MGN Weekender: August 18, 2024
MGN Weekender: August 18, 2024
A little late but it has been a busy week
Here in the middle west, it is just about start-of-school time. The pools are closing, people are taking their end-of-summer vacations (my grandma was in town!) and like, buying backpacks and whatnot. The various European soccer leagues are beginning match day one. That means that college football is right around the corner.
You might have seen that we wrote a season preview of the football squad.
I have spent this weekend getting prepared for the kids’ school time, catching up on real life work stuff, and also trying to enjoy the last bit of summer. Unlike in Texas, here it is beginning to get cool and that means I have got to enjoy shorts weather before it is well and truly over.
The plan here at MGN is to continue (finish?) the MGN Dynasty series, and plan our coverage of the season. I got to be honest with you folks and report that having a big, old house (1908) is expensive. I’ve replace two AC units (we have two) and that roof is looking like it will quickly turn into the 2023 UNT defense. So I regret to inform you I have moved a little cash over from the Travel To See UNT column into Maintain My House column in the old budget. C’est la vie. That just means for the time being it will be long-distance coverage of NT until the right bonus strikes or something. I love my kids but they are expensive and we keep adding to the number. I have a problem.
Last year we moved to the Substack Model and while there are some drawbacks1 it allows me to focus on the ideas. I had a weekly plan for last football season — recap, mid-week opinion, preview — and that was fine. I have long known that the interest in the posts varies with the interest in the team. Good team? Lots of reads. Bad team? Few eyeballs. We try to keep things interesting, with an emphasis on (a level of) quality2, and consistency but knowing that consistency can devolve into stale formulaic posts that degrade quality.
If you are not subscribed, that is fine. There will be plenty to read that is not paywalled. For those who do open the digital wallet, there will be plenty to justify your cash infusion.
So I will finish my latte (homemade!) and clean the house (wife’s orders!) and we will enjoy the rest of our weekend. I promised the children we would do as many pool days as we can depending on their behavior so we will see what the next few days have for me. I have a tab open to some South Alabama Bowl Game highlights that I am using to help inform a preview post on the latest and greatest about Mobile’s Finest. I am also getting wistful about Major Applewhite. I also have a long list of things I wanted to get done before the summer ends and I don’t know that I will complete them. I am making compromises with myself. Good times.
Creative limitation. When it was just on a website I controlled I could present the material how I wanted. That of course opened a situation where I was playing with the possibilities instead of spending time on the material. It is all a balance.
One underlying reason for writing on the internet for strangers is that it makes your favorite blogger a better writer in his day job. It helps, and does translate. Podcasting a couple of times a week also made me a better public speaker, and at the very least a more interesting conversationalist. So it goes. There is only so much quality that can be had by writing about college football on a limited time budget. It can be done, but there are diminishing returns.