Found: One Slightly-Used Blog

We all lose things. I lose pens and lighters like its my job. I'm used to losing things, searching frantically for them for about 3 minutes, giving up, and having them return to me weeks later. I recently found a lost item while putting on a rarely-worn pair of shoes and noticing that it was, in fact, preventing my toes from reaching their destination. Moral of the story: check your shoes.

Despite being a pro at losing and recovery process, I was worried for most of this summer. For the first time I actually lost an intangible item, though I suppose if you want to count thoughts, ideas, and focus in that category then I lose intangibles all the time. I happened to misplace by blog back in June, shortly after my most recent (and utterly lame) post. My blogging had declined as last semester wore on and I'm fairly certain that my blog had simply set out to find greener pastures. At first I was hurt; I thought I had been a good provider for my blog... feeding it text, adding pictures, and providing it with ample visitors (albeit, all from my IP address). Apparently I was wrong.

I have, however, been given a second chance. My blog has come back to me and we're ready to give it another shot. I have an entire summer (and even some of last spring) to make up for.

At the moment The Woolsey Street Digest has been in a bit of an identity crisis: I no longer live on Woolsey Street. Should I have seen this coming? Probably. So what to do? Change the name but keep the same URL? Get a new blog altogether? Not change a thing? These are the life-altering decisions that I've been contemplating. I've chosen to take the incremental approach: New name, same address. I wouldn't want to confuse my readership that now numbers in the 0.005's... a migration might be in store later on.

So what's with the new name? The Broad Street Pump refers to the cholera outbreak that occurred in London in 1854. The outbreak was eventually controlled when John Snow removed the handle of the Broad Street water pump, which he had identified as the source of outbreak via its contaminated water. Along with the significant fact that Snow was the first to link cholera with contaminated water, the case study is also one of the more seminal pieces of epidemiologic investigation, and an inspiration to public health nerds such as myself.

I aspire to no such greatness with this blog. It will remain a cesspit filled with my scattered thoughts, half-hearted ambitions, and occasional ill-informed rants. Some things will never change.