A Year-end Salute And History Of Blog Development

With the year-end upon us, I want to thank a few of my friends for helping me start my blog:

Paul Dillon - 11 years ago blogs were "new" and facebook wasn't even in the picture.  Paul told me about them and their many different uses, when we were watching our daughters play soccer at 60 acres.  He was using the first version of the I-Phone. Wow! Was that ever cool!


Korby Parnell, City planning commissioner advised me to write a blog to daylight the pollution of Evans Creek by All Wood Recycling.  He appreciated the value of linking.  At the time he had his own blog.

Doug Pratt - Doug came up with the name "Redmond Neighborhood Blog" when we were watching our daughters play Select basketball.
Naomi Hardy - Recommended I write my blog like I'm talking to a 7th grader.  She actually wanted me to run for Council.

Brain Vallene - Brian from our PEP's group helped me define my blog as a "news service."  I really didn't know what I was doing with it at the time.  He also told me about SEO, which in all these years I've never done.  Yet, after zillions of posts, it ranks right up there on "Redmond blog" searches.

Elizabeth Hansford - Elizabeth altered the code to better position the "Comments" button.
(Using the Blogger platform was probably the worst decision I made; reader interactions and commenting are few.)

John Eliason -  John, a fellow soccer dad and close friend took a deep dive into the code to fix my "Popular Post" sidebar.  It's been a terrific improvement and gauge for my readers.  Many thanks to John!

John Reinke - another longtime friend and "photography tech support" buddy. He first encouraged me to take personal ownership of my blog.  John also edits my edits :)

Ramiro Valderrama - Deputy Mayor of Sammamish hinted I change my Mission and revamp "About Us."  I pivoted from activism to advocacy.

Brian Sietz - a Parks advocate running for Council vs. business-friendly David Carson.  Brian asked me for coffee to support him with my blog on his run.  I didn't. David won by a very thin margin (~325 votes) that year.  I'm so happy he's been on Council all these years.  He's one of my favorites.

John Marchione - When John was on Council and running for his first term as Mayor he asked me for coffee early on. I was naive and he persuaded me to endorse him right then and there.  I noticed he took big a big sigh after leaving the coffee shop.

The Mayor of Kirkland asked me for coffee.  He tried to re-direct me from political reporting to posting hyper-local minutia.  He was a strong Marchione advocate during the mayoral race vs. Robinson and did not like Rosemarie.  .  

Ramiro Valderrama - Ramiro invited me for coffee during his campaign for the 45th State legislature this year.  David Carson recommend I see him. Ramrio suggested I re-write "About Us" to be more professional.

Councilmember John Stilin - He's always telling me what to do with my blog and how to edit my posts.

Happy New Year!

Bob Yoder