Things are finally slowing down at my day job. Let me say a quick “Whew!” The short version, if you haven’t been following along, is that my department has undergone a radical change. What was for many years a department of one, me, and recently a department of two, is now a department of eight, with one more coming on board very soon to make nine. Our direction has changed slightly, but the biggest change is we are taking on new tasks directly related to what we have been doing all along.

The new tasks are things we have wanted to do for quite some time. The difference is an accelerated time table to take these things on to our plate. I know, this is supposed to be the short version. Let me shorten it even more. I like the work we’re taking on and I like the new focus. I also like the increased hours, especially every other Friday.

About Blogging. You probably wondered if I’d get around to that. I have, you may know, several other blog projects going. Those will continue. I am particularly interested in growing the Brick Blog. There are many reasons, not the least of which is that I’m really just a kid who’s been hanging around this world for 54 years. The proximity, less than 10 miles from home, shorter in a straight line, and the impact it is going to have on this area make it a very exciting project to watch and anticipate. I’d be lying if I didn’t mention the fact that I believe that there will be a tremendous economic benefit from the park, and that I hope that some of that will rub off on the blog.

And then there’s bRight & Early. In spite of the recent posting shortage, I really haven’t forgotten about this place. The five years I’ve spent writing here have been wonderful. The internet friendships have been an unexpected (really unexpected, not like all the “unexpected” consequences the old media reports on every day) bonus. Still, there is a sense of what do I want this blog to be when it grows up.

Every blog, or at least the successful ones, has to find it’s voice. Will your site have lots of quick posts with lots of links, or fewer posts that are mostly your own writing? Will you crank out ten or more posts a day, or just one or two a week? Quote many other sources, or few to none? Believe it or not, bloggers think about these things, myself included.

How does all of that apply here? Well, I think it’s quite obvious that I’m not going to start turning out 10-20 posts a day. Those kind of short posts may be quick to write, but they still take a great amount of time in research. And despite my recent output, I don’t think that one or two longish posts a day are quite my style (I tend to get to a point in a long post where I’m just ready to stop and hit “Publish”). I guess that just leaves some sort of middle ground.

My first goal is to strive to get out one good post a day — more my thoughts and commentary, and less trying to be the first to hit the net. One thing that has held me back has been avoiding writing about things that “everyone else” has already covered. I do believe I have something to add to the discussion. Goodness knows you can’t be a blogger without that belief. This will have to be that post for today. While this is a new day, so is tomorrow. Have a great day!

To bring you this important announcement: It is time once again to participate in the annual Day by Day Support Drive.

Sam, Zed, Jan, and Damon have been showing up here at bRight&Early for years. Chris Muir, and the friends he’s brought to life, have kept us entertained while offering a Zed-with-a-sniper-rifle accurate look at politics as it impacts each of us in the real world we live in “Day by Day”.

Besides, how can I not support the guy who’s strip brought people to my most viewed post?

If you can, please go and contribute what you can. We need Day by Day to stick around, if only for the fact that Sam is pretty hot for a 39 year old mother of two who’s a cartoon character.

Legoland Florida, coming to Winter Haven late next year at the site of the former Cypress Gardens, held an open house yesterday. You can read about it at my Brick Blog.

The celebration of Independence Day spills over, for most, to today. Let me start by quoting from the famous letter of John Adams to his wife, Abigail.

But on the other Hand, the Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it. — The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished. — Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. — This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Reading that letter again brings this thoughts to mind — that celebrating Independence Day is a celebration of us.

At most July 4th celebrations we take occasion to honor our military. That is a good thing, and something we can never do sufficiently. But unlike Memorial Day and Veterans Day, where we honor those who have given their lives and those who served, and continue to serve, so heroically, Independence Day should include the rest of us. We should honor the men and women of our military, but we should also understand that our continuing freedom depends on every citizen and our dedication to keeping the ideals of liberty and freedom alive.

This idea was expressed in an exchange between Benjamin Franklin and a Mrs. Powel, recorded by Constitution signer James McHenry in a diary entry.

Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

And that’s the point. We have to keep it. We have to work, and sweat, and never relent in our effort to “keep it.” It does take effort, and without such effort the tendency will be for our republic to fall into disrepair. To visualize this imagine a car that is kept out of the elements, but never started and never maintained. In very little time it would be useless for transportation. The battery would be dead, the oil virtually useless, and the tires dry-rotted and likely flat. Depending on the amount of time the car is ignored, the effort to restore it could be significant.

We are in danger of leaving our Republic out of the elements, but unmaintained. We can not let that happen.

I hope that you and your loved ones had (and continue to have) a great time celebrating the birth of our country. When you return to work remember to work on keeping our republic as well.

Yesterday’s primary wins by Nikki Haley and Tim Scott in South Carolina may not change the party identification of their respective seats this fall, but they definitely will bring change.

Haley beat U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett in Tuesday’s runoff, riding the backlash against the state’s notoriously rough-and-tumble politics. She had come within a point of taking the victory outright on June 8. As counting continued, she led with 63 percent of the vote to Barrett’s 37 percent.

Scott, who is also a state representative, beat Paul Thurmond, the son of the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, in a district that has elected a Republican congressman for three decades. Scott now faces Democrat Ben Frasier, who also is black. If Scott wins, he will become the nation’s first black GOP congressman since 2003 when Oklahoma’s J.C. Watts retired.

