{"id":5275,"date":"2014-04-14T00:31:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T00:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=5275"},"modified":"2014-04-14T00:31:17","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T00:31:17","slug":"in-need-of-a-blog-intervention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5275","title":{"rendered":"In need of a blog intervention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My name is John and I am a blogaholic.<\/p>\n

There. It’s out there for all the world to see and read. How do I know this?<\/p>\n

Well, I have just returned from a four-night vacation in one of the most beautiful regions of Texas and I was in and out (mostly out) of Internet service for the entire time. It drove me crazy. Nuts. I was getting fidgety, nervous, looking for things to occupy my time when we weren’t touring cool sites or just relaxing in a spring-fed pool.<\/p>\n

My wife and I ventured to the Davis Mountains region. We stayed at a first-class state park in Balmorhea. We met many nice and helpful folks.<\/p>\n

We parked our fifth wheel, set up camp and went about enjoying our time away from the hustle and bustle of city life.<\/p>\n

Except that I am a blogger. I do it for myself and for Panhandle PBS, the local Amarillo public television outlet based at Amarillo College.<\/p>\n

I did get three blogs posted during those four nights on the road. It was, however, a challenge.<\/p>\n

I figured out that I could write my text on a Word document and save it to my laptop, which now goes with me wherever my wife and I go. I couldn’t get any Internet connection inside the fifth wheel, but I could get it outdoors. So, I would write my text on the Word document, then try to connect to the ‘Net outside and get this stuff posted. It would work — some of the time.<\/p>\n

But here’s where it gets sticky and where I can justify a possible need for an intervention: I spent a fairly fruitful, extremely rewarding and modestly successful career in daily print journalism. For nearly 37 years I cranked out copy like there was no tomorrow. I got pretty good at it.<\/p>\n

Then, on Aug. 30, 2012, it all came to a crashing halt. The skills I had applied for more than three decades were deemed by the higher ups at the newspaper where I worked to be no longer relevant in today’s changing media environment. They called it a “company reorganization.” I’ll call it something else that is not suitable for this venue, as I shy away from four-letter-word profanity.<\/p>\n

My point is that after a lengthy career of writing text and then getting it published immediately, I cannot shake the desire to do that very thing — even as my wife and I evolve into fully retired folks. We’re not quite there, but we’re well on the way.<\/p>\n

But if I’m going to continue blogging on politics and other things under my own High Plains Blogger and provide public affairs TV commentary for PanhandlePBS.org, I’ve got to figure out how to cope with traveling into regions of the country that aren’t as well connected as others.<\/p>\n

Do I need help? I’m all ears.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement. My name is John and I am a blogaholic. There. It’s out there for all the world to see and read. How do I know this? Well, I have just returned from a four-night vacation in one of the most … Continue reading In need of a blog intervention<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2122,2293,3487],"class_list":["post-5275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-high-plains-blogger","tag-internet","tag-panhandle-pbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}