The SoapBoxers

Ahhhhh Yes …. College Football Season has FINALLY arrived. A great opening week of College football, which as usual, created a lot of excitement, water cooler talk, and for some…a lot of disappointment.

I was totally wrong my apologies go out to Columbia:

Missouri was a little bit impressive to me this past week. The Tigers “system” offense looked sharp while carving up the Illini. Early games are a bit tough to tell, is Mizzou that good, or is Illinois that bad … Still an impressive win for the Tigers who made a statement.

Statement game:

Oklahoma State has been riding the hype wagon and there has been a lot of debate on how coach Gundy has handled the pressure of his team being a novel pick in the Big XII South. They played well in beating a solid opponent in Georgia. A nice early win for the Cowboys.

I told you all so ….

Baylor wins at Wake Forest. The main thing in this game was not just the play of Robert Griffith, but the Bears looked faster than the Deamon Deacons in all aspects of the game. Conference foes better watch out.

Uh Oh … it is worse than we thought!:

Oklahoma showed how much they rely on Heisman trophy winner Sam Bradford, but more discouraging for Sooner fans is the inability to move the football on the ground, even with Bradford out. This looks like a talented team that needs an offensive line to come together, and quickly, or it could be big trouble in Norman this year.

We were looking ahead award:

Dual winners this week are Ohio State who eeked out a win against the Midshipmen of the Naval academy. They need to be a lot better next week against the Trojans in a top 10 match up.

The Iowa Hawkeyes have used up two of their nine lives this year. Looking ahead to Iowa State? I say yes as the Clones have had the better of the match up recently considering that annually the Hawks bring in a much better quality of football team.

Pardon me Seymour …

Richard Seymor, a fixture of the defense that helped the New England Patriots win multiple Super Bowl titles has been traded to the Oakland Raiders. “Sources” indicate that he might not show up in Oakland and is less than amused about being traded. Typically the only ones who want to get traded to the Raiders these days are veterans who are looking for a big payday, folks past their prime, or someone looking for a second chance in a new environment. I don’t think Richard fits any of these descriptions.

Lastly …

This week, the US Open Tennis Tournament continues, with a lot of exciting action. The biggest story without a doubt is the pilgrimage of 17 year old Melanie Oudin’s trip through her side of the draw. The high schooler is the 70th-ranked player which is impressive in its own right. This tournament she has had a slew of wins, all comebacks, against a variety of big names of the sport. No. 4 Elena Dementieva and No. 29 Maria Sharapova as well as No. 13 Nadia Petrova. Can the miracle run continue?

When I was a senior in college, I applied for a lot of jobs.

The College of Business at Iowa State would publish a list of companies that would be interviewing on campus each week, along with a job description. There was a set of numbered bins (or perhaps they were boxes) that corresponded to each job. If you were interested in a job, you left a resume and cover letter in the bin. The company would sift through the applicants and decide whom they wanted to interview on campus. If that interview went well, the company would have you interview at their site.

Every week, I diligently dropped off resumes. I had some interviews, but not job offers.

One week, I printed off my resumes in a computer lab at the far end of campus (where I worked) and trudged through rain to the other end of campus to submit them. I began dropping resumes into bins and noticed that I was missing one resume.

I had a dilemma on my hands. It was Friday afternoon, it was raining, and I was very close to my apartment. The only current copy of my resume was in the computer lab on the other side of campus. I could just say “good enough”, since I had applied for several other positions that week. Or I could trudge back across campus, print the resume, and then retrace my steps in order to apply for the one additional job. This would delay my weekend and result in me getting even more wet.

I decided to give the extra effort. I got soaked in the rain and I was late getting home, but I slept easier that night.

I received a total of one job offer that year.

Yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking. I crossed campus twice in the rain to make sure that I applied for that one extra job – and that’s the job I’ve landed. I’ve worked for the company for twelve years now.

Remember this story the next time you’re tempted to cut a few corners.

What did you miss over the weekend?

• Peter Rabbit gave a recap of the Six Day War on Friday.
• Also on Friday, Johnny Goodman makes his NCAA football picks for week 1.
• On Saturday, Cheri Nobel reviewed World Wide Open, the new debut CD of the group Love and Theft.

I mentioned the new group Love and Theft in the Country Corral on August 22.  I finally received my copy of the CD this week!  I sat down and gave it a listen.  Here is what I think of the songs on the disc. I’m more of a lyrics person, so the strength of lyrics has a lot of weight on the ratings.

