It's been real

Well friends, the time has come for me to bid farewell to Knoxville and The Wigshop. I have finished up graduate school, and have moved on from our fair city in search of more promising pastures.

First off, I must apologize for my non-existant participation lo these past months. Being engrossed in finishing up school, I certainly felt distanced from the pulse of the city, and truth be told, my mind was elsewhere. In hindsight, I guess I could have done a post on the Chipotle on The Strip, since I ate the majority of my meals there this past spring. Perhaps a story about my love affair with the Barbacoa Bowl would have been good reading. Perhaps.

You might have noticed, in addition to my own low posting that the blog in general was hitting a slump. Yes, there were posts here and there, but the general malaise forced us all to ask some big questions--Was the blog over? Were we all dried up? Had our lives busied up so much (school, new jobs, marriage, babies ...) that this was not something we could continue to fit in?

Earlier this summer B invited us to a place where she was housesitting, and we had our Summertime State of the Union. We drank wine, pestered some neighboring cattle, and checked our collective pulse. It was a great meeting, and I think, one that made us all realize what a special thing this blog is.

As you might have noticed lately, posting is back on the rise.

The thing is, posting isn't hard. New downtown grocery? post! Rooftop of Pres Pub opens? post! Stephen A. Burroughs and B start dating? post! What it really takes is people who genuinely care about the city in which they live. That said, what with its flourishing, walkable, and ever evolving downtown, Knoxville is a pretty easy place to care about.

The number of places to eat, drink, shop, work and live within downtown's small footprint reflects a density of life that one would have expected before suburban expansion--a density (and walkability) that, especially in a town of this size, is reminiscent of some medieval European city.

While there are numerous reasons why downtown Knoxville is the way it is, in my opinion, the University's role cannot be understated. The culture, diversity, and high level of education fostered by UTK has greatly helped in shaping the population of downtown Knoxville. Yes, on game days our city is flooded with thousands of people you sometimes wish you weren't related to, but all in all the University has and will continue to inject our small town with new, vibrant life.

Thanks for three great years Knoxville. I'll see ya when I see ya.