Welcome Aboard!

New year, new administration--time for a new look for the rather obnoxiously (and hopefully temporarily) titled "Thoughts of Steele." This thing needs a new name in the worst way but I had to put something on it and that was the best I could do off the cuff. Any and all name submissions greatly appreciated; you'll know you won if your idea shows up on the homepage!

For the record, I didn't think I was going to make the switch to blogging, either. It was indeed easy to set up, however, and I really think it will allow both me and all of you more flexibility in writing and disseminating all the things I think I think. I can work piecemeal, you can read everything at your leisure and comment on it directly on the blog (and thus converse with each other) if you so choose, and it is enabled (I think!) so that you can share specific posts with your friends via email.

As far as my goals in making the switch--beyond making this more user-friendly for everybody--I am most interested in broadening the conversation and trying to enable more and easier response to my thoughts. I'm not planning on advertising talking this thing up too much, but you are free to share it with whomever you feel might be interested in what's here. I really enjoy writing this and it sounds like most of you enjoy reading it and some of you forward my emails to friends or print them out. Keep it up. Email specific posts to people, send them the link to the entire thing at let them peruse at will, it's up to you. I will try to send email reminders when I post at least to start with, but I'm really trying to move in the direction of making this my primary means of publishing opinion (daily life will still be sent by email), so get in the habit of checking occasionally. I'll post when I have time and material (read: unpredictably), and I'll try to upload the text of emails from earlier in the year at some point so you can have access to all of my writings.

End of sermon. I sincerely hope you enjoy this new format and that it fulfills my goals of making it easier for everybody to get involved. I always like hearing from you all with responses, suggestions, and whatever else is on your minds. Post to the blog if you want to get into the conversation with everybody (I hope you do!), email me if that's easier or you have something specific. Especially early on, the more comments you're willing to send me, the better this will be and the more we can all enjoy it. Don't forget new title submissions!