Cheris	Song
	World Wide Open	Not a bad song, per se, but probably not the best song to put in the #1 track of a debut album.  Theme of the song is which road to travel down (which life choice to make).
	Runaway	I absolutely LOVE this song.  I haven’t been able to get it out of my head for weeks.  From a lyrics perspective, I’m a sucker for the “get out of town and make a new life for myself”.  The harmonies and instrumental strength really make the song stand out.  My scale only goes up to 5, but I wanted to give this song at least a 6.
	Dancing in Circles	The songs asks why people can’t get along, when we are all born brothers and sisters (in Christ).
	It’s Up to You	The narrator is warning a second person that their destructive actions are likely to cause broken friendships in near future.
	You To Miss	This is a story of love lost.  It doesn’t seem to have the instrumental strength of some of the other songs.
	Can’t Go Back	Another song with strong instrumental aspects and harmonies.
	Don’t Wake Me	A tale of newfound love – don’t wake me from the dream.
	Freedom	The first half of the song is considerably better than the second half (which is still pretty good).  Is freedom a good thing or a bad thing?
	Slow Down	In contrast to the songs which have the narrator racing off into new directions (Runaway and World Wide Open), this song begs to slow things down a bit.
	Me Without You	A solid song with the theme of “you complete me”
	Drowning	The songs has the theme of “I’m drowning without you”.  I really like some of the harmonies – they pushing the song’s rating up by a full Cheri.
Album grade: This album has a number of 2 Cheri and 3 Cheri songs.  However, I really like the top end songs (particularly Runaway) and the fact that this is a debut album make me a bit of an easier grader and allows me to award 4 Cheris.  I see a lot of upside potential for this group.  Perhaps their next album will be achieve a coveted 5 Cheri rating. Love and Theft is made up of Brian Bandas, Eric Gunderson, and Stephen Barker Liles.

Love and Theft World Wide Open

Goodman the Great gives his analysis of this week’s NCAA football games.

Editor’s note: For those who may not be familiar with point spreads, having a negative number next to your team is a good thing. For example, South Carolina @ North Carolina State (-3.5) means that North Carolina State is favored by 3.5 points.

South Carolina @ North Carolina State – (-3.5) The Ol ball coach gets it done in this heated rivalry opener. SC 24, NC St 14

North Dakota State @ Iowa State – (-8.5) The Clones are under a new regime, but they are still a Big XII school. ISU 28, NDSU -10

Oregon @ Boise State (-4.5) Two words…..smurf turf. Boise State 42, Oregon 35

Navy @ THE Ohio State (-22.5) The buckeyes get it rolling early and often on the overmatched Middies – OSU 42,  Navy 17

Georgia @ Oklahoma State (-4.5) I picked the Cowboys as my early surprise of the Big XII…we will see if I am right. OSU 35, Georgia 16

Nevada @ Notre Dame (-17.5) The Golden Domers win, but Nevada covers – ND 35, Nevada 21

Baylor @ Wake Forest (-5.5) A lot of Hype for Robert Griffith. This will determine if it is hype or hoax. Baylor 28, WF 27

Missouri @ Illinois (-5.5) Gone is Maclin, Daniel, Coffman … and the chance to beat Illinois this year. ILL 35,  Mizzou – 21

BYU @ Oklahoma (-21.5) Gresham will miss time, the Cougars are overmatched, but I think it will be closer than you think. OU 42,  BYU 24

Florida Atlantic @ Nebraska (-17.5) The Corn is golden in home openers. Neb 42,FAU 14

LSU (-14.5) @ Washington – Could be a surprise game. High expectations in Baton Rouge … but this is being played elsewhere. LSU 28, Wash 20

Ole Miss (-17.5) @ Memphis – Jevan Snead’s Heisman run begins on Saturday – Ole Miss 42, Memphis 10

Colorado State @ Colorado (-13.5) – Fierce rivalry. Hawkins is on the hot seat, but they get by this week. COL 31, COL St 28

Miami @ Florida State (-4.5) Remember when this was a big game, now it just pads Bobby Bowden’s win totals. FL St, 31 Miami 17

Western Michigan @ Michigan (-11.5) Rich Rodriguez needs a win, and some calmness in the program…I guess they are ready since all the guys have been practicing 80 hours a week. Mich  28, WMU 17

300 has nothing on this war.

For those of you that saw the movie 300 which was a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae where 300 Spartans fought till death against incredible odds you may like this non-fictionalized story even better.

