Down with Absolutes!

This post has been a long time coming and I apologize for those of you who expected something sooner. I imagine many of my former readers have already abandoned this site and it may not be viewed by those who no longer make Down with Absolutes! a part of their blog-reading day.

June 30th was my final day of regular posting to this blog. It was the end of the first year of the 145th General Assembly in Dover. If all goes as planned in my personal and professional life, I will not be back to cover the start of the second half come January.

Where to begin? I’ve actually been “rehearsing” this post for the past few months. I’ve scribbled notes and sent myself emails about what I’d like to include in a wrap-up like this. However, as I sit here now, I realize that shooting from the hip is what I did best during five years of blogging and shooting from the hip is what you’ll get from me now.

First, a bit of history. I began this blog on April 23, 2004. I was in my senior year at Temple University and had just come home from hearing Arianna Huffington speak on campus. She energized the audience to “get out there” and ruffle some feathers. She said blogging was one way any ordinary person could get his voice out there. I took her up on this suggestion and I soon registered for a free blog via Angelfire. It was free and the software was a bit shaky, but I had a blog. Over the next eight months, I scored about 1,000 hits. Mostly from friends and family. It was my take on how much I hated George W. Bush and how I would do anything to ensure he wasn’t re-elected in November.

Then, he won.

I realized that blogging wasn’t as much fun and I took a two-month break. In the meantime, I’d met a new friend at work. She’s become a close friend over the past five years and she’s also my very talented “web guru.” Naomi informed me that I should just pay a few bucks and register my own domain. She would, in turn, give me some assistance with WordPress. DownWithAbsolutes.com was born in January 2005. The title is a lyric from one of my favorite Joe Henry songs, Tiny Voices.

There was very little direction with DWA in the beginning. It was mostly my take on national politics with a bit of pop culture thrown in. It wasn’t until the beginning of 2006 when I really began following the shananigans and trainwrecks that local politics had to offer. I was going to school to get my Master’s in Education at the time. So, between substitute teaching and that, I actually had a bit of free time to go out and attend meetings and get to know politicians and their fanboys and girls. I also got involved with some activists, many of whom I consider good friends today.

I began to really get into this blogging thing in the summer of 2006. With an abundant amount of free time on my hands, I decided to put it to some good use. I treated DWA like a full-time job and I was to become head reporter, correspondent, editor, and BS artist. There wasn’t a week that went by where I didn’t have three or four “events” to attend. I would bring my camera, take loads of pictures, see what developed, and then deface them using Microsoft Paint. Many people weren’t happy. I love it and, judging by my site’s visitor statistics, so did the people who stopped by on a daily basis. In 2005, DWA received more than 36,000 hits. In 2006, that number jumped nearly five-fold to 186,000. 2007 saw nearly 250,000 hits and 2008 saw more than 300,000 hits EVEN BEFORE I migrated to the Delaware Talk Radio server in September. Had I stayed on my own server, I imagine DWA could have approached half-a-million hits in 2008 considering I also see frenzied-spikes in readership during election seasons.

2009 saw me in a state of flux. After the gig with Delaware Talk Radio fizzled, I realized I have spent far too much time on this and have reaped far too little financial gain. I decided DWA would take a backseat to my job hunt. And it did take a backseat. Both quantity and quality of my coveraged suffered and this is where I am today. Highly disillusioned and pretty much no longer interested in covering politics. I have to take care of ME right now and that’s what I’m doing.

I thank you all for your readership over the years. I will not say “never” at this point; that would be foolish. But just know that I’m here and I may be back. Special thanks to those who helped contribute over the years, especially those who joined me, including Dominique, Mat Marshall, Delatacit, Justin, Susan, Leo, Intercourse, and Discourse. It was good times, indeed.

This has been good fun. Thanks for such a great time.