Blogroll

That listing of other blogs on the right hand side of this page?  It's called a "blogroll".  I guess that's easier than saying "list of other blogs".  Anyway, it requires some care and feeding.

Every few months I take a peek at the NEPABlogs page to look for new and interesting content and authors.  Note the use of the words "new and interesting".  I know, for example, that there are a number of well written local blogs about sports (and the Baby Penguins specifically), but I'm just not interested in that sort of thing.  Playing sports is one thing, watching it is yet another.  Reading about it?  That's not in my top 500 list of things to do.

There are other non-sports blogs that fail in the "not interesting" category.  For example...and not so shockingly...I am not interested in blogs about being a mom, raising children and/or motherhood.  Ditto on blogs about writing, weddings, crafts or other sorts of things.

All of the above noted, what am I interested in?

Well it's not always what you might think.  One of my favorite local blogs is no longer written.  Shockingly, it was about fashion and style...which I find incredibly boring...but it was written more or less from the perspective of a young professional.  I didn't care less about the stuff related to shoes, for example, but reading about what it's like to be a young professional in your late 20's/early 30's in NEPA was fascinating.  That sort of real perspective about what it's like to be _____________ (young professional, old professional, etc.; it doesn't really matter) is the kind of honest conversation that makes for great reading.  It's great when someone allows you to see the stuff you see all the time, but through their eyes.

There's also the political stuff, but I'll be candid:  A lot of it I don't actually read.  I like having it on my blog roll because the content tends to be updated regularly, but I find politics to be often times tedious.  I'll write about politics, but if I had to write about that all the time I'd pretty much hang up the keyboard for good.

I like reading about religion, so I do have one or two related blogs linked on sgalbert.  My favorite is J. A. Dick's wonderful blog Another Voice.  It should be required reading for local Roman Catholics.  I'll also include in this category a few blogs about personal growth and related topics.

My least favorite task along these lines is the couple times a year blogroll clean-up.  This is when I remove blogs that are no longer being updated.  Even if I don't even read the blog all that often, taking the link off of my site seems painful.  I keep thinking "but maybe they will start writing again, so I should leave the link", but sometimes that's more wishful thinking than reality.  At times it's like saying good bye to an old friend.

All of the above just goes to show that I can make pretty much anything difficult.