While I am not a great story teller let me try to set the scene. You are tasked with defending a brand new nation that is about the size of New Jersey (8,019 square miles vs. Jersey which is 7800). The battle will be on three fronts as your 4th front is water. You have little to no control of supply routes and your enemy has available to it almost indefinite reinforcements and resources especially fuel.

In terms of actual military might. You have approximately 275,000 troops of which 75% are reserves. You also have 200 aircrafts and 1,100 tanks. Your enemy has 250,000 full time professional troops with pretty much unlimited reserves, 530 aircrafts and 1,500 tanks. To make things a bit worse, your aircraft are a much older model then your enemies as your enemy has basically up to date Soviet planes. Your planes are severely under gunned, about half as fast and some are actually only useful as decoys. Similar to your planes, your tanks are outdated, mainly small tanks or refurbished old British heavy tanks while your opponent has the latest Soviet weaponry, mainly heavy tanks.

So far, I know which side I rather be on and it’s not the side that I have told you to envision yourself leading. So what do you do? I am not sure what you picked as your option but I would have picked run away and run away fast.

Obviously since I am the Middle East columnist for the Observer this is the description of an actual war that took place in the Middle East. It is a description of the Six Day War fought in 1967 between Israel, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and pretty much the rest of the Arab world. By now you pretty much guessed that the New Jersey like undermanned, out gunned country is Israel. If your interest is not piqued yet as to how they got out of this jam then check your pulse. So what did Israel do?

First they dug 10,000 graves and prepared 14,000 hospital beds, crossed their fingers and loaded their rifles. The strategy was simple and driven out of necessity. The war had to be very quick as they could not outlast the Arabs, it had to be on Arab soil as they could not afford to rebuild Israel, and Israeli casualties had to be limited as they could not re-arm to do this dance again if the army was wiped out. After that, it was simple – the best defense is a good offense. Israel, without the public blessing of the US (its main ally) struck first and destroyed a majority of the Arab air force before it ever got off the ground. Then it hit the Arab forces hard on the ground to the point where most of the Arab forces retreated without seeing any real prolonged combat. The strategy worked as Israel had the upper hand by around day 3 (even though Arab radio claiming victory at every turn) and as hinted by the title of this war had won a decisive victory by day 6. At that point the UN and the world negotiated a cease fire.

The aftermath was the Arabs lost about 450 planes and 18,000 troops while Israel lost 36 planes and 700 troops. Outside of being a great story that I recommend you read a book on or at least a few web pages it had an important outcome for today. Many of the areas that now Arabs claim are “occupied” by Israel were taken during this war. These areas were the very spots that the Arabs picked as strategic places to launch their attacks. Most of these spots such as the Golan Heights create a great military advantage and I believe have been retained by Israel and should be for military defense. It was also the beginning of a huge number of Palestinians being displaced due to the war. In my opinion, understanding such history is very critical when discussing issues of today. To have an informed opinion on what is happening today it is critical to understand how the Palestinians ended up where they are and the motivation of Israel for “occupying” certain territories. I hope you enjoyed this story but in a blog I can’t do it justice as the story of this war to me is the most amazing military story of the last 50 years and I hope you have time to do some more detailed reading on it.

*Note: The statistics came from a number of sources but obviously different sources have slightly different numbers.

If there is one group of people I despise more than the telemarketers who try to sell me a car warranty over the phone, it’s the mall kiosk people who stalk me to the edge of the mall walkways. I’m typically a pretty polite person – but being harassed by mall pests trying to sell me overpriced crap makes me feel a bit rude.

As an aid to those of you who are also annoyed by the kiosk stalkers, I have created this convenient list of ways to fight back. Most of these tactics are geared toward having the kiosklings avoid you in the future. [Note: some of these tactics are of questionable legality. We assume no liability for their use.]

