Time to think -- and change.

I haven't posted in over a week and that is mostly on purpose. I wanted to take some time to rethink what I do and why I do certain things. I'm not rethinking my life or anything, but certainly some introspective into oneself is good from time to time. This time, at least, I'm just going to concentrate on this blog. I've lived with the personal rule -- that I don't regret the things I do -- for a long time. Specifically, things I've said or written about that I sort of wish I would have kept to myself instead of going off about them. However, I'm not going to go back and delete old blog posts just for the sake of pretending like I never did it.

I've noticed a trend (disturbing to me) as of late. A majority of my posts are politically charged, they bring out arguably the worst in me and I really don't like it. The biggest problem is that they make me angry and I'm not one to get angry very often -- friends have told me that I let too much slide. I get angry so infrequently, that when I do, my wife just thinks it is more weird than anything else; she knows that it had to be something pretty bad to get me upset in the first place. So, my first change will be:

1. No more blog posts concerning politics unless it spurns such a reaction that I can't keep myself from saying something about it.

I would like to push this to the point that I never, ever post about politics and that is what I will actually be aiming for.

When I was younger, I had a big problem with saying things without first thinking about it. It was such a problem to my Dad that he bought me a sign. To this day, that sign still sits in my old bedroom in my parent's house, "Make sure brain is in gear before engaging mouth." It seems as relevant today as it was back when I was 12 years old. Lately, I've made tremendous efforts to thoroughly think things through before expressing my opinion. However, as is apparent by posts on my blog, I haven't done as well as I hoped. This leads me to my second change:

2. Blog posts that are serious in nature must be completely thought out and researched.

My last change requires the least explanation. There are a plethora (plus) of tools out now that allow users to easily share links, quip about anything, notify others of what they are doing, etc, etc. I use some of them, and that is the problem. Often I find myself blogging about something I shared through Google Reader and that I also quipped about on Twitter. Enough; no more:

3. No more babbling, redundant, useless, or otherwise pointless posts. If a post doesn't genuinely add to the content of the site and/or the benefit of the viewers, it doesn't belong.

For everything else, that's what all these handy-dandy tools and social networking sites are for. Anything I feel worthy of sharing with everyone else will go there and be tracked in my Mugshot. Heck, I've even got it in the sidebar of the blog.

I'll finish up this rather long and babbling post now with a strip from my new favorite web comic Garfield minus Garfield. I said that I'm not currently rethinking my life and that is the honest truth, but I'm not exactly sure where I am. I am, however, currently in the process of setting up several things in my immediate and long term future that I think will make things all the better. Until then, I just feel like I'm in limbo.


So, consider this blog reboot #1.