More to come soon!

Sorry for the lack of updates to the Buzz in the last couple of weeks.  I have been under heavy deadline pressure in my real job (I know, shocking that running the Gwinnett Buzz does not pay all my bills!).  I have been spending nights and half of last weekend on this project.  But the light is visible at the end of the tunnel and I will soon have time to post some great stuff.  I have a letter to the editor from a former high school classmate about his experience with Gwinnett's socialized garbage that I cannot wait to get online.  It proves everything I warned about this program when our commissioners unwisely adopted it.  Thanks for being patient!

Update your Buzz RSS feeds

As a result of the relaunch of the Buzz, your old RSS links will no longer work.  If you subscribe to the Buzz RSS feed, you can now find that here.  If you don't subscribe, why don't you consider doing so?  You will get the latest Gwinnett commentary pushed directly to your favorite news reader!

Welcome to the new Gwinnett Buzz!

Welcome to the new and improved Gwinnett Buzz!  Today the Buzz is relaunching with a revamped interface while maintaining much of its recognizable look and feel.  

On April 10, 2008 the Gwinnett Buzz was born.  I originally launched the site as a Wordpress blog, my first experience on that platform.  While Wordpress provided a lot of flexiblity, I continually fought bugs and formatting issues across different browers.  I attempted to fix these problems, but I had no real experience with the formatting languages used for the various Wordpress templates I tried.  The unsatisfactory look of the site demoralized me and, along with increasing demands on my time, led to a slowdown in activity on the Buzz.

Recently, however, listening to my favorite podcaster, Leo Laporte on his TWiT Network, I learned of the web hosting service Squarespace.com.  I decided to check out the service and quickly found a solution to all the frustrations I was having with the look of the Gwinnett Buzz.  Reengergized, I moved the Buzz to Squarespace, tweaked the site layout and today am relaunching the site.  There are some housekeeping tasks to look at.  For example, if you subscribe the Buzz RSS feed, I still have to ensure that transition is seamless.  I intend to correct these issues in short order and with minimal disruptions for my readers.

With the power of my new platform, I am again excited about the possibilities for the Buzz moving forward.  Adding new features as well as evolving the site design will be much easier with Squarespace.  I am ready to put the Buzz back on its previous trajectory of becoming one of the leading web voices in Gwinnett.  

Please let me know what you think of the new site as well as any suggestions you may have.  Unfortunately, you will have to re-register with your username but hopefully that will be a painless process.  

Status of the Buzz

The weeds have been growing up in the Buzz lately and I really hate that.  Unfortunately, I simply have not had the time these days to spend on the site like I had earlier this year.  Early in the summer, I made a serious commitment to working out and losing weight.  I have had a great deal of success - I have lost about 100 pounds! - but going to the gym on a near nightly basis has taken away much of the time I previously could have spent on the blog.  With fall here, I have also spent a lot of time going to Georgia Tech football games and keeping up with the exciting season the Jackets have going thus far!  This all adds to up to something having to be squeezed out of the schedule and, recently, that has been the Buzz.

Fortunately, the turning of the calendar to a new year is a great time for renewal and a fresh start.  My hope is to somehow carve out some more time in 2010 to reinvigorate the Buzz.  I am considering taking on some additional Gwinnett bloggers to contribute to the site in order to keep the Buzz brand alive even as my time dedicated to posting new articles is limited.  If you are interested in writing for the Buzz, please contact me.  I have not completely thought this out, but if there is some interest from someone to help contribute content, I am sure we can figure things out.

Thanks for continuing to check in with the Buzz.  2010 promises to be a key year in Gwinnett County with two county commission seats up for election along with continuing property rights issues in our county.  Keeping the Gwinnett Buzz a strong voice for freedom and limited government is a priority.

The Buzz is back!

As I am sure you have noticed, the Buzz has been AWOL the last couple of months.  I had some personal issues that kept me from devoting my previous level of attention to the blog.  However, I now foresee being able to resume regular updates to the site and delivering the commentary on Gwinnett issues you had come to depend on from the Buzz.  While I cannot guarantee that I will be able to return to the previous frequency of updates, I do not intend to the let the site "go dark" for the stretch that it has since May.  I hope to regain the confidence of my readers and return the Buzz to its former position as an authoritative voice on Gwinnett happenings.  As always, thank you for reading!

