This is it. I am finally able to say I have a blog. Whopee!

Well I’m excited anyway. I am in debt to Chris Jobson at Joinks! for making it happen along with all of the awesome work he does on the Big Shoulders and Replica Republic websites. Chris. You rule.

A little underwhelming to be the 400 billionth blog I suppose, but the nature of the blog is purely populist and ideas are free to travel so I think it is an exciting opportunity. I can add my voice to the global discussion. Years ago, my sister and I published our own photocopied zines that we sent around or brought to shows. The importance of that activity in my development and mindset is second to nothing. I am supportive of the small ways we can communicate our viewpoint to the larger world, though it is indeed analogous to screaming into the wind. Small voices change the world and so, if this blog were to have a goal it would be very simple;

To change the world.

Since that is a relatively simple goal, I believe this blog should have further goals.
Therefore, the blog will be useful in things that I want to change about myself. Improvements I would like to make in how I live and operate and one goal is to write more and thus I am also hoping this blog will lead to more writing on my part. I have been writing but in different ways than in my past. Much of my writing goes into my monthly article, or content for the Big Shoulders website. One of the problems with a monthly article has always been the gravity of that single article against such a large array of news. This gravity being entirely self-derived since I am doing this as an amateur and don’t make anything from it and it reaches such a small group. Still, every month it grows, so somehow the word gets around. Once in a while someone un-subscribes, or criticizes my viewpoints in what might be considered (it isn’t by me) a business communiqué, or signs up someone else without their permission, leading to misunderstandings, anger, and the like, but for the most part, it has been better received than I would have thought. It serves to act as a connection to many I would maybe not otherwise engage with very regularly. It has lead to many pleasant conversations, and some strained ones. It has lead to new introductions, new ideas and new challenges. I have some folks that email me all manner of challenging questions and whose response often invigorate me and renew my effort in writing. They force me to look at my viewpoints and defend them, or adjust them as I learn where I err.

I should mention I err a lot. This is because I am a total mess. I mean a real serious disorganized mess. It is often hard to categorize my thoughts, so my articles can ramble, but that is nothing compared to the mess that is all the mail lists I have to try to keep organized, who gets what, but not something else….it is a challenge I have not risen to.

If I erred a lot before, it is worth noting that the immediacy of the bloguverse might offer me incentive to write more but the clear downside is the largely unedited nature of it. I know that I can be a horrible writer, a worse editor, an insanely bad speller and the sum total is about to become one with the fuzzy infinite online vastness that is the blogosphere. I would like to apologize for all fans of the English language as it currently exists for errors prior and forthcoming.
As for what you would read here, it is largely free form. My forte is amateur economic and political critique. In the past I have written for music magazines, my own publications, a variety of contributions over the years, and finally a monthly financial, mortgage, real-estate, political commentary column that I self-publish. Thrilling, I know. Hopefully the blog will allow me to feel the freedom of writing about more topics since the general area of the economy at large, politics at large, the real estate and mortgage market at large are to be succinct, terribly bleak. You can’t write honestly about any of those without sounding bleak if you are being honest.

So if I am writing about the above, yes, it may be bleak, because the news is. Perhaps this blog will offer more opportunity for topics I am also interested in beyond political/economic/fiscal stuff. Maybe there is space to share more about my life as Realtor or my life as Mortgage Banker and broker, or my life as a father or as a husband or a musician or a cyclist or a fan of old stuff, etc. We’ll have to see. I’ll know when I get there I guess.

Up front, I will say this:

I write this from my personal point of view, and my views are fully unfiltered and true as I see them. I don’t change my story because I am worried about the impact of writing something, so in all cases, I present my full and honest opinion on subjects I choose to tackle. I am not an expert. I am an anti-expert. I think the experts are the folks that got us into the mess we find ourselves in, so I embrace the notion that I don’t know what I am talking about.

Given that, I hope you enjoy my blog.

I have hundreds of pieces in various forms on subjects ranging from music to cycling, but for old material I decided to only post the articles from Financial Wire, which are largely critique and comment on politics, the economy and the real estate and mortgage world.

Anyway, I am off to have a daughter with the misses…..see you soon.

Feel free to write any time. lee@bigshouldersrealty.com

Be well all…..Lee Diamond