For a long time, I ran out of things to say, or things worth saying publicly. Studying, work and class took up a huge amount of time, but then again so did Facebook. A few weeks ago, I hit a wall and deactivated my account. Last night, I accidentally re-activated it. (It turns out all you need to reactivate it is to put in an email and password, a simple task if it is stored on the computer and you hit the wrong link) Now I did try and re-deactivate it, without success, so I ended up locking the thing down. Pretty much you can see my picture right now. I indiscriminately closed off every setting I could, and deleted the applications that tie my Facebook to both this site and my twitter account.
In other words, Facebook has been ejected for a game misconduct penalty.
Now, when I get some free time, I will probably put the basic information back up on FB. There is nothing wrong with people being able to see that I went to Reinhardt College, Kennesaw State and Atlanta Tech. It doesn't cost me a moments attention to have my birthday or any other information up there that people can't interact with.
Of course that isn't permanent either, I may open back up wall postings and such again later, but for right now I want to focus on finishing school, getting started on the next phase of development and getting my life back together over all.
Deleting Facebook for a couple of weeks has had a great effect on the way that I use my time, and keeping my attention available for other things. I have been able to get ready for a few test much more efficiently than I would have if I was constantly distracted by scrolling through status updates on my blackberry. I started blogging again, and I feel like I have something to say that isn't condensed down to status updates. When I get home, I feel more like I have things to talk about with my wife other than what I read on peoples wall posts.
And best of all, my world has gotten alot quieter. There is not the constant buzz of news and outside sources of information that pull me away from what I should be focusing on. I want to use these blogs as a way to communicate outward more than a place to observe the lives of a million distant others from and a platform to comment on their lives. Does it impact my life and the lives of my great grandchildren that the government has entered a suicide pact with their pocket book? Should I be concerned that our local congressman is a shameless bigot unconcerned with his district's best interest? Is it important that a group of militant Muslims is building a Mosque feet from the fallen WTC site? Yes. Do I need to focus on it? No. My life is pretty focused right now. Family Building + Education + Personal Development are what consumes my attention. And when I do focus on protesting those ills, this site isn't really the place for me to do that from. Internet screeds rarely change the world.
So I am going to try to organize my online life. I have two blogs which I enjoy: Mo1, and Yellow Blog. Mo1 is obviously well suited to being a more technical Emergency Medicine blog. I can get the blood, guts and "You ain't gonna believe this" stories off my chest as well as talk about my industry. I know that most of my friends and family don'e want to hear about an interesting multi-system trauma that was complicated by a couple cardiac problems,a respiratory and a seizure disorder. Mo1 has a permanent warning at the top because it will be more graphic than many are comfortable with. It already is.
YBJ is my Family, Faith and Personal development blog. I am going to try to keep it PG-13 or better. No blood and gore. It is far better suited to guitars, road trips, expressions of Catholicity and talking about the last crazy thing my kid did than it is to talking about shooting victims getting tazed by PD because they got violent while I was working on them (true story).
Expect a bit of cross posting as well, as appropriate.
Twitter is going to stay as it is... random. It kind of bridges the gap for several loosely connected part of my life. It is a good quick updater without requiring too much attention and maintenance. Sometimes I post websites, or songs or links to new blog posts. I vent frustration there and then quickly delete it. It has its own place.
So things are going to change a bit. Some of the more YBJ appropriate content of Mo1 is going to be moved there and there will be a reciprocal links posted in the nav bar at the top of both blogs. The designs are going to continue to be photo negatives of each other for easy identification. If you don't care for tales of blood and woe, at least not related to being married and raising a 2 yearold, focus on the light colored blog. If you like the "crazy call" stories, welcome to the dark side.