Much is being made of their ethnicity, but it is clear that both won because of their conservative credentials and not their physical descriptions.

Way to go South Carolina. November is looking better and better, and can’t get here soon enough.

WordPress has released version 3.0, completing over 1200 tickets worth of fixes, enhancements, and new features. Here are just a few of the new features:

• WordPress and WordPress MU have merged, allowing the management of multiple sites (called Multisite) from one WordPress installation.
• New default theme “Twenty Ten” takes full advantage of the current features of WordPress.
• New custom menu management feature, allows creation of custom menus combining posts, pages, categories, tags, and links for use in theme menus or widgets.
• Ability to set the admin username and password during installation.
• Bulk updating of themes with an automatic maintenance mode during the process.
• Improved Custom post types and custom taxonomies including hierarchical (category-style) support

And that is just a taste. Here is a short video to give you a quick overview.

I’ve already deployed 3.0 to nine sites, two of them multisite, and the process took less than an hour. The process of using some of the new features is going to take a bit longer. Enjoy.

I just can’t help myself. I’ve started another blog.

This one is a fan site for anyone interested in the soon to be Legoland Florida. The blog is The Brick Blog.

Legoland Florida is being created at the former Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven Florida. Construction is scheduled to get underway very soon and the park is slated to open around November of 2011.

If your a fan, or want to learn more, please check out the Brick Blog.

I don’t have time to devote to creating a new List & Lass (my interesting three weeks are still being interesting), so I’ll just point you to John Hawkins’ The 20 Hottest Conservative Women In The New Media (2010 Edition).

You know that when Elizabeth Blackney from Media Lizzy & Friends is ranked 20th it’s going to be a really good list. It is.

It’s been a Philly sports night for me. Even though I haven’t lived in the Delaware Valley for nearly 35 years, Philadelphia sports teams are still my “home” teams.

And it’s been an exciting night. First up was the Phillies against the Florida Marlins. In that game I got to watch Roy Halladay pitch the 20th perfect game in MLB history. I watched the other Philly perfect game on TV when Jim Bunning threw his flawless effort on Fathers Day in 1964.

The second event was the first game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs with the Philadelphia Flyers and the Chicago Blackhawks. Chicago took the win 6-5 in a game where the lead kept going back and forth.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday evening.

Go see Wyatt at Support Your Local Gunfighter — He’s had his One Millionth Well Deserved Hit. Come on. The party’s over there.

As I have mentioned before, it is a really interesting time at work. Well, today is going to be very interesting. The company is changing the structure of my department. Our current team of two (hey, for years it was just me) is going to become two teams, and the team I’m being slated for will expand to six or seven. This afternoon I have an interview to be considered for the job of managing that part of our business.

Being the computer savvy blogger that I am, I ventured off into the internet to make sure I knew what not to say during the interview. I found a few sources from which I’ve culled a few of the best suggestions. Let me share them with you.

• [Winking] “Golly, I have no idea how that ten dollar bill just appeared on your desk.”
• “Just out of curiosity, how long do you caché visited websites?”
• “Let’s try that again, and this time shake my hand like you’ve got a pair.”
• “What is two weeks’ notice? I’ve never quit a job before, I’ve always been fired.”
• “I saw the job posted on Twitter and thought, why not?”
• “When you do background checks on candidates, do things like public drunkenness arrests come up?”
• “Do I have any questions? Why, yes I do. What in the hell is this Microsoft Word everyone keeps talking about?”
• “Think of me as the Hamburger Helper to your skillet of ground workload.”
• “Well my best example would be in the world of online video gaming. I pretty much run the show; it takes a lot to do that.”
• “Let’s just cut straight to the chase: who and where is the office slut?”
• “I don’t like to brag about competitive offers, but let’s just say I’ve had some interest from a company that rhymes with Flurger Cling.”
• “Each of my personalities will require its own compensation package.”
• “I get angry easily and I went to jail for domestic violence. But I won’t get mad at you.”
• “I’ve yet to encounter an employee dispute that can’t be resolved with a tickle fight.”
• “Full disclosure: I have a hamster. Will my workspace be Habitrail-friendly?”
• (reaching in pocket) “Slice of bacon?”

There’s one more that I’ll really have to avoid: “Is it cool if I live-blog this interview?”

So, I’ll be doing the interview about an hour after this posts. I guess I should also avoid asking if I could do my interview with today’s lass Jenna Fischer instead of some dude.

Of course there’s more.

Three weeks, actually. I am going to be one busy boy. (OK, busy old man, but let’s not split hairs.)

Challenge 1 — Get three kids to three different schools at three close, but different, times with only one car and two adults.

Challenge 2 — Have three corporate visitors from three different parts of the country come to my place of employment for three weeks starting today. They’ll be here to completely modify the way my department does business, including me and my job. Honestly, this is going to be a good thing, but it is going to be a major change. I just don’t know how, or how much. Still, I am looking forward to the visit and believe it will be good personally.

Challenge 3 — Post something readable here at bR&E every day during this challenging time. Come to think of it, I don’t do that when things are “normal”, so why worry about it now.

Anyhow, please plan to visit and comment. I’ll be here when I can.