Today marks the end of my second full year of blogging. It's been a fun ride, and I expect it to continue to be for the foreseeable future. Thanks to everyone for riding along with me.

I don't do a whole lot of navel-gazing around here, but anniversaries do have a way of bringing out that impulse. I'll try to keep it brief. I find that one of the things I've been successful at here is following a story as it goes along, often helped by people like AJ Garcia who send me links to stories I might've otherwise missed. I worry sometimes, though, that in spending that much time on a given topic I might be boring people. So I'd like to ask: Are there any topics you'd like to see me write about more often, or less often, in the coming year? Please leave any feedback in the comments, or drop me a note at the address above.

One of the things that I thought worked very well this year was our Texas Blogburst, though I must say I'm very disappointed to have gotten exactly zero responses from any of the county party officials that I wrote to. It's great that we've got a state party blog and a few local group blogs, but I don't think we've come close to getting full value for them. If I have one wish for 2004, it's to get these groups and others like them linking, and more importantly talking to each other. Howard Dean's been a successful candidate so far not because he's got a blog and online fundraising but because he's built a community. Blogging was just a means to that end. It's the networking - the people - that make the difference. I'm going to do what I can to make some of this happen here next year. I welcome any suggestions on how to do that.

All right, my navel's pretty well-inspected now. Thanks for your indulgence in this matter.