1. Ask embarrassing questions. If they are selling lotion, you might ask “Isn’t this the lotion that gave Aunt Mary that nasty rash?” or “Didn’t the FDA recall this stuff last week?” “Wasn’t your CEO involved in that Ponzi scheme?” is a good fit for a variety of business. Not only will these questions annoy the kioskamarketer, they might scare away a few actual customers.
2. Trapped. As you see the kioskers attempt to stalk you, give the secret signal and have a group of your friends surround the kioskers in a tight formation, allowing minimal personal space.
3. The enemy of my enemy. If the kiosk has a phone number, sign up for a bunch of giveaways (Win a Free Cruise!) and use the kiosk’s phone numbers. You’ve essentially added them to the “do call” list.  Failing that, sign them up for a bunch of junk mail.
4. Too many customers. You have hundreds of friends on Facebook, right? Have all of them show up at the kiosk at the same time. Browse the merchandise, ask questions, even form a blockade around the kiosk. Make every attempt to keep the kioskers occupied in order to protect the general public.
5. Turn ‘em in. Aggressive behavior is often a violation of the kiosk’s lease with the mall. Threaten to contact the mall office, and follow through.
6. Why doesn’t … Ask the probing question – “Have you ever wondered why [name of high end store] doesn’t stalk their customers? Probably because they don’t sell crap.”
7. Competitor. Walk up to the kiosk with a notebook in one hand and a tape measure in the other. Start taking notes about all of the products, and take measurements of the kiosk. When the employees ask what you are doing, tell them that you are planning to launch a competing business twenty feet away.
8. Turn the tables. Instead of having them zoom in their sites on you and track you down, sneak up on THEM and turn the hunter into the hunted. Try to sell them your time share property or get them involved in a multi-level marketing scheme.
9. Go “double maverick” on them. Spread fake vomit around the kiosk’s area. Put up “crime scene” tape. Bring your garbage bags from home and leave them in the kiosk area. Organize a marbles tournament on the floor. Talk about alien abductions. Put up signs that say “Danger! Land Mines!” In general, make them think you’re a little nutty.
10. Chemical warfare. Store up a nice dose of body odor. Spend a lot of time at the kiosk, sharing your aroma with the employees.

With Peter Rabbit a hare busy this week, we’re swapping days. Fiction Friday will occur today and Carrots of Wisdom will be featured on Friday.

This is a bit of commuter fiction. The majority of the story was composed on the drive home from work on Tuesday.

Avery Miller threw his final warm up pitch. As the catcher returned the ball to him, he reflected on the enormity of the situation. Bottom of the ninth, one run lead, sacks jammed, division title on the line. This was the situation that called for a shutdown closer – a guy like the dominant reliever for the Gazelles, Antwon Stapleton. Unfortunately, Stapleton had gotten them into this mess, and his utter lack of command had forced the manager to turn the game over the Miller.

Miller took a deep breath, toed the rubber, and took a big stride toward the plate. The book on Miller was that he tended to nibble around the edges with breaking balls, so he cut loose with his best fastball. The ball took off like a missile, bound for the low, inside corner of the plate. Mark Irick of the Cougars was looking for the fastball and made solid contact. The ball soared high into the air down the left field line. The umpire twirled his finger to signify the home run. Avery cursed under his breath. The crowd roared in appreciation of the blast that propelled their team into the playoffs.

In the midst of the melee, Gazelle manager Spud Walker popped out of the dugout and headed for home plate, where he proceeded to argue that the ball was not a home run – rather, he said, the ball had drifted slightly to the left of the foul pole.

The umpires huddled briefly before heading to the instant replay booth. The crowd held its collective breath as the umpires reviewed the call. When they finally came back onto the field, they ruled that the ball was foul by inches. The crowd booed lustily.

Mark Irick readied himself for the next pitch, this time with a count of no balls and one strike. He tapped his bat against each of his spikes three times, in order to knock the imaginary dirt loose. He loosened and tightened his batting gloves. His routine finished, he stepped back into the batter’s box.

Miller shook off a couple of signs from his catcher before getting the call he wanted – a pitch outside the strike zone. He was hoping that Irick would be overaggressive and swing at the bad pitch. The former MVP was not fooled, however. The bat never left his shoulder as the pitched sailed past him for a ball.

Miller’s next pitch was a bit high and inside. Irick flinched a bit, but stood his ground in the box and watched to count go to 2-1. The next pitch was in the lower third of the strike zone, but was a bit more toward the middle of the plate than Avery would have liked, and Irick swung and drove the ball high and deep – but way foul.

Miller’s next pitch was outside by a half inch, and the count was full. With the bases loaded, Avery couldn’t afford a ball, so he was forced to throw in the strike zone. Irick fouled one pitch just out of the range of the third baseman and the next pitch was fouled into the crowd in back on home plate.

The stadium, in spite of the capacity crowd, was as quiet as a tomb – allowing Irick to focus intently on the pitches.

Miller took another deep breath before snapping off a 12-to-6 curve. As the pitch broke sharply, the bat entered the strike zone and launched the ball toward the deepest part of center field. David MacFarland raced toward the wall in a futile effort to catch up to the ball. Incredibly, he caught up to the ball as he reached the outfield fence. MacFarland timed his jump perfectly and extended his six foot four inch frame to its maximum extent. The ball hit the edge of his glove for a split second before popping back up into the air and falling to the ground. A moment later, MacFarland landed on the ground with a thud.

