I had lunch on Friday with Jeff “Yellow Dog” Rice and my EMU colleague, Linda Adler-Kassner. Really, it was just one of those opportunities to get together and eat and drink and talk– gossip about the comp/rhet world, talk about different institutional politics, a bit about C&W 2007 (which is going to be at Wayne State U), quite a bit about technology things, etc.
Jeff and I also tried a bit to convince Linda that she ought to blog. She kept saying that she didn’t think she really had a reason to blog/anything to say, and we kept trying to tell her that wasn’t true. I don’t think it worked that well, but it was fun trying.
But one thing that we did talk about as a reason for blogging was what I guess I would describe as the unexpected benefits. Jeff and I both talked about various versions of this, but just speaking for me: my silly little blog here, which really doesn’t get that much traffic and that isn’t that significant in the big scheme (or even small scheme) of things, has indirectly lead to a number of publications (some of which have even paid), speaking engagements, and other kudos. I suppose it is kind of a “build it and they will come” sort of thing.
Anyway, like I said, good food and fun was had by one and all. We didn’t talk about football, which, given the way that the Outback bowl turned out, was probably a good thing.
Linda and I met at Bombadill’s talked about blogging yesterday. Because I’ve had fun reading your blog, Steve, I’m considering blogging too. Well, it’s either that or learning HTML—wait, don’t I need HTML to blog?
AND you have a podcast on iTunes. It’s not very long, but you are on the charts, baby!
Ah, right. You are from Iowa. If I had remembered, I would have given you a hard time (I owe Collin too).