This post is about the broader purpose of this blog and the kind of work I’ll be doing here and on other platforms moving forward.
Many of you already know (I don’t exactly hide it) that my day job involves communications for a county office that, among other responsibilities, runs elections. The last few years have been a roller coaster. Balancing my work and my non-work interests has been challenging because my job intersects with the nonpartisan role of the office I serve. At the same time, I have a deep interest in local politics and government. I want to keep engaging with those topics here because they matter to me, and hopefully to my community.
Since my podcast partner stepped back, I’ve struggled to find time and focus for this blog and the podcast. I’ve also had broader, non-local thoughts rattling around in my brain that didn’t quite fit within an Olympia-centered framework. I posted some of them here anyway, but I knew I needed a better approach.
I also want to acknowledge that last year was rough for me. The election in Thurston County went smoothly, but election season is always an enormous weight. We did well because we started preparing years ago and went into overdrive months before Election Day. After certification, I took a longer-than-usual winter break. Mentally, I unplugged from my projects one by one. I read a lot, but far less news.
In December, I injured my knee, which kept me from my usual running and soccer routine. Instead, I walked a lot. That gave me time to listen to audiobooks and read in a more sustained way than I had in years. It also gave me space, toward the end of my break, to reflect on what I wanted to turn back on and how.
I’ve also developed a daily journaling habit. I can’t overstate how helpful it has been in organizing my thoughts and improving my focus.
Now that I’m wrapping up phase one of “turning things back on,” I want to outline the plan:
1. Re-establish the blogs as a weekly-ish writing habit and develop an email newsletter.
I now actively maintain two blogs:
- Olympia Time: This blog has been around for about 20 years, starting on Blogger before Google acquired it. I recently moved it to WordPress. The focus remains Olympia, though I’ll occasionally write about Washington State politics. If you’ve followed me for a while, you know the drill.
- A general blog: This one covers everything else, Irish identity, broader political ideas, and more.
The goal is to post on one of these blogs every weekend. Occasionally, when I have both time and ideas, I’ll post on both.
Technically, I want these blogs available via RSS and ActivityPub. Olympia Time works well in that regard; the non-local blog, less so.
2. Email newsletter
After a few weeks of writing, an email newsletter feels sustainable. It will include content from one of the blogs or other writing I’ve done, along with links to interesting pieces I’ve come across.
Since I design the newsletter myself, it takes more effort than using Substack or Ghost. While I’d rather use a simpler platform, I like my blog and don’t want to switch to Substack for several reasons. Moving everything to Ghost might make sense eventually, but for now, I’m happy with how things are working.
3. The Olympia Standard
This has been the most disappointing part of my non-work projects over the past few years. I had an amazing podcast partner, and there’s no replacing her work ethic and vision. I’ve kept the podcast on life support, but it’s been almost a year since I released an episode. The long-form interview format wasn’t sustainable, and recording at home led to a poor listening and recording experience (sorry, Jemmy).
Here’s the new plan: I’m now a member of TC Media, which gives me access to their new podcast studio. I’ll reserve an hour every Friday to record something—sometimes a written piece (like the Cory Doctorow podcast), sometimes an interview (like the old Olympia Standard but shorter, around 30 minutes), or sometimes a local news rundown (similar to the Centralia Chronicle’s News Dump).
The key change is consistency: I’ll record every Friday, regardless. If I can schedule a guest, great. If not, I’ll record a solo episode. This means guests will need to plan further in advance, and some episodes will be adapted from blog content.
If you’re interested in being involved—as a guest, guest host, or fill-in host—let me know. I won’t be doing candidate interviews myself anymore, so I’ll need help with those. I’ll also cover the cost of the podcast studio.
4. Social media
I’m aiming for a cleaner break here. The past few years, based on my experience at the business end of disinformation, have radicalized my views on social media platforms. I left X a while back and recently put my Meta accounts on ice. I’m most active on Bluesky and Mastodon, though I also check Reddit and need to engage more on the Olympia Discord. We need more alternatives to centralized platforms. This leads me to #5.
5. Other projects (Help wanted!)
This category includes projects I’ve put on the back burner or haven’t started yet. The biggest one is Funding Local Journalism. Last summer, I asked some folks to help me get this off the ground, but terrible timing (election season) and my lack of skills got in the way. There’s still a lot of work to do, but I recognize my limitations in leading it. This will take time.
Another idea is a local social network to replace Facebook’s community role. Right now, nothing competes with Facebook for local organizing, which is why I haven’t deleted my Meta accounts entirely, I need to monitor activity there and sometimes actually dip in. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Other models exist, like Front Porch Forum and old email democracy forums. However, building something like this requires project management, tech skills, and community organizing, areas where I need help.
Wrapping it all up
At the core of everything is this blog. It has been here for nearly half my life, so it makes sense to center my efforts around it. With a second blog, a podcast, and a weekly newsletter, I’m tying my content together in a more structured way.
The bigger community projects, funding journalism and creating alternative local networks, are where I need the most help. We need ways to support reporters and free ourselves from billionaire-controlled social media platforms. That’s work I can’t accomplish alone.
6 . Extra bonus. Poetry.
I started writing poetry and I’ll start releasing it soon. The goal is one poem for the Olympia Poet Laureate project by the end of April. And a small book of a dozen by the end of the year.
