontificate on and endlessly debate when there are so many more important issues locally and globally. What a waste of time!

One would think that online discussion would encourage a more thoughtful and reasoned approach to debate. A person is able to think out a position, make sure it is presented logically and then, after further reflection, decide whether to post or not to post. But this is not what happens-with me it becomes a type of addiction.

Can it be that each of us in our online world is seeking to satisfy some unknown need? Am I like the alcoholic, who returns to the bottle, knowing that the temporary high will not last or satisfy the underlying need, but will only lead to additional self-doubt or embarrassment?

So with those thoughts, I am ready to start a new week.

John McCain Woos Bloggers

The political bloggers are all actively pursuing an invite to Senator McCain's blog briefings. The Moderate Voice reports in a post titled:

The Bloggers Invited to Question John McCain:

"Going forward, Mr. Hynes said, the campaign would like to have Mr. McCain talk to sports bloggers, too, as a way to “humanize John McCain as something other than a carbon-copy politician running for office, delivering talking points.”"

What about the bookseller and book review bloggers?

Post Number 100

I was getting ready to jot a few notes and discovered that this is the 100th post on my blog!! I think I will go have a nightcap to celebrate and then come back and finish up whatever it was I had on my mind, if I can remember.

Boulevard or Blvd.?

I spent much of the afternoon returning e-mails to various publishers and vendors requesting catalogs and account applications. In the process, I have been compiling the information needed to complete all the paperwork necessary to open accounts with those companies I choose to order from. Of course, the first question is; Business Name. And, therein, lies a tale.

Way back in December and January - I know it's only been three or four months but it feels like years ago - I decided to start this blog to keep my family, friends, and the SPI community informed about the process involved in opening my dream bookstore. Before I could really start the blog, I had to have a name, and that is a story of its own. But, I finally made a decision; Paragraphs on Padre Boulevard. It can be shortened to Paragraphs, which I thought had a kind of community appeal - "Hey, I'll meet you at Paragraphs" - and the, on Padre Boulevard, tells everyone where the shop is located. So, that choice was made and the blog was launched.

Not long after, I received a very nice call from Jerry Wilson, suggesting that I reserve a domain for my perfect name and future website. He told me that in this new internet world there are folks that just look for names that someone may want, then these same people register the name and when the poor dope (that's me) gets ready to launch their web site, the domain name has been taken but can be purchased, for a price.

Now this sounded like reasonable advice, and I put registering ParagraphsonPadreBoulevard.com as a domain on my list of things to do. Well, we all know what happens to our To Do lists. By the time I got around to this task, a couple of weeks had gone by in classic Padre Style, and, you guessed it, ParagraphsonPadreBoulevard.com was not available. Now, there is no logical reason why this domain name would be used by anyone but me, unless the registrant planned to make me pay for the use of my own carefully chosen name.

My Italian temperament kicked in and I decided there was no way I would give these scavengers the satisfaction of inquiring about this domain name. I finally decided that it was easy enough to change Boulevard to the abbreviated form and everything would be great.

It was one of my first lessons in doing business in this virtual world. So there you have it - Our name will officially be Paragraphs on Padre Blvd. Now I'm ready to get the legal niceties out of the way - that is on the agenda for next week.

Ancient Bloggers

This internet age and blogging has changed the way we get information - but bloxicographers and blogymologists?

William Safire considers the question of Who was the first blogger?

Hundreds of weblog pioneers will compete for that title, and it will be interesting to see who they will consense upon. (As a language columnist, I feel free to coin a neologism now and then; “consense” is a verb that can replace “form a consensus”. Not the opposite of “nonsense”.)

In the search for the Grand Originator, bloxicographers should not limit themselves to finding the first to use the Internet. “Blogging”, as it will be understood, is broader than “creating a weblog to express a personal opinion and/or to establish an information community.” Although the word “blogosphere” was coined in 1999 by Brad L. Graham “as a joke” and re-minted in all seriousness in 2002 by William Quick with his Daily Pundit, we ought to dig more deeply to place blogging in the great scheme of human communication. That means we should reach back in history to find the person who first popularized the idea of influencing the world by using some medium to get across his ideas to large groups.

I particularly like Safire's discussion of the history of columnists.

...Simeon Stylites the Elder. According to the OED, a stylite was “an ascetic who lived on the top of a pillar”. (Greek “stylos” means “pillar”.) The sainted Simeon the Elder took up residence atop a column in Syria in AD 423. He remained atop that column and others for 37 years, each loftier and narrower than the preceding; his final column was 66 feet high.

Simeon the Elder stood day and night, leaning on a rail, dependent for food on what his disciples (and presumably the Younger) brought him by ladder. He preached sermons to those gathered around his column, who then went out and spread his pastoral teachings. Other columnists took up his technique and were also called stylites. He was the subject of a poem by Tennyson, concluding with “I, Simeon, The watcher on the column till the end.”