Things have, unfortunately, been slow at the Buzz

I want to first apologize to my readers for my lack of updates in recent weeks.  A lot has been going on in Gwinnett during the month of May, and, unfortunately, I have struck out on providing timely, insightful commentary.  I have had other demands on my time from my non-blogging life recently.  Hopefully, I can begin to better balance these pulls and resume providing the content that you have come to expect from the Buzz.  As always, thanks for reading and for being patient!

Happy birthday to the Buzz!

That's right, the Gwinnett Buzz is one year old!  On April 10, 2008, I posted the first article on the new Gwinnett Buzz.  The site was an effort to launch a blog focused solely on Gwinnett County issues and events.  I had a previous blog, Grayson Buzz, that featured scattershot rants on a variety of topics and that was sporadically updated.  Out of a desire to better focus on specific area that was not as broadly covered as national or state politics, the Gwinnett Buzz was born.  I could never have imagined it would have garnered the attention it has!  

In just a year's time there have been 356 articles posted to the site, over 29,000 visits and over 57,000 pageviews.  The Buzz has been visited by readers from every state in the U.S. as well as several foreign countries.  There have been 184 total reader comments (ok, some of those are my responses to other comments!).  The Buzz has been mentioned in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and on 11Alive News as well as read by several Gwinnett County political figures.  This reception has far exceeded anything I thought possible when I launched my simple little website.  For that, I must thank all the folks who have read the site, especially those who visit the Buzz regularly.  Blogging would be a very empty experience if I were essentially "talking to the wind."

As I enter year two, I do not plan to sit still.  I hope to take the Buzz to greater heights.  I have some things in the works but I am going to hold off on mentioning them for now.  Timelines for a part-time endeavor always have the potential to slip and I do not want to disappoint you, the readers.

Thanks again for checking out the site.  I hope you continue to find compelling content that encourages you to keep coming back.  Here's to a great second year of the Gwinnett Buzz!

Playing catchup

First, apologies to the regular Buzz readers for the long delay since my last post.  I was out of town last weekend last week and then have had some other demands on my time this week.  Thus, I have another backup to clear!   Hopefully I can make a dent in that this weekend!  Thanks as always for reading!

Beaudreau speaks against unnecessary layers of government

I was catching up on some Gwinnett blog feeds today and I came across a Gwinnett Daily Post article linked from the Corinth Hills Neighborhood Association site.  (Note to the GDP, please add RSS feeds to your website!  Your articles often cover more Gwinnett news with greater depth than the AJC, but the limitations of your website make it challenging to access your reporting if I happen to miss an article while it is posted on your main news pages!)  The article summarized a recent meeting held at Parkview High School about a possible residential annexation by the City of Lilburn.  This is old news, but I wanted to highlight comments made by Gwinnett Commissioner Mike Beaudreau:

Gwinnett County Commissioner Mike Beaudreau also was on hand, but he had a much different opinion from [State Representative Clay] Cox's. 

"I have a different perspective than Rep. Cox," he said. "I think the (unincorporated) area is doing well." He added that adding a layer of government doesn't solve problems.

"We do not stand in favor of this annexation at all," he said. "This community doesn't need more government."

Well said, Mike!  This is a case where the Buzz and Commissioner Beaudreau are in lockstep.  If only he could be this consistent about government involvement in our lives with respect to private property rights, I could be an enthuiastic supporter of my commissioner.  However, I will have to be satisfied with the occasions where I can be in Mike's corner.

Last garbage committee hearing on March 2

Gwinnett Views has posted (via committe member Mack Perry's blog) information for the last meeting of Mike Beaudreau's garbage committee:

3-2-2009 at GJAC in the auditorium 6:00-9:00 the first 1-1/2 hours are for the committee to hear from the haulers with the public comments portion of the meeting to start around 7:30 to accommodate those citizens that had difficulty getting to a 6:30 meeting.

If you have not checked out Gwinnett Views, I urge you to do so.  I think he may be more incensed about the garbage mess than I am!  He does raise some interesting concerns about just how seriously the county is taking Beaudreau's efforts with the committee.