A belated second blogiversary

A few days ago was this blog's second anniversary, and I forgot to mention it. Last year on my first blogiversary, I changed the template, so I'll do that again today, just for a change of pace.

When I started blogging, it was mostly experimental. The blogosphere had recently emerged as a significant realm, and I wondered if anybody would read anything I had to say. My suburban book was about to be released, so I figured it was as good a time as any to start blogging. And since I had nothing better in mind, I went ahead and called the blog The Suburban Christian to parallel the book.

If I had it to do over, I might not have staked out my blogging identity as The Suburban Christian because now I feel a little stuck, like I have to come up with suburban-related posts on a regular basis. Industry colleagues and other authors have said that it's better to go with something that will transcend any particular book, so to have your blog URL/name be your own name, like Margaret Feinberg or Julie Clawson. Then again, Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog, while obviously named after the Jesus Creed book, has certainly transcended that particular book. So in many ways this suburban Christian blog has never been merely about The Suburban Christian the book, but about my thoughts and musings as a suburban Christian. Which means that I am now referred to as "Al Hsu, the Suburban Christian," kind of like other people are known as the Sarcastic Lutheran or the Postmodern Negro.

I actually thought about rebooting this blog and moving over to alhsu.blogspot.com or albertyhsu.blogspot.com (both of which I've been cybersquatting on), but it seemed like it would be too much trouble to move all the posts. And a number of folks have bookmarked me at thesuburbanchristian.blogspot.com. So I decided to stay here and embrace my suburban Christian-ness.

If my blogging has changed over the last couple of years, it's not so much in posting (it's pretty much a regular habit for me to post two or three times a week now), but in other blog reading and commenting elsewhere. I'm afraid I just don't have the time these days to keep up with everything that's out there. I'll still lurk here and there and will occasionally enter a dialogue, but it's all to easy for me to get sucked in to link after link, and before I know it, two hours have passed and I've gotten nothing else done. So I apologize for not commenting and interacting as much as I could. I still try to comment back on this blog and answer questions when posed. Thanks again to everybody who reads this blog! I appreciate it.