DH.N Programming Note

I was going to write this last Saturday but I told myself to give it one more day to make sure it wasn’t influenced by that night’s loss to Ottawa.

After Sunday’s win over Buffalo it seemed like I could hold out a little longer. I nearly did it last night after the win over Boston but decided instead to write absolutely nothing.

Today, given Bill’s announcement over at A2Y, it seems like I should delay again. I’m sure there’d just be another thing tomorrow, though, so I’m not going to draw it out.

I’ve been running this site for over seventeen years now. That’s not going to end – I’ll say that right off the bat. Thinking about that time, though, makes me want to say things like “back in my day.” I’ve done it before. I take a lot of pride in the fact that there aren’t many of us left from the bad old days of Geocities and Angelfire and the like.

I take pride in it but that doesn’t mean I’m having fun. Especially this season – maybe because of the team but more likely because of my life – parts of this site have felt like an obligation more than a hobby. I’m giving up things that I’d rather be doing because I feel like I “need” to be updating the site.

And that needs to stop. I don’t have the bandwidth to do everything I used to. That means it’s time to re-prioritize.

I’m not retiring and I’m not taking a hiatus. I’ve done the hiatus thing before and I think it’s time to try something new. I’m calling this an experiment.

I’m going to stop writing on a game-by-game basis. I’m not going to feel obligated to post pregame notes or postgame notes or game recaps.

There will still be game threads, which I’ll contribute to. I’ll continue talking on Twitter. I’m not going to stop writing; I’ll probably still write up major events like trades or injuries and I’ve got a blog post planned for this weekend. I’m just removing the schedule that I’ll write by.

Maybe this means I’ll blog more since I won’t be spending time on the soulless, quoteless recaps. Maybe I’ll find in a week that I’m having even less fun not writing those things than I was when I felt obligated to and I’ll end the experiment. Maybe I’ll write even less but I’ll finally get moved to a new server or get the store I keep saying I’m going to build done. Or maybe I’ll end up hiring interns who actually want to write to do that while I focus on the code.

All I’m saying is that if it gets quiet around here for awhile, this is why, and we’ll see where we go from here.