Big Blogging Announcement

Yesterday I promised a big blogging announcement, so here it is:

I'm taking a vacation.

For two weeks, I won't be posting anything new on Fort Wayne Observed. Not because I'm getting burned out -- if anything, I'm more excited about the blog today than at any other time over the last six months -- but because of another blog that needs my full attention right now.

It's called Inside USC, and it's something I started a few weeks ago with a fellow University of Southern California graduate, Alexis Jones. She had an interest in sports broadcasting, I had an interest in blogging and together we decided to create a blog devoted to the USC football team. Our goal was to go beyond the information you can get from a newspaper or on ESPN and give fans a chance to get to know the players as people.

Much like Fort Wayne Observed, Alexis and I started up our blog without much fanfare, relying only on word of mouth to publicize what we were doing. We were proud of what we posted, but no one was more suprised than us when, five weeks after starting the blog, we started receiving emails from people at Sports Illustrated and ESPN telling us how much they enjoyed reading it.

Then earlier in the week we were contacted by the producer of ESPN's College GameDay, asking if we would help promote the show's visit to Los Angeles this weekend on our blog. I was in Fort Wayne at the time, and after talking to Alexis, I decided to fly back to LA today so we could blog from the GameDay set on Saturday.

Then next week, we're flying out to New York to bring our unique style of coverage to the Heisman Trophy ceremony. Obviously, it's going to be hard for me to find time to blog about Indiana's News Center while chasing down Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush in the Big Apple.

But once all that is over, it's back to Fort Wayne Observed, though probably with less frequent posting than before. There are plenty of newsworthy things happening or about to happen here in Fort Wayne, and I can't wait to report on many of them.

As for Fort Wayne's fledgling blogosphere, which may already be the best in the state?  I'm betting it will only get better.