2,776 days after my exodus … I’m still here.

Today is August 7, 2024.

Prior to my time as an independent blogger, I blogged for the local newspaper, the Albany Times Union, from August 25, 2009 until I left the blog farm on April 1, 2017.

Well, “left” is the easy way to describe it. “Escaped” is a better term.

Although I did have some pleasant and inspiring moments as part of the Times Union’s portal of independent writers, there was always this ongoing friction with the other team of bloggers on the site – that, of course, being the staff bloggers. To them, I was dismissed by the pejorative of being a “reader-blogger,” a hackneyed sobriquet that suggested that I could blog ONLY because I could read. Feh.

I also knew that there were times when the staff bloggers’ writings took priority over anything the independent bloggers wrote – the staff bloggers’ posts were more often featured, while the independent bloggers were only there to generate clickthroughs for the timesunion.com website. Clickthroughs, mind you, that went directly to the Times Union itself.

By early 2017, I had noticed something regarding my blog post headlines. They were being edited. Someone went in and changed specific wording, or removed certain characters from the header, or “fixed spelling” that wasn’t broken. This was a violation of the agreement that the TU and I had – that unless the post featured something offensive or vulgar or profane, the independent blogs would be left alone.

I also noticed several back-handed passive-aggressive swipes at my blog and other independent blogs by some of the staff bloggers. One in particular used her platform to talk about what she considered “great blogging,” which were by two of her friends who left the TU blogfarm years ago. So essentially, her comment was that the community bloggers weren’t up to the same standards as was her friends who weren’t even on the portal any more.

Boot, meet teeth.

On April 1, 2017, the irresistible force finally met the immovable object. As was my annual blog post on that day, I would come up with some wild April Fool’s Day post, it would get plenty of discussion, then I would move on to the blog post for the next day. On April 1, 2017, I blogged that Donald Trump’s propagandist, Kellyanne Conway, would receive an award at the State University at Albany. Pretty harmless post.

By that afternoon, I was searching for available domain names and continuing my blog elsewhere. The TU actually took that April Fool’s Day post down and locked me out of my blog controls “until further notice.” Well, guess what. “Until further notice” was the message for me to take my pen elsewhere. You don’t get three chances with me. You get one, and THAT’S IT.

Then began a months-long battle to get my 8 1/2 years of blog posts moved over to my new portal. The TU originally said no, claiming that they held the copyright on everything I wrote. Eventually they acquiesced and sent me a gigantic .ZIP file with all my posts – which, upon entering it in the new chuckthewriter.blog portal, immediately locked down that new site. Apparently there was a code installed in the .ZIP file that, upon importing the old posts, flagged the new site as pornographic. That took another several phone calls to clear up. Dirty pool, TU. Dirty, dirty pool.

I wasn’t the first person to leave the TU’s blogging portal with less than pleasant feelings, mind you. Other people left before I did; some wrote personal stories during the #MeToo moments, only to find their blogs locked as containing offensive content. They left and formed their own portals and Substacks. Good on them.

Eventually the TU blog portal closed for good. But as the TU portal died, I kept on writing. A new post every day, just as I had when I first wrote for the TU way back in 2009 And I continued in 2017.

And today is the day when my chuckthewriter.blog site has surpassed the 8 1/2 years of personal Times Union blogging time. Achievement unlocked.