RBOC - Gray winter day edition

Blogging bullets:

• You may have noticed that I have no blog roll. That's because it was a Blogrolling blog roll, and Blogrolling has ceased to exist. That's a shame, because it was a handy system (though the ads on it in the last year or so of its existence were annoying). But I cut and pasted the blogroll before that happened, and when I get the energy for it, I'll repost an updated version of it.
• I'm thinking of changing to WordPress. Those of you who've made the move, how hard is it to move the archive of the blog? What do you like/dislike about each platform?
• I'm also thinking of claiming my blog as service/outreach when I do my 5 year post-tenure review or when I go up for full professor. Any opinions about that?
• My partner has been known as Bullock on this blog because I named him in our Deadwood-watching phase, during which time he grew a Seth Bullock-style mustache and goatee. But Deadwood is long gone and my man is clean-shaven. Plus, even though "bullock" meant "young bull" in Middle English and that's one of its meanings today, it also can mean a castrated bull, which is not the association I wish to project for my Bullock. (Though it is kind of a funny pairing with Virago.) But it would be confusing to rename him. I'm thinking maybe of just putting a "cast of characters" in the sidebar and explaining the origins of the name. Any other ideas?
• I have been remiss in telling Pastry Pirate fans that she has long been blogging elsewhere. First she was in New Zealand, working and exploring, and now she's working in Antarctica. No, really. I kind of think "Baking in Antarctica" should be the title of the blog, but since it started before her life on the Ice Planet Hoth (as I like to think of it), it's called Stories That Are True.
  
• Hey, cool, I managed to blog more than in 2009. Not exactly an awesome accomplishment, since I was really lame in 2009, but still an improvement. What should I blog about next?
  

Work/Life bullets:

• Our Christmas tree is up, all the Christmas shopping is done, and all but one present is wrapped (because it hasn't arrived yet)! Hooray!
• On Thursday, I wired the deposit for the studio flat in Belsize Park. It's non-refundable, so this makes it official. I'm going to be living, however temporarily, in a flat in London! I've never lived in a flat in London before! Heck, I've never lived in a flat before (American apartments, yes). How cool is that?!
• The one-week rent for the studio flat in Belsize Park (the amount of the deposit) is just over my one-month rent in my awesome two-bedroom Rust Belt Historical District apartment and only about $175 less than our monthly mortgage payment. I'll never be able to live full-time in a big, expensive city again -- I've been too spoiled by the low cost of living here in Rust Belt. But hey, now I can afford 6-week jaunts there! So, I may live in Rust Belt, but I can better afford life in the big city in small doses. This is what I keep telling myself, anyway.
• OMG, my sabbatical is half over!!! Ack!!!
• Something I realized at the various holiday parties this week: asking me "So, how's sabbatical going?" is as crazy-making for me now as "So, how's the dissertation coming?" was for me once upon a time. Also, faculty on sabbatical don't want to talk about work issues. Come on, people, surely we can talk about something else!
• Bullock is grading finals. He just said to me, "It must be Christmas time, because a student just spelled Commerce Clause like Santa Claus."
• Bullock and I are going to BullockLand for the holidays (with Pippi). I spent Turkey Week in Cowtown with my side of the family and starting this year we're alternating where we go for Christmas so that we don't have to do the crazy-making hurryhurryhurry to get to one place and then the next. That makes my going out to LA to visit Virgo Sis and go to the MLA much less stressful (so does going to MLA just to go). Of course, so does being on sabbatical, because otherwise I'd be doing MLA back-to-back with starting our Spring semester.
  
• Speaking of holiday plans, in case I don't blog again before we leave:
  

Blog roll updating

I've finally spent some time updating my blog roll. Since I use Blogrolling and have a "Blogroll It!" button on my browser, it's really easy to add blogs, but I have a tendency not to keep up on cleaning out the defunct and discontinued links.

But while deleting dead links has a kind of satisfaction to it, it's not nearly as fun as adding new ones. So, if you read this blog -- even if you don't comment here -- and you've got a blog of your own and it's not my blog roll, leave me a comment with your URL and I'll add you. Likewise, if you've moved and I haven't found your new blog, or if there's something wrong with the way your blog is listed here, let me know.

We will resume our regularly schedule programming shortly

One of my favorite people in the world is coming through town tomorrow for about 24 hours, so I won't be posting for a few days. And since I haven't been posting for quite a few days already, it'll just be more of the same.

In the meantime, I'll try to think of something substantive and academic to write about. So here's a question: if a blog post that annoyed the heck out of me is weeks old by the time I get around to posting about it, is it too 'old news' for me to post about it? Discuss. (And no, it wasn't by any of you.)

New look

So I followed through on the suggestion to re-design the blog around Pippi, or at least her coloring. I fiddled with the old template for awhile and then decided that it wasn't working with the new colors. But then I found this template, changed a few things a bit, and added the background picture. I know I don't work on things ecclesiastical or monastic, but the picture, which I took in the ruins of Battle Abbey, goes so well with the template colors, and I just like its lines. I've especially always liked the way vaulted roofs like this look like plants sprouting out of their support columns. And hey, it's medieval.

What do you think? Any suggestions? I think I might change the post titles to something darker and richer -- maybe a dark red. They're a little washed out now. Done!

Blogging-related bleg for advice

OK, so I've volunteered to teach my colleagues how to make their blog into something that people outside of RBU will want to read, but that also discusses what's going on here. I also plan on showing them ways of getting it wider attention and readers. Obviously, nothing's guaranteed, but I have some ideas.

On the writing front, they should talk about the specifics here but with the framework of the larger problems for higher education in general -- especially public education. They won't get readers and links -- especially not from Inside Higher Ed -- unless what they write speaks to a larger audience. And they should mix posts that speak to fellow academics and general audience readers.

On the marketing front, these are the ideas I have: register with technorati; read other blogs and comment on them; send an e-mail to the "Around the Web" editor at IHE when there's a post they might be interested in; register with SiteMeter to see what traffic you are (or aren't) getting; register with a local blog who collects Rust Belt blog links and categorizes them; create a blogroll (which may get the attention of those bloggers checking their links); and....um, what am I missing?

Does anyone have any other ideas?

It's hard to grow a blog audience overnight, I know, but it's worth a try getting some wider audience, I think. And also, once the trustees sign off on my tenure and it's a done deal, I'll link my colleagues' blog here, so eventually they'll have at least one link!

PS -- I've told my colleagues that I have a blog, but I haven't told them which one.

Oops

If you were here for the brief minutes that a post called "Sad" and featuring a video with a dog in it was here -- or if it shows up in your RSS feeder -- you might have been confused. I tried to post that thing from YouTube *days* ago. WTF? Anyway, I made it go bye-bye, because I am not sad any more. Why not? Because the Brittany is coming! The Brittany is coming! See the happy post below this one.

Darn, they got me

The Googlers forced me to migrate to the new Blogger, which I'd be putting off for fear of messing things up. Still have to look around and see that everything made the jump (yes, I've been watching too much BG.) Meanwhile, it seems that every time someone does this, old posts show up as new in feed readers like Bloglines. So no, I haven't done 35 new posts over the weekend or whatever your aggregator is telling you. Go ahead and mark them as read (unles you're really that behind on my blog!).