Sunshine and Roses

aaargh

Blogging on an iPad isn't so easy. I just want to capitalize my own sentences, okay? Stop doing it for me! Unfortunately I'm on vacation and don't have my full blogger capabilities. However, I decided I needed to put my neighborhood blog online so I could stop thinking about it and enjoy my vacation. (I also need to change the template for this blog, but don't worry, I'll get around to it! And I won't worry about it.) So I put it up last night and immediately ran into controversy. 

The point of the neighborhood blog is to showcase interesting and positive things about the neighborhood that would be useful for someone moving here or living here to know. Actually the real point of the new blog is that I like writing and I felt like writing about my neighborhood. Unfortunately, someone didn't like my report of the neighborhood meeting which mentioned a couple annoying people. I thought it provided a much more interesting account of the meeting, which in turn would get more people to come to the next one, since no one likes a boring meeting. But apparently people don't like it when you call other people out either. It's like that little kid who blurts out in the middle of the most insanely boring sharing time on earth, "This is boring!" and no one knows quite how to chastise him because he's right. 

I don't really want to be that awkward kid. On the other hand my neighborhood blog is not a sanitized advertisement for Shangri-la. What do I do? I have to be willing to accept a little criticism--after all, writing by committee is usually as good as art by committee. But I don't know if my intended audience wants to hear anything negative, and Writing 101 is "Know Thine Audience." On this blog my audience is really myself, so my life observations usually go over better. As far as the new blog goes, Austin pointed out that I don't want people to be afraid to comment at meetings. I personally wouldn't mind less idiotic comments at meetings, but I get his point and took down the offensive half of the post.

So my new and improved sanitized neighborhood blog is joaquinprovo.blogspot.com.  

But it would make me feel better if I posted the second half of my meeting notes here. 

"Other not-so-important notes: 

The guy who digressed on parking as we were running out of meeting time until he was told politely that we needed to focus on the big picture. He exhibited no situational awareness, (a cardinal "meeting sin" in my book), repeated himself some more, and then was told not-so-politely that it was time to MOVE ON.

Then there was the lady who digressed about how there are a lot of UVU students living in the neighborhood, and maybe if Orem weren't such a lame city with no city center/personality that the students would stay there instead of invade our neighborhood. The real problem is Orem, people. Hmmm, not sure what we're supposed to do about that in our little Joaquin neighborhood meeting. 

And, of course, the issue of our absent neighborhood chair, which is a little hotbed of gossip that I'm not sure I care to get the full story on."