Conner's Blog

Stephen King once wrote a book with the same title as this post, minus the subtitle. I only ever read portions of it, something about reading non-fiction by one of my favorite, at the time, fiction writers seemed wrong. Maybe I should have, maybe his advice would resonate and I wouldn’t hit these slumps that I get myself into.

Writing here is cathartic; it helps me get thoughts out of my head that are cluttering up the place. I love getting comments, love having friends tell me they liked that one post when were having a beer, and I like, and sort of hate, looking back on my previous posts. This blog started out as a place I could be myself, and throughout its life I’ve stayed true to that mission, mostly.

There have been many times I’ve fallen off the writing bandwagon, though I think that happens to everyone. Then there have been the times when I tried to hard to impress my audience. That doesn’t work, writing to impress is a lot like dressing to impress, once you start worrying about others and not yourself, it can get uncomfortable, which isn’t impressive.

That’s sort of what happened this time, I tried to become a brand, and not be me. I wanted to be funny, I wanted my posts to resonate with everyone, or I wanted to get Uhaul to quit screwing with my parents. I wasn’t sticking with the mission of this blog, which is “I write for myself and hope I can get a few people to enjoy the ride.” I would start writing a post, get a paragraph in and think, who wants to read this slop, and hit delete.

So here we go again, I’m hitting refresh and writing whatever I want, whenever I want, and doing it often. I’ve realized my mood has been crappy lately, and I think part of that can be attributed to not writing. I used to use Twitter as my outlet, but anymore Twitter has become a communications platform and not a place to just spout off, though I still do that occasionally. I never realized how much I needed to write until recently, so I’m bringing back “Conner’s Blog” and getting to work. Well maybe I’m getting back into the playground, since the whole point of this post is that writing here shouldn’t be work.

I swear I’m not trying to let this site die, it’s just kind of taken a back seat to a lot of other things going on in my life. Additionally, writing inspiration hasn’t exactly jumped up and yelled ideas at me like it used to. So for right now yeah, you get to wallow in the sadness that is my quiet site.

A few things to share.

• I recently launched a new project called The Tour Twin Cities. It’s a combination dining club/review site. It’s an idea I’ve been really working on fleshing out and I would love you to join, offer feedback, try to break the site, or whatever you want to do to support it. I’d especially love it if you joined and came on a tour stop.
• A food blog is in the works, I have content, just don’t have a design, hopefully it will happen soon.
• I’m purchasing a Mac Book Pro next week if things go well. So all of my followers who think I’m crazy for living on a PC for the last 27 years of my life will be appeased. Plus the ability to go to a coffee shop and work on my own laptop is probably going to boost my productivity. I’m very easily distracted at home for some reason.
• Finally, I’m going to be spending 7 weeks in California for work. I’m not really looking forward to living out of a hotel room for that time, but the sushi, and the food, and the scenes, and the…yeah, I’ll survive.

Anyway the point is I’m still here, I’m reading your stuff, and someday I may actually be the prolific blogger I was for about 13 months again.

P.S. If you happen to be bored on Saturday and want to hang out with some awesome photographers, you should join us at the State Fair grounds for a photo walk. It’ll be a blast and we accept anyone. Point and shoots, Digital SLRs, Film, heck I think a sketchpad would be embraced. Deets are here.

I’m probably going to be neglecting this site for the foreseeable future. I’ve had a lot of stuff happen the last few weeks and need to sit back and take stock and get some things figured out. I’ll still be around of course. I’m sure I’ll occasionally have inspiration strike and publish something. I intend to keep Wednesday Where?s going, but other than that I don’t have much in the pipeline for this site.

That being said, I do have a new project that hopefully will be launching by the middle of March, a few of you know about it but I’ll leave it a mystery for the rest of you. I have a couple other small  sites I’m working on, and I finally have the motivation to get things moving again. Sometimes life needs to kick you before you get going I guess.

So basically I’m just asking you to not delete my site from your reader, bookmarks, or however else you read this site. I’m sure I’ll be back before the snow melts. Of course you can always follow me on Twitter or Flickr and keep up with me that way.

Finally, on a much sadder note, the mother of one of my best friends is losing her battle with cancer. If you have ever wanted to buy me a beer, instead consider donating something to her benefit fund.  Currently there isn’t a way to donate online, but you can do so at any TCF bank. There is also a benefit being hosted for her on Friday in Hugo. Additional information can be found at http://pamkreyerbenefit.org/

As you may have noticed I’ve been having a slight case of not writing the last few weeks. So in an effort to remedy the lack of content here, I’ve setup a Formspring account.  So go ahead, ask me anything http://www.formspring.me/sloped

Are you celebrating Festivus today? Are you ready for the snow storm? Do you wonder if I will ever stop asking questions and actually get around to answering them? The answer of course is no.

Anyway, Happy Holidays everyone. I’ve made the decision to not post for the rest of the year. Too much going on, and I need to recharge with cookies, candies, delicious food, and cocktails. I will of course be writing in secret so expect new stuff come January.

P.S. I will be relaunching Wednesday Where in January, it won’t follow quite the same format, but hopefully it’s fun. So be sure to check back then, or just subscribe to my RSS feed.

Just a quick post to say hi. I’ve had a busy last few days. Since my parents arrived we’ve been to Como zoo, the state fair, Walker Art Center(where we saw Solid Gold), Mill City Farmers Market, and the Mill City Museum. Today we are hitting up St. Paul with Mass at the Cathedral and then possibly th Science museum and other places. Hope you all had a good weekend and I’ll be writing about some of this week next week.

Ok, so I’ve been neglecting this site for a little too long.  Part of it is being out of my routine for the last few weeks, the other part is I don’t know what to write about anymore.  So I’m taking a break, so I will not be posting any Wednesday Wheres or Friday Fives for a while.  I’m not sure when things will pick back up again, but I’m guessing once fall comes along.  I’ll still try to post at least some cooking and photo posts occasionally, so keep checking back in and don’t unsubscribe please.

I am alive, in case anyone who doesn’t follow me on Twitter or hasn’t run into me offline was wondering. I’m having a blogging mid-life crisis apparently and nothing I write or do seems interesting to me. I’ll get over it soon I’m sure but thought I would assuage any worries.

There is a bunch of stuff in the pipeline, another writeup about defining Twitter, an update on my herb garden, and a bunch of photos from the Lyn-Lake street fest.  Unfortunately, said street fest has me out of commission today, I barely made it through work and am not doing anything tonight.  Still, even utter exhaustion can’t keep my hostility at bay.  So today after reading one to many stupid quotes, unnecessary articles, and being just annoyed with written media in general I decided to launch a new project.

I’m announcing the launch of Ludicrous.  The goal is short posts highlighting absurdity in written media. I hope you enjoy.

Posting will be either light or nonexistent for the next 4-5days.  Today is my last day of work for the week, and tomorrow I fly to Spokane, WA to attend my cousin’s wedding.  I’m sticking around Spokane for a few days after the wedding and just hanging by myself.  I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do, but I’m not going to do much, I’m just going to enjoy being out of town and not working for a few days. This is the first break I’ve had from work since January, and that was when I had my ER trip, so hopefully this trip will go a bit better.

My camera is coming with me, so I should bring back some photos to share.  Everyone have a great weekend and I’ll see you all next week.