TITLE: Another Year of Blogging in the Books
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: July 09, 2006  3:40 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
I haven't written an entry about my blog in a while,
but I hope you'll indulge me today.  This is the 377th
entry in my blog.  I posted the first on July 9 two
years ago.

This second year has seen considerably less activity
than the first, in which I posted 225 entries.  But
I've still managed a dozen or so entries per month
in 2005-2006 -- though the content of my postings
looks a bit different in the second year as well.
In Year 1, my writing seemed driven by thoughts of
agile software development and especially connections
I was making between agile ideas and my training for
the Des Moines Marathon.  My initial readership came
largely from folks interested in agile development,
and sometimes those interested in how I was trying
to teach those ideas in a senior-level seminar.

Near the end of my first year I took on a three-year
assignment as head of
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/">
   my department</A>.
I had thought that this would result in frequent
writing about management and leadership, as I tried
to figure out how to do them.  But most of my entries
have been about topics at the intersection of my
headship and my teaching, the future of computer
science at the university and the teaching of
introductory CS courses.  Why I have not written more
frequently about the administrative and management
sides of my job is worthy of its own entry in the
future, but the short answer is that I have not yet
managed to consolidate my learning in this area yet.

OOPSLA was again a primary
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-11.html#e2005-11-08T15_00_49.htm">
   source of inspiration</A>,
as was
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2006-03.html#e2006-03-05T10_23_47.htm">
   SIGCSE</A>.
And I still have a lot to say about my running, even if
only the wild thoughts that pop into my head while
deep in a 16-miler.

I think the entry from this year that elicited the most
response was my report on a
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-09.html#e2005-09-15T20_10_06.htm">
   lecture by Thomas Friedman</A>.
In retrospect, I'm not sure if I have a favorite post
from the year, though I recall articles on
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-08.html#e2005-08-22T19_55_10.htm">
   negative splits</A>
in learning,
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-10.html#e2005-10-18T16_04_00.htm">
   Robert Hass's OOPSLA keynote</A>
on creativity, and talks by
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-11.html#e2005-11-15T20_51_37.htm">
   Marcia Bjornerud</A>
on popular science writing and my friend
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-11.html#e2005-11-18T21_37_50.htm">
   Roy Behrens</A>
on teaching as "subversive inactivity" with fondness.
(Does a particular article or theme stand out in your
mind?)

After all this time, I still haven't followed through
with allowing comments or posting links to some of
my favorite blogs.  The comments are problematic, given
the low-tech blogging tool I use,
<A HREF="http://nanoblogger.sourceforge.net/">
   NanoBlogger</A>.
With some time and patience, they are doable, but the
opportunity cost of that time seems inordinately high.
But I may move from NanoBlogger soon, for a variety of
technical reasons (long, unmeaningful entry names and
slowness processing a blog with 300+ entries among
them), so who knows.  I can add a blogroll of sorts
with minimal effort, and I can only plead inordinate
laziness as my excuse.  Soon.

On my one-year anniversary, I wrote a
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-07.html#e2005-07-09T08_01_42.htm">
   brief reflection</A>
and wondered what a second year of Knowing and Doing
would bring.  I love the quotes I used there, from
Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life" and Glenway Wescott's
"The Pilgrim Hawk".  They remain true for me today and
express something of why I will continue to write here.

Thanks to all you who read my ramblings.  Thanks, too,
to all of you who send me short notes when a post strikes
a chord with you, or when you have something to share.
You've taught me much.  I hope to make the time you spend
reading in the coming year worth your while.
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