A test of Will

We'll see if I have the willpower to keep up with this blog or if its life will fade after the average monthly blog life span.

I'm starting a blog because I want to participate. I want to participate in my city, in my community, and in the blogosphere.

Because of what I do for a living right now, I am limited in what I can blog about. My boss allows blogging, but there are coflict of interest issues and other things that come up in my line of work, espeically given my responsibilities. Luckily, blogging about New York City and the things I do in it, along with random notes and wonderings that aren't part of the editorial content I deal with on a regular basis is not part of my restrictions, so I should be fine in my pursuits at this outlet.

I should say that the restrictions I'm talking about aren't actually written out, and obviously I could simply blog anonymously and say whatever I want. But I don't care enough about blogging to have to some day make one of those posts about how my boss found out and everyone at the office knows what I think about them, etc. etc. I'm not doing this for the drama. I'd rather just be honest about who I am and careful about what I write.

I know that Blogger is not the cool blog tool, especially not this basic free version, and if I were up on things I'd be using Typepad or Wordpress or whatever the cool new application is now. But again, I don't want to care about blogging. I don't want to get hooked on it. I don't want to spend money on it or invest in it. I do believe that a blog is becoming a necessary personal thing, like a phone number. I'll expand more on that idea here someday probably. (I also don't want to have my host fake out on my one day, and I feel relatively safe that Google won't do that.

I know that I already go through the day imagining posts I would make to a blog if I had one. Now we'll see if I actually make those posts. I'm also one of those people who carry around a digital camera everywhere I go and gets excited when a new resturant opens (not that I'll actually eat there, but I like to see what's new in the city) or new construction begins. It occured to me this afternoon that my wife would probably appreciate my having this outlet as well to make me less of a random ranter. We'll see. Again, I don't plan on getting into the ugly partisan morass that passes for political discourse lately. It may be that I stop blogging at the sheer realization that I have nothing to say that's worth writing down.

In the endeavor of writing as a hobby I believe that keep this blog will help me get the writing momentum going. So often I'll have ideas, distill them in my head, fire up the laptop... then play a quick game of spider solitare... then see what's on blogdex... then check The Morning News... then finally fire up the word processing program and the blank white page transposes itself on my mind and I am blank. So hopefully I'll build up a resistance to the blank white page.