Nikflorida.com is meant to be a “microcosm” of my life as a sort of 21st century renaissance man.  I wanted a place where I could express a lot of different interests and involve other people variously in things that actually interest them.  So, the front of this website appears really eclectic, and offers opportunities to wander off into different realms and explore. For example:

On this site, there will be SEVERAL blogs maintained; some posts I will write and categorize as appropriate: often there will also be “guest posts” from various folks who I believe have something interesting to share.

Some blog foci, then, will be:

• politics (a continuation of the IHATAT blog, which I’ve been publishing and editing (and where I have myself been the primary blogger) for several years.
• nutri-yum: exploring recipes, nutrition, gardening, and all things food-related (“Food, glorious food!” rejoices Oliver)
• education: research, trends, and research
• lots of other things

In addition, one idea I have for maintaining a “discussion group”  is:

Towards Greater Understanding: These “permanent” questions and ponderances have no “correct” answers, nor are they “trick” or “gotcha” questions… it is my hope that with the contributions of multiple perspectives, understandings, and levels of thought, that each episode will result in the sharing of knowledge and insight for the enrichment of all.

Just quickly, I see several nifty features I’ll want to maintain:

• doggie/pet stuff
• Word of the day
• Quote of the day
• BAMF of the day
• Loser of the day
• Web destination of the day

I’d also like to have some columns on various topics that might be written by friends and which people may want to follow:

• Science denial (news of absurd and bass-ackwards junk science)
• thought-free political news
• pop culture (Christian Scholer?)
• devotional/meditational (Tracie Stewart?)

The other really major thing I want to develop is a Writing section.  I envision that this section will:

• highlight personal projects I’m working on, like The Discendium/Mapop/fictional world I’m currently researching for a series of sci-fi books;
• provide a repository for a portfolio of my writing;
• offer a forum for discussion and feedback: basically an ongoing online writing workshop, with writers at various levels of expertise submitting work-in-progress and providing feedback for others  (peer review, etc.);
• Marketing for workshops, writing consultations, and that sort of thing;
• Provide an OWL (online writing lab) for guidance with various stages of the writing process, from organizing thoughts to copy editing, and for access to various helpful  and appropriate resources;

Although this isn’t primarily a commercial venture, I do want to maintain a little E-Store offering a few appropriate items for sale.  I also want to have a little marketplace of a sort, where I can pass along info from friends and acquaintances to help people connect with each other, as buyers and sellers, for bartering, teamwork, and so forth.

That’s an awful lot of stuff, I know… and to make matters worse, the technical aspects of all this have already started to frustrate me (“everything costs more and takes longer than you expect,” as the Murphy’s Law corollary goes…)
I expect this will be an ongoing, growing venture.  “Like” this page on Facebook or join our community on G+.  You can also follow me on Twitter.  Meanwhile, I expect that this website should be a lot more developed in the next few days.

Cheers!