Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Please check the closing for Forest Lake TV for an unexpected denoument in the update section.

Ok, it was one year ago today -- That I made the first post on this blog, the mission statement.

Looking at it again, I recall that I planned to make more "current" closing posts, and fewer "nostalgia" ones, but I'm happy the way that worked out. I'm happy as well about those of you who have chosen to read and make comments on this blog.

The process that brought Columbia Closings about was rather indirect. I had a GoDaddy hosting account already that I was using for something different, and I was very aware of blogs but didn't really have any interest in writing about the day-to-day details about my life: There could hardly be a more boring subject, or one I am less willing to talk about. Still I hadn't done any writing beyond computer programs for quite a while, and I wanted to write about something. I also had a couple of Columbia nostalgia pieces in an old notebook that I had written years ago with the vague idea of trying to get them into The State or The Free Times someday, but that seemed unlikely to happen, and would, I was sure lead to a lot of re-writing and trimming to length even if it did. Then came the closings of The Parthenon and some other favorites of mine, making me realize that the city I knew was always changing. Finally, I was sitting at the beach during winter break with nothing to do when all the pieces came together in my mind and the domain name Columbia Closings came to me. It was available, and Barnes & Noble in Myrtle Beach had a Blogging For Dummies book that gave me enough information on WordPress to get started.

In the year since then, I have learned more that I wanted to know about "comment spam", had several panic attacks about running out of material and have taken loads of photos that were so bad I couldn't imagine what I was thinking. I have also learned from some comments much more than I ever knew about certain places in town, and indeed about places in town I had never heard of at all.

And if I have failed to leverage the experience into total world domination or Daffy Duck levels of financial renumeration -- well, that will certainly come in year two!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope today finds you with those you love.

Posting will probably be light for a few days.

I know I have a lot to be thankful for, and I'm sure you do as well.

Drive safely and take breaks to let the food settle!

Folks,

After an epic 6 hour battle with WordPress, Silverlight and PHP, I have figured out how to enable comments on pages. This means you can now add comments to Signs Your Favorite Restaurant Is About To Close, and Ted's Rules For Restaurants.

It also means that I can finally add a Have Your Say page for general site comments, closings I've missed and random chatter. You can get to the "Have Your Say" page from the link I just gave, or (more likely) from the Navigation Bar which always appears at the top of the site.

Well, it's official!

Please see my original post on Red Wing Rollerway which I have updated today with lots of new pictures, including interior shots. (If you have any thoughts, leave them there -- in fact, I think I'll turn comments off on this "heads-up" post).

I picked up a Free Times at lunch today, and see that the vote for the 2008 "Best of Columbia" is on. If you've enjoyed any of these posts over the past year, why not keep columbiaclosings.com in mind when you vote for Best Local Web Site or Blog? (Don't worry, you can still read this site even if you vote for someone else :-).

Ballots are in this week's paper, or online at www.free-times.com at the "crown" logo.

Well, that was nice!

Normal posting should resume today..

Well, Phase II of summer vacation starts today, and I'll be out of town for a good little while. I'll try to check things often enough to keep comment-spam to a minimum, and I've got some pictures for updates to various posts I may get around to uploading. I may possibly make a post or two, but realistically -- probably not! Feel free to chat amongst yourselves.

First-time visitors may want to check the alphabetical list of closings or the archives and categories on the right side of your screen.

Happy 4th everyone!