As the first Cougars runner crossed the plate, Mark Irick stood at home, spellbound by the play. As another runner raced toward the plate, Irick broke free from the trance and began to run toward first base.

Left fielder Brian Johnson raced to the ball and freed it from under MacFarland’s body. He set himself and gunned the ball toward first base. The first baseman stretched to catch the wild throw. He gloved the ball and tapped first base with his foot a split second before Irick crossed the base.

Since the play was a force out, the runs that had crossed the plate did not count. Avery Miller escaped the game with a save, and the Gazelles were playoff bound.

Back On April 15, we launched a Stock Market contest (click link to see insights from the participants) in which a team of Goliaths (personal finance bloggers) were matched up against a team of Davids (people who were not personal finance bloggers). At the end of July, the Dow stood at 9171.61 and had gained average 11.59 points during the course of the contest, making the Davids the favorites.

The market had its strongest August since 2000, and ended the month at 9496.28, up 324.67 for the month.

At the end of the day on April 14th (the 104th day of the year), the Dow was at 7920.18.

At the end of the day on August 31 (the 243rd day of the year), the Dow was at 9496.28.

This is a gain of 1576.10, or 11.34 points per day. If we assume that the market will contain to gain at exactly the same rate throughout the rest of the year (yes, a ridiculous assumption), the Dow will be at 10879.92 at the end of the year (+ 2959.74 from April 14).

How do our contestants stack up?

I also invited visitors to play along at home. Let’s see how they are doing.

Team David remains firmly in the lead at this point.  There are still four months remaining in the years, but Team Goliath would need a signficant downturn in the market in order to emerge victorious.

With Johnny Goodman out on assignment, I’m jumping in to bounce around the world of sports.

September Callup Time

Today marks the day when Major League Baseball teams can expand their rosters from 25 players to 40. Not all teams will call up an extra 15 players, though. Calling a player up to the major league starts his service time “clock”, which affects when they will become a free agent. Thus, the short term benefit of having the players in the major leagues for one month can be outweighed by the long term financial benefit of keeping him away from free agency for a full extra year.

However, September typically features the debut of a lot of players who are expected to contribute the following year. The teams get to see how the players adjust to playing major league competition, and the players get to play though a bit of the rookie “yips” in games that often don’t count for a whole lot.

For teams that are in playoff contention, the situation is much different. The expansion of rosters allows teams to add extra hitters to their bench and extra arms to the bullpen – making it possible for the bullpen to pitch more innings than normal in the throes of a pennant race.

On a related note, players acquired before midnight last night are eligible for postseason rosters.  (Confused about the fact that the trade deadline was a month ago?  Players acquired after July 31 must clear waivers first; players acquired earlier do not need to clear waivers.)  The NL West leading Dodgers acquired slugger Jim Thome from the White Sox and starting pitcher John Garland from the Snakes.  The Rockies countered by picking up pitcher Jose Contreras from the White Sox in exchange for prospect Brandon Hynick (a casual Facebook friend of mine).  Advantage to the Dodgers.

Rockies Update

My beloved Rockies just finished what I considered to be a critically important stretch that included seven games against the Giants and three against the division leading Giants. After taking three of four against the Giants, the Rockies took the first game from the Dodgers – pulling to within two games of the division lead in the process. Unfortunately, they lost the final two games of that series before being swept against the Giants in a series in the bay. The Rockies have fallen into a wild card tie with the Giants, setting up the potential for a great September race.

As for my favorite player, Troy Tulowitzki pushed his OPS (on-base-plus-slugging) over 1.000 for August on the strength of a homer and double in his August finale. After a dreadful start to the year, Tulo has record three straight months with a 1.000+ OPS.

Former Rockie Matt Holliday (now with the Cardinals) finished August with “only” a .963 OPS for the month, on the heels of a 1.150 OPS in July. Hidden by the arbitrary nature of the months of the calendar is a 24 game stretch beginning July 20 and ending August 15 in which Holliday posted a 1.355 OPS. While Holliday did manage to hit 7 homers during that stretch, it was the .474 batting average that was a major factor. The tricky thing for the Cardinals is whether or not they will be able to hammer out a new deal with Holliday’s agent, Scott Boras – or whether Holliday will test the free agent waters with a strong non-Coors season under his belt.

