When I got busy in real life a little over a month ago I truly thought that I'd be back to this blog in a few weeks and would, fairly quickly, get back into the swing of things. Then a funny thing happened: I stopped blogging and realized that I really didn't have any desire to start again. Because of this, I'm shutting down the blog and don't see myself making a return to blogging any time soon. At least, not in the same manner that I've been approaching blogging since I started back in 2006. In that time I've blogged numerous elections, many Houston political events, State politics, some limited national politics and a whole bunch of City of Houston quality of life stuff. I've also dabbled in sports, travel, food and even won an award for my old blog (Lose an Eye, It's a Sport). Right before winning however I shuttered LaE which then guaranteed that I'll never win an award again.
Thank you to everyone who's been reading here all this time, even those of you with whom I disagree. With a few, obvious, exceptions I have always appreciated the banter. Thanks to to my friends at BlogHouston, the late and lamented Texas Watchdog, Perry vs. World and a host of others with whom I've shared many a beer and Idea over the years. Thank you as well to the Political Science Department at St. Thomas University, especially Dr. Taylor for some great reads, good beer and good discussion.
Finally, a shot goes out to the Houston Chronicle and the rest of Texas Lockstep Political Media. If it weren't for y'all, there would have been no blog throughout the years. It was the Houston Chronicle that got me started in blogging, and really their writers, Mrs. White, The writers formerly known as Mrs. White, the Apple Dumpling Gang (all iterations of the Chronicle Editorial Board) truly awful opinion columns and a host of agenda based reporting kept me going. In recent years, as ChronBlog fell off in credibility and relevance, it was the truly awful writing of PolitifarceTX and the "newsish" style of Texas Tribune that kept it interesting. For the last few months, however, I realized that I just don't care. Probably after almost no-one in the TLSPM questioned whether or not hero worship was a good thing did I realize that I'm just tilting at windmills. State political media in Texas is dead, continuing to blog about it is akin to kicking a corpse. Best to just ignore them, for the most part, and move on.
To be fair though, there are some reporters at the Chronicle that do some good work. Brian Rodgers is one, as is Mike Morris (at times) and I still find the writing of Alison Cook to be very entertaining, Hoffman as well. So I'll continue reading them and I'll continue being active on Twitter. I might even decide to post from time to time on sports and travel on another blog, but my blogging political days are behind me.
So that's it then.
Goodbye Houston.
