Over the last several years, it has ranked as the most murderous city, the poorest city, the most segregated city, as the city with the highest auto-insurance rates, with the bleakest outlook for workers in their 20s and 30s, and as the place with the most heart attacks, slowest income growth, and fewest sunny days. It is a city without a single national grocery store chain. It has been deemed the most stressful metropolitan area in America. Likewise, it has ranked last in numerous studies: in new employment growth, in environmental indicators, in the rate of immunization of 2-year-olds, and, among big cities, in the number of high school or college graduates.

Men’s Fitness magazine christened Detroit America’s fattest city, while Men’s Health called it America’s sexual disease capital. Should the editors of these two metrosexual magazines be concerned for their safety after slagging the citizens of a city which has won the “most dangerous” title for five of the last ten years? Probably not: 47 percent of Detroit adults are functionally illiterate.

What I like about this piece is that the writer doesn’t devote his space to slamming the city, even though that would be easy. Instead he talks to people who live in the city, from firefighters who battle blazes in the abandoned, dilapidated buildings that plaque Detroit, to a homeless man from the South who thought the job prospects in Detroit might be better than his former home in Alabama (he was wrong). They’re all fighting the same fight, hoping and fighting for a city that’s probably hopeless.

UPDATE: For a little more perspective on this story, Flickr user smooveb has a goal of photographing 100 abandoned homes in Detroit. At the time of this posting, he’s got 72 hauntingly beautiful photos in the set.

For most people, the brain is their rational, analytical side. It tells people to be cautious, to take in all of the factors before making a decision. The gut has a more spontaneous, reckless influence. People who work on logic work with their brain. People who work on feeling work with their gut. Right?

Not for me. My gut is, and always has been, my “voice of reason.” In fact, I’m pretty sure my conscience dwells somewhere in my abdomen. My brain causes me to think too much, and by over-thinking, I end up procrastinating or trusting my brain to remember important details that my gut tells me I should double-check. Then when I realize I’ve made a mistake and it’s too late to do anything about it, I feel it right there in the pit of my stomach. It’s my gut’s way of saying, “I told you to listen to me, and since you didn’t, I’m going to make you feel terrible for the rest of the day.”

The problem is, my brain is much louder than my gut, and tends to overpower it. Sometimes I’ve got to listen really hard to what it’s trying to say, and when I do, I almost always realize it’s right. It’s truly subconscious – almost an instinct – and my instincts are normally pretty spot-on.

From now on, if I’m ever caught in a situation where my gut is telling me something that my brain disagrees with, I’m taking a moment to listen closely. It’s always worked for me in the past, it’s just taken me a while to realize where my loyalties should lie.

This just makes me laugh every time I see it.

“Yeah, I’m flying into SUX today, I’ll be home about five…”

Nothing like taking a less-than-stellar situation and turning it into a positive, right? Until I read this, I didn’t know Sioux City, Iowa even *had* and airport. Now I’ll never forget.

The result has been unexpected- rather than feeling anxiety as my feeds pile up into the thousands and work e-mail surely threatens to completely overwhelm me on Monday, I’ve felt a certain degree of freedom. I got a card for my new library and have been devouring fiction, which has become a rare luxury. I’ve spent a lot of time with my new wife. I’ve done a little writing of short fiction and articles I’ve been meaning to get to.

I tend to be an information and news junkie, and spend hours each day trying to keep up. In the old days, I’d probably be one of those people who subscribed to three newspapers and every newsweekly they could get their hands on. The Internet multiplies the potential information we have access to by a massive number, and that, in itself, is overwhelming.

So will I retire to the mountains with a manual typewriter, riding my bike into town once a week to pick up the local paper as my only source of what’s going on in the world? Not quite. But I am thinking of taking an “Internet Sabbath” once a week to clear and refresh my mind. I guess I didn’t realize how much time and energy I spent keeping up on things until I was forced not to do it, and I found out not doing it was pretty nice.

Time to log off. I think I’ll go check out a book and catch a movie.

The Low Authority Group [D-List Bloggers]
(3-9 blogs linking in the last 6 months)
The average blog age (the number of days that the blog has been in existence) is about 228 days, which shows a real commitment to blogging. However, bloggers of this type average only 12 posts per month, meaning that their posting habits are generally dedicated but infrequent.

Niiice.

A popular manager at her company was laid off, and on his last day sent an e-mail out to a lot of people thanking them for the opportunity to work with them over the years, how much he enjoyed his time there, and so on. Several managers and executive staff received the message. Classy move, right?

A friend of his from within the company replied to his message with his condolences, as well as a profanity-laden condemnation of the executives who were responsible for his forced departure. Unfortunately, he replied to “all,” which meant his e-mail was sent to the very same executives he had lambasted. Oops.

Rather than crawling into a cave somewhere and praying for a quick, painless death after realizing his mistake, he sent *another* e-mail to “all,” asking them to disregard his previous message, writing that it was only intended for the guy who was leaving. I can only imagine receiving those e-mails was analogous to watching a trainwreck unfold in slow-motion. Sad, really, but it teaches a valuable lesson.

Keep those e-mails positive, you never know where they could end up!

If you aren’t a Twitter user, I advise caution: It’s remarkably addicting.

UPDATE: Slacker Manager has a great post on how to effectively, successfully use Twitter.

1. Take a boat ride on the Chicago River.
2. Go for a jog along the shores of Lake Michigan. In suspenders.
3. Pet a carriage horse.
4. Buy a newspaper from a newsstand, read something good, smile, and shake my head.
5. Go out in a windstorm so brutal it’s difficult to walk.
6. Go to a Cubs game. Wear a jersey. And suspenders. And a ridiculous Cubs hat.
7. Get stuck in a revolving door.
8. Take the “L” to the Chicago Theatre and go see a play. Wear a tuxedo. With shorts.

I could do this over a weekend if I play my cards right. Now the real challenge is going to be getting someone to film it.

UPDATE: I’ve got theme up, links, all posts from the old blog… Oh, and RSS is live. I’m getting closer! I tried to make sure permalinks are working, but I’m not sure they do. Thanks again to the always-helpful Constantin Basturea for pointing out some extremely valuable resources for switching from Typepad to WordPress.

Why the switch?

Well, first, let me say I think Typepad is a fine service, and has been good for me to get a blog up and running. However, I’ve had the opportunity to work with WordPress blogs for the past couple of years, and just feel more comfortable with it. It’s also extremely flexible, and an excellent value (it’s free), even when you add in the cost of hosting.

Does anyone have any tips for making the switch from Typepad or Moveable Type to WordPress?