New Name, Marginally Different Additude

In case you're wondering what the heck happened to the name of the blog, I've switched it to something I think is a little more fitting: The Occasional Thought About Planning From Someone Who Lives in Albuquerque.

Let's face it, I didn't really hold up to the whole "Carfree in Burque" idea - this blog has turned out to be mostly about other cities, about places I've been to which are very specifically not Albuquerque. Recently I attended the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D.C. and I thought I'd put up a post about transit in D.C., like I did for the Pacific Northwest cities. But then I realized I hadn't written anything about Albuquerque in ages, and it seemed somewhat hypocritical to have that in a blog that was supposed to be about living a carless existence in Albuquerque.

Maybe now I'll get around to posting that bit about D.C. And then again, maybe not. I'm feeling kinda bored. Frankly, this isn't the greatest time to be an novice urban planner in Albuquerque - the economy is at a stand-still, few new projects are rolling out, and any significant improvements in mass transit are going to be a ways off. Some of my fellows use this as a segway into bashing Mayor Berry for doing things like holding off on the arena project. Frankly, I think the guy's doing a pretty good job. I may not have voted for him, but we did elect him on a platform of fiscal responsibility, and he has kept that campaign promise. He has managed to balance the budget without cutting services, and all you have to do is look oh, say, anywhere else in the country to see what a rare thing that is. He's managed to make the best of what we have, and in these times that's what we need. I'll gratefully accept a little boredom when the alternative could be much worse. Maybe it's the sanity from Jon Stewart's speech, but I'll gladly cut the partisan crap and extend my hand in graditude.

That said, I am still bored. And while I'm fine with that in other aspects of my life, it's not very good news for my blog. My posting here has been pretty irregular (hence the "occasional" in the title) and that's not going to stop anytime soon. I apologize for that, but frankly I can't bring myself to be that apologetic - this is my current reality. My enthusiasm has dropped below the point where I feel like posting here that often, and I'm just going to accept that.