November 25, 2006:

I’ve received hundreds of email from people who looked forward every month to my “MailBag” feature. Unfortunately, because of an ever increasing work load associated with my importing business, I can spend less and less time on the Uechi website. I do answer all email in a timely manner, but attempting to build a webpage at the end of every month was a task that kept getting more time consuming. I’ve been feeling a little guilty since April, when my work load prevented me from getting out the MailBag. During the months since April, I’ve tried to figure out a way to revive the MailBag, while eliminating the work and time usually associated with this feature.

I try to keep on the “cutting edge” of web technology and from a personal necessity, am always looking for ways to provide the most interesting material with minimum programming and editing. My biggest problem is getting the rest of the martial art world (who frequent my sites) to take advantage of all this fancy technology. I still get at least a dozen phone calls a week from my close friends who ask if they can send something to me, that I in turn can publish to one of the self-publising areas of the site! 🙂

There is also that nagging feeling (I presume) among contributors, that if they first send something to me, I will edit out anything that might be grammatically incorrect or misspelled. (This has never bothered me, as you English majors may have already figured out) . People are funny. They enjoy seeing their articles and letters published, but at the same time, they are concerned that they may be laughed at or embarrassed by publishing something without the intervention of an editor.

So, my new Blog “MailBag” will remain a bit of a mystery for awhile. I’m going to make it as easy as possible to use. . . with a few safeguards in place to minimize the “troll” factor. . . and hope that all you hundreds of MailBag fans will make this feature as popular as the old MailBag.

I’m archiving all the old MailBag letters, as an incredible amount of very interesting material exists for those who wish to forage into the past.

Watch the “MailBag” link on the home page for the all new BlogMailBag. I’ll be reading it every day and will be contributing often.

Best,

George Mattson