Welcome to Arsenale

The election is over, now the fight begins.
Jeremy Scahill author Blackwater Miami Bookfair on CSPAN 11/15/08

Greetings and welcome to Arsenale, my front porch on the World Wide Web. The purpose of this post is to introduce this blog, give a brief description of its organization, and define its content and purpose for the rest of 2008 and 2009.

Introduction

The picture on the masthead of this blog is a picture I took of the Venetian Arsenal, the great industrial shipyard where the galleys of the Venetian Navy were built for nearly 700 years. If you’d ask what my favorite place is on the planet, my answer would be Venice. Maybe not right now, since most of the islands of the lagoon are under five feet of water due to unseasonably high tides, but most other times, Venice would be the answer.

Why am I blogging? Well you can thank or blame two people for giving me the idea and then taking action. First is a friend who asked my why I didn’t I have blog? Good question. Since I was a good question, I decided not to answer. But I did decide to think about it, which I’ve done from the 15th of October until today. I did send her my answer her yesterday. When a second person actually inspired me to take action.

That person was author Neil Gaiman. I had a patron request two of his books from the Sandman series. I had never heard of Mr. Gaiman until today. I searched Amazon.com, found his books, found his blog and later found his web site. I liked the look of his web site and decided to get started on a similar one of my own.

The start is this blog. More additions will follow as the days go by.

Organization

When I began to think about starting a blog, I naturally did some research. First question I had to ask is why? Well, I have things I want to say. Then I asked how do I do that in a blog? So I did some research and came across a March 20, 2008 article in the New York Times, “So You Want to Be a Blogging Star?” Paul Boutin.

Boutin gives the following advice to novice bloggers.

Don’t expect to get rich
Fit blogging into the holes in your schedule.
Just post it already! Link to http://boingboing.net/
Join the community, such as it is Link to & relate to other bloggers
Plug yourself.
Keep a regular rhythm. Post regularly

So that’s how I am going to do it. I also intend to be very good at it. But that brings the next questions. What do I put in my blog? What is its purpose?

Content and purpose

I intend to blog on the following subjects: politics, public administration, history, and personal interests.

We’ve just gone through an important election. But as Jeremy Scahill mentions in the quotation at the top of this essay, “the election is over and the battle has just begun.” I have a master’s degree in public administration, but haven’t done very much with it. Well, I am going to start doing something with in this blog. We have endured eight years of one of the most incompetent President and political administrations in American history. To recover from the disaster that President George Bush and his cronies have created, all Americans will have to work and sacrifice. I believe we can do it and I plan to spend the next few months affirming that belief.

I am also a history buff. I wrote about Kern County history for five years for The Bakersfield Californian. But my passions right now are Venetian, Byzantine and Dutch history. So expect some posts on those subjects. Finally personal interests that I will be writing about, are cycling, yoga, tai chi, investing and travel.

If I can sell books and services, I will. I have been a freelance writer and done writing, research, and graphic design for the Knowledge Factory where I work. I have written a book and intend finish its editing and have it published. When it is published I’ll finish the next one and so on and so forth.

Conclusion

The purpose of this post has been to introduce this blog, describe its organization and give you an idea of its future contents. As I said, this blog is my “front porch” on the web. If you’re passing by stop and enjoy. The coffee pots on, Paolo Conte is on the CD player and I am more than happy to take some time and chat.

Capitano Tedeschi

30


.