The real challenge when starting this blog was to find a topic that I would feel comfortable blogging about, and that was not only interesting but that could be of some service to others. Luckily our professor Paulette Moore, an accomplished documentary filmmaker, educator, journalist and head of Paulette Films was a big help in inspiring and encouraging me to create what is now Community Car Chat.

The idea was to channel my interest in cars, and use my years of experience in numerous areas of the automotive industry to create a blog that would not only entertain readers, but inspire them to take more of an interest in cars. And I knew that would be a challenge, seeing how little people care about cars in general now-a-days.

But the class was challenging for me in many other ways. Like the rest of the class, being a full time student with limited time makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with a blog on a daily basis.

wwWiz Magazine

And I know very well as a former webmaster that it takes hours of devotion everyday to have a successful site, or blog for that matter. During my last two years of high school I spent every hour of free time I had outside of school, work, and athletics, working on my sites. Which did lead to a couple national awards and recognitions, one in particular in which my personal site Giants Central was one of only two football sites to be feautured in an article titled “The Best Fan-Created Sports Sites on the Web” in the 1998 April Issue of WWWiz Magazine. Unfortunately it also led to having little to no time to spend with friends. And with the competition online today, the hours you need to devote to your site/blog if you’re goal is create a serious online presence, would easily surpass that of a full time job. I myself had 4 staff writers including professional author, editor, and writer Chuck Bednar who now at the age of 33 has published over 1500 articles and 17 books. And without that staff of writers, Chuck in particular, the site probably wouldn’t have had quite as much success as it did.

So time management was not only the most crucial, but also the most challenging part of my blogging experience. Being able to not only keep up with the requirements of the course, but to satisfy my own unrealistic expectations that come from being a perfectionist took a lot of time and effort. The other challenging part that was the writing aspect. I haven’t done any serious writing for over ten years, but I wanted to push myself. It’s something I’ve felt like I’ve been trying to avoid over the years and it was time that I challenge myself, and I felt like that would help to grow my writing skills. The first articles I posted actually turned out to be some of the best, which included Car Problems? How to “Do It Yourself”!, How to fix a $300 problem with a $5 bill, and the Top 5 Best College Cars. They also happen to be the top 3 on the list as far as most viewed posts.

The most rewarding parts of the course were the class interactions/discussions and the insight we were able to get from not only Paulette but the numerous guest speakers that visited. But I think the most rewarding part was that I felt like blogging really brought back the desire and passion for creating web content that I’d lost over the past 10 years . And I think for me that’s really important, to get back in the “game” and work to become as successful as I once was.

I definitely feel like my blog improved over the course of the semester, and the stats show that. Digg and Reddit, as well as Facebook definitely played a big part in the increased views. Also learning how to properly tag in order to get your posts at the top of the search results on Google. At the same time it was frustrating to know that because of how extremely busy I was with other classes, the site wasn’t as successful as what it potentially could have been. The Video Blog Series is really a prime example of what could have been. But at the same time I know I did the best I could to try to find time to work on the video series… and knowing that I’ll have time over the summer to continue working on that series and the building on the idea of Community Car Chat is exciting.

This just happens to be an exact match to my dads “Raven Black” 1957 T-Bird that was lost, along with our house, in an F4 tornado back in 2004.

This is one of my favorite classic cars, and seeing this year and color brings back a lot of memories. CC Image courtesy of Ryan Frost on Flickr.

The first generation, and best, of the Ford Thunderbird was during the years of 1955 to 1957. This 1956 baby blue “Bird” is just about the same as the car our guest blogger is currently looking at buying.

This baby blue '56 "T-Bird" is a thing of beauty... and most likely worth more than 5 times its original sticker price. CC Image courtesy of Morven on Wikimedia Commons.

These offers all expire… so don’t wait too long to check them out. But the good news is, once they expire – they put up new rebates and coupons online. Hope this is helpful…

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Talk about a wild ride, this car looks like a lot of fun to drive. I was lucky enough to be able to take a short drive in this car, but I wasn’t taking turns like this! This car is amazing, and the most beautiful Mustang I’ve ever seen. After checking out the video, make sure you read the post directly before this where my returning guest blogger talks about his run in with a 2007 with only 800 miles, and his choice on whether or not to make the deal.