Jan. 9 - Lisa's Musings from Every Day Life

I've spent the last couple days suffering.

Not only from back pain but also from buyer's remorse.

With my back spasms a foggy painful memory, I'm now faced with a long-term commitment to technology that I thought was a good idea two weeks ago.

Now I'm not so sure.

However, if I act quickly, I can still change my mind, save myself $60 a month for the next 24 months and $100, plus tax, shipping and handling. Yeah, there might be some penalties to deal with. I'll have to read the fine print in the contract.

So here's what I did.

At the end of December, I decided that I wanted the ability to file live to the A2 Journal Website from all the Ann Arbor meetings that I cover.

In order to do that, I purchased an air card.

This week, armed with my new technology, I headed out to both the Ann Arbor City Council and Planning Commission meetings with it.

What did I do with my connection to the World Wide Web?

Not file to the A2 Journal Website.

Just trying to pay attention to what was going on at the meetings and to write a story at the same time, proved too much for my little brain to process.

Add to that figuring out the steps to file the story to the Web -- it was too much to process all at one time.

My brain was already full with information.

When there were lulls in the action, I blogged, checked e-mail, surfed the Web for football scores, checked more e-mail.

You get the picture.

I used the air card for everything OTHER than the reason for which I purchased it.

Plus, using it meant lugging my laptop to a meeting -- along with my camera, my briefcase, and of course, my travel mug of coffee.

By day two, I felt like a frustrated mover, loading all this stuff in my van, then unloading it to go to the meeting, then loading it up again when the meeting was over, then unpacking it again when I got back home.

That's a lot of packing and unpacking.

I admit it, I'm old school. I LIKE my legal pad and favorite Sarasa pens in all sorts of colors with ink that glides onto the page. I like composing my lead in my head en route home, so when I walk through the door, I can let the dogs out in their fenced yard for a short run, sit down and start typing.

There are other reporters and on-line publications that make it their mission to get you the news as it's happening. That's not me and it's not what A2 Journal is all about.

I need to concentrate on what A2 Journal does best. We are a weekly community newspaper filled with human-interest stories. And that's what readers tell me they enjoy the most about this new publication.

Each day I hear how much people love what we're doing, and they feel as though Ann Arbor finally has a community newspaper.

I can't be at every meeting, and I can't be at every event -- there are too many of them and only one of me.

But I will cover as many as is humanly possible each week. And have a blast doing it.

I don't need an air card to do that.

Having one was cool for a few days -- but it's not something that I need to write the stories that readers look forward to reading each week.

So, I think I've made my decision.

Sorry ATT, you'll be getting a small box back from me this week.

And my coverage won't suffer one bit.