Thanks

Mrs. Plainsman and I are on vacation.  I could listen to The Ticket online, but she would object that we should be out seeing the sights and doing stuff.  It's hard to argue with that.

But I'd rather be listening to The Ticket, which, as you know, It's Great to Do.

So until I return, I'll just note that in a couple of days this site will have its first anniversary.  After posting in obscurity for awhile, I began to pick up more and more readers until now I have quite a number of returning Confessors checking in.  Gotta thank Barb Smith for giving our profile a jump-start with her couple of emails letting us know she was doing OK.  To the best of my knowledge that was about the extent of her public statements on the departure, but I'm sure I've missed other communications.  In any case, thanks to Barb.

But mainly I want to thank each of you for -- perhaps "supporting" is too strong a word -- I think "checking in" puts it about right.   I'd been considering the idea of this site for a long time before I finally got it going.  I had thought that the P1 Nation probably contained a number of people like me who loved The Little One but didn't feel at home at some of the rowdier, inside-joke message boards and blogs, and who were tired of the negativity and flame wars, especially in the wake of Greggo the Hammer's separation from the station.  Who would be interested in something a little more expansive, and which would fearlessly note what KTCK was doing especially well, and not just what drives some of us goofy.

The growing readership -- it's not immense, but it's respectable and increasing -- suggests I may have been right.  In fact, the most gratifying thing about maintaining this site is that those who leave comments and send me email almost unanimously do so respectfully and thoughtfully.  I am hoping we're cultivating that kind of community here.

"The Plainsman" by John Steuart Curry

I've got a pokeful of topics waiting for my time to worry and noodge and tease into articles, but I could could always use more, so keep those comments and emails coming.  Seriously, what do you want to talk about?     Sometimes topics suggest themselves naturally from listening to the station on a day-to-day basis, which tend to shove the Big Picture pieces back in time, sometimes to their detriment.  Since I do have a day job and maintain a more popular general-interest blog in addition to this one, it's sometimes hard to get to this one in time to cover all topics of interest.  Recently, for example, I started (but didn't finish) a pretty incendiary piece on some recent Hardlines, but since I didn't complete it in a timely fashion it's starting to look a little stale.

There may be some changes in the coming year.  I'm at the point where it may make sense to start accepting advertising, and I hope to expand my coverage of the showgrams and sports topics covered.  (It would be helpful if I knew something about sports instead of just sports radio -- and some would say I don't know much about the latter, either.)

In any event, many thanks for clicking over now and then, and I'll try to continue to offer some thoughts you will find of interest from time to time.

Aloha.

Plainsman