I’ve decided that people who regularly use Facebook as a way to push their political agenda irritate me immensely. I didn’t join Facebook to have left- or right-wing agendas shoved down my throat via the daily News Feed. I joined the site to find out how my friends are doing, reconnect with old contacts, and share media. Instead, a solid 25% of daily updates seem to center around things like “Vote for Proposition 3847A and help shut down the Democratic party!” and “Barack Obama is the great American savior. Be sure to vote for him again in 2012!” For the love of everything holy, don’t these people ever stop?

I have no problem with someone announcing that they want to expand the death penalty to include misdemeanors or that they blindly support socialized medicine regardless of the facts, but only if they post about it once or twice. When they turn their status updates into a virtual pulpit and preach about it multiple times per day, my irritation increases exponentially. The only thing that keeps me from posting a snotty remark on their profile is my steadfast policy of keeping my political views off of Facebook.

In modern America, friendly political discussions are becoming far more polarizing than ever before. I used to post about it all the time on my blog, but I’ve seriously scaled back. I only talk politics with my closest friends now and only after we’ve agreed to drop the topic entirely if the discussion becomes too heated. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a good political discussion (which, thankfully, most of my closest friends are intelligent enough to maintain). In fact, I enjoy hearing opinions that differ from my own… which is probably why I have so many liberal friends. That’s not to say that I’m conservative, as I sit more in the middle. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being extreme liberal, 10 being extreme conservative), I probably sit around a 5.5 – 6.0. If you averaged all of my views together, I’d probably come out slightly on the conservative side of a moderate stance.

I don’t appreciate extreme views, which is probably why I don’t belong to a political party (hang with me, my point is coming up in a second). I feel as though I should be flexible enough to take a little bit from both sides of an issue. There is no right answer anymore. Political issues have become far too complicated to allow for black and white thinking and, in my opinion, it’s dangerous to take an extreme stance. Not only does it pigeon-hole the person, but it polarizes people who have not yet formed an opinion. When someone preaches to the extreme, it’s a turn-off for me. The person comes across as being crazy, forceful, and ill-informed. My initial reaction is to take an opposing viewpoint to create balance. I don’t like being strong-armed into supporting something.

This is exactly the kind of reaction that Facebook political preachers elicit from me and the reason I keep my politics off of Facebook. I’ve also decided that I will no longer post political opinions on my blog. If someone wants to know my stance on something, they’ll have to first earn my trust, show they can make an informed decision, and then talk about it in a calm and controlled manner.

Happy November. This marks the end of a long blog hiatus that I never really meant to do in the first place. It’s just one of those things where one missed day turns into two, which turns into a week… a month… and so on. I’m a creature of habit in many areas and this is one of them. If I get into the groove of daily updates, I can usually keep it going for a long while, but if I miss a few days, it’s easy to let things spiral out of control.

November marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month. I’ve “competed” in this event every year from 2005-2008, with 2007 being the only year in which I did not achieve the 50,000 word goal. I’ve decided to forego the event this year because of two reasons. First, 50K words burns me out creatively for several months afterward. I’m a veritable writing desert until January. Second, I’ve been dealing with severe writers block over the past few months. I’ve had a difficult time putting out anything, let alone 50,000 consecutive words. In response, I’ve decided that perhaps this is a good time to pick this blog back up again. If I can’t write a novel, I might as well write something. Perhaps if I get back into the flow, my creative writing will follow.

In other news, I’ve been hooked on that stupid FarmVille game on Facebook. What can I say? I have an unnatural attraction to farming simulations. I remember playing SimFarm back in the day and, more recently, I’ve also played the Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games that Nintendo so loves to pump out on a regular basis. I think there’s a suppressed part of my brain that truly wants to be a farmer… if it weren’t for the bugs. And rodents. And sun. And deadly farming equipment that can tear your legs off and turn your torso into hamburger.

That’s about it for now. I have a couple other topics to talk about, but I should probably save those for future posts. I don’t want to burn through all of my material in one day now, do I?

Tomorrow morning, I’m out of here. It’s vacation time and I’m spending it on some of America’s most famous highways. That’s probably something you already know and are most likely sick of hearing about by now. However, I would like to add a few pieces of extra information on here. If you feel inclined to follow along while I drive around the United States, there will be several ways to join in:

1. Twitter – Look at the right column. See the “Twitter Updates” header? As I drive, I’ll drop in an occasional update via my cell phone, along with intermittent photos. If you want to follow more closely, I suggest you grab yourself a Twitter account (here) and follow me (here).
2. This Website – Right here, on this blog. I’m going to try to do a nightly update. Maybe post a video, or some photos, along with a quick synopsis of the day’s activities. However, this will completely depend on whether or not the hotel has internet access, so updates are not guaranteed. But rest assured that if I have access to my blog, I will post something.
3. Facebook – I’ll probably dump a few photos onto my profile as I travel, along with unique status updates that will not be posted on Twitter. If you’re already a friend of mine, then there’s nothing you have to worry about. Otherwise, you can find my profile right here. Keep in mind that you’ll need a Facebook account and have me set as a friend to see anything.