NFL

Fantasy Draft season is in full swing. This is a good sign that the NFL season in just around the corner.

On the positive side, we face a year without the “insight” of John Madden.

On the down side, my Minnesota Vikings gave $25 million to sign Brett Favre for two years. I’ve never been a fan of Favre, and his recent off-field antics have served to sour me on him even more. My plan is simply to ignore the NFL until it has been purged of Favre. I have really been focusing on baseball 365 days a year in recently years, anyway, so this should not be a major sacrifice.

College Football

College football also kicks off this weekend, highlighted by Iowa State’s Thursday night game against North Dakota State. I’m hopefully that Thursday’s game will be but the first step in a season that will end with a BCS Championship for my Cyclones.

Or maybe just a bowl.

The University of Michigan is making news for possible NCAA violations. Anonymous current and former players allege that the amount of time Wolverine players spent on football activities exceeded the limits set down by the NCAA. Michigan suffered their first losing season in more than 40 years in 2008, and this news can only be a distraction as they get ready to face Western Michigan in their maiden 2009 contest.

Something that longtime readers of The Soap Boxers have noticed is the gradual morphing of the writing staff from one lonely writer to a merry band of writers who are actively pushing the magazine forward. A blogger friend of mine was intrigued at the fact that I was able to get some many quality writers to join. How did I do it? Contrary to what you might hear, I am not the Pied Piper.

Honesty and Fairness

The Soap Boxers has no funds to pay staff writers, in large part because we have no funds, period. This is something that I have always been very up front about, to avoid any possibility of someone jumping to the wrong conclusion. Giving someone unreasonable expectations makes for a very shake foundation.

Since I had no ability to pay my writers, I did the next best thing – I proposed a profit sharing agreement. The gist is this – once general overhead (i.e. items that I pay for out of my pocket) have been paid for, advertising revenue will be split proportionally. At this point, the site isn’t actually turning a profit, but if it suddenly becomes the hottest thing on the web, the writers share in the upside.

[Wondering why you aren’t seeing any of these ads that have the potential to shower the staff with revenue? Well, if you’re a regular visitor, you don’t see the ads. This is a courtesy to reward you for your support.]

Look for Untapped Potential

Do you have intelligent friends who often share insightful ideas with you? These people could be writers who are simply waiting for a platform. They might not have the interest in going through the steps necessary to set up a blog and build a readership. They might be interested in jumping up onto your platform and writing a weekly or monthly article, though.

Several of the staff writers are friends whose writing I have enjoyed over the years. These writers now have the ability to see what other people think of their writing.

Chase Some Stars

I reached out to a few people who were already established bloggers. The likelihood of getting them to write for my blog was relatively low. However, I pitched some ideas and one of the bloggers (Jonna) was interested enough to give it a shot. The others declined the opportunities. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A couple of things to keep in mind here. First, there is a fine line between asking someone if they want to write for you and becoming a freaky stalker type person. Avoid being the freaky stalker type person. Give the person room to breathe. If they decline the offer, thank them for their time and move along. Don’t try to badger them. Second, try not to ask for too much. If the person already has a full time blog, it may be difficult for them to contribute more than once a month, simply due to time constraints. Third, try to approach them with an angle that is different than what they write for their existing blog. Finally, be somewhat reasonable in your expectations. For example, I’m not going to try to get Peter Gammons (of ESPN) to write baseball articles for my blog. (Although that would be pretty sweet.)

Be Flexible

Although I try to have a set schedule for articles, I am pretty flexible within that structure, and am even willing to push articles to other days, if necessarily. After all, I’m working with what is essentially a voluntary workforce. Making demands on them would really not be a smart choice.

On the technical side, I’m also very flexible. I have given my writers two basic options for submitting stories. They can either log into WordPress and write the story there, or simply email me the story. Everyone so far has chosen to simply email me the story.

Show That You Care

If your writers have blogs of their own, link to them in your blog roll. This is a common courtesy.

Leave comments on your writers’ articles. At this point, you are acting in the role of a typical reader of your blog. Read what your writers write, and share your own opinions on the subject.

Finally, make the phrase “Thank You” a normal part of the vocabulary.

What did you miss over the weekend?

• We announced the launching of TheFictionWriters.com on Friday.
• Jonna Wibelius made her debut on Friday, giving an international perspective to the US health care debate.
• Saturday featured Cheri’s Nobel’s review of the Jimmy Buffett novel A Salty Piece of Land.
• Kosmo did the math on ethanol fuel mileage on Sunday.