Seems like I started some retirement rumors by announcing that I wasn't retiring! The point is, it's probably years away (note the plural), but it crossed my mind. And when that happens for real, it's not about stopping doing something. It's about fulfilling different ideas. You're not getting rid of me that easily. We'll have lots more time on the radio and the DD, and afterward, we'll hang out together in some related form. For now, we have work to do. There's a collaborative nature to the Daily Drip, where 90% of the content (according to one Dripster estimate yesterday), is provided by you, not me. My wife says, "Tom, they're painting a hell of a fence for you."
I want to use, as a tool, the iHeart website they were kind enough to set up as a link farm, and which I can use for other Drip purposes too. This cool Coffee Cup logo they designed covers a lot of things. So I'm going to experiment with its use, beginning with this very post, in which I basically share with you my notes to myself, based on reading your comments over the last day.
In the new year, I want to experiment with noticeable but user-friendly changes. I think I might move the whole TMSG package to the iHeart site. Send folks to the Coffee Cup for the TMSG stories, rather than copying and pasting all five headlines into the Drip. That would cut multiple manual steps from the prep time. The feature was originally created so the headlines themselves add lightness to the news, but then I made the bright suggestion of providing links at the iHeart website for each one, and now I'm my own web guy. Which I will use to our advantage.
And then: take those longer historical or music-oriented rambles that I like to chase down and write, and tuck them away at the Coffee Cup a few times a week. Stick 'em on my personal backup site too, where I posted yesterday's screed. Write, title, and file them individually, and lessen the self-pressure to do a lot of these.
Come up with a better name for "the link farm." Wait, I just did. The Coffee Cup.
Encourage people to write things for the comment section. We have a brilliantly diverse group of readers, living life thoughtfully, writing about it in their own often wonderful styles; travelers and expats in every quadrant; and photographers, some really good ones, everywhere. All this immediacy and interactivity can make the comment section of the Daily Drip such a great read, day after day, and that's why it needs to stay daily.
With winter coming, remember our value-added function here as a Daily Drip Storm Central. Haven't had to do that in a while, and we'll be rusty at the start. Nature has a way of tuning us up fast. I'll do a separate piece for you on that....at the Coffee Cup.
So, hey: we're very much here to stay, and I'm so grateful to you for being on board!
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