By David G. Firestone

So here is the situation. On Saturday, I had to go the emergency room, nothing too serious. I called a family friend and she drove me. As we are driving I am obviously nervous, but I notice something that we drive by. It was an advertisement for a farmer’s market that advertises “artisan foods.” I thought about that as we drove, but more on that later.

So we get to the emergency room, and the first person we see is a young nurse, maybe 5 or 6 years younger than me greets me with a cheery greeting and an overly positive attitude. She kept this attitude up as I described my ankle situation, and I was getting irritated with her. I understand that in an emergency room the need to be positive toward patients is a requirement of the job, but there gets to be a point when enthusiasm just gets to be obnoxious. No one wants to go to the ER. No one enjoys it. We don’t want to be there, and we would rather be anywhere else than the ER. Be positive, but don’t take it too far.

In certain situations, being too positive can turn people off. This happened to me at a DMV. I go there the week before my birthday to renew my state ID. In all honesty, I would rather be at the ER than the DMV, at least the ER has a water fountain. At that time, the DMV I went to had two women at a podium to sign you in, and give you a number. They were way too enthusiastic. One of them said to me “Well it seems you have a birthday coming up.” and being who I am I thought “and I have a 1000 other things I would rather be doing than waiting at the DMV for a state ID.” Be positive and polite, but don’t go to far.

While I was waiting for x-rays to come back, I thought of the farmers market sign advertising artisan foods. There are a number of words that have been overused to the point they are losing their meaning. Independent, ironic, literally, unique and awesome fall into this list, now I think we should add artisan to the list. If we were to take the literal definition of artisan in food, it means food that is made in a traditional or non-mechanized way using high-quality ingredients.

OK, that sounds good, but when I see stuff at the grocery store like Blue Diamond Artisan Nut Thins, where the product does not come close to the definition of artisan, it takes the whole idea and kills it. Blue Diamond calls itself “the world’s largest “tree nut processing and marketing company,” the crackers in question are sold nationwide, and yet I’m somehow supposed to believe that this is made in a non-mechanized way. Not buying it at all. The people who make bread from scratch and sell it at farmers markets sell artisan food. Blue Diamond sells food. It’s that simple. Artisan is being used as a buzz word to market products to “more discriminating customers” many of them are smarter than that.

So I’m now out of commission for a week due to my ankle injury, thankfully it was just a mild injury, not something much worse. So I’m gonna spend time at home, really bummed I can’t go into work this week.

By David G. Firestone

I’ve been wanting to throw my hat into this discussion for a while. A question that has been around as long as blogs have existed is “are bloggers journalists?” It’s not so cut and dry as you might think. Blogs can range from a teenager discussing their feelings to people exposing real news stories to the world. According to the United States court system, bloggers like myself are journalists from a legal standpoint, but am I a journalist?

I really don’t feel like a journalist. I don’t hit the streets looking for stories. I have yet to do a formal interview with a driver about uniforms and memorabilia. I’m not breaking news stories from sources. I don’t consider myself a journalist. Uni-Watch founder Paul Lukas on the other hand is a journalist, because unlike me, he has done all of the things I haven’t done. He has written for many publications, and was a journalist before he was a blogger.

I also don’t consider myself to be a journalist because this isn’t my occupation. I work retail, and do this not for profit but for fun. The Driver Suit Blog wasn’t started as a chance to reinvent myself, and become a professional blogger, but rather as a way to express my love of driver suits and racing memorabilia and help collectors out any way I can. The Driver Suit Blog started from Introduction to Sports Memorabilia, which came to be because I was bored, and needed a new challenge in my life. I goof around a lot on here, and try not to take things too seriously. T

I know that each individual blog is different, and each blog adds a certain amount of perspective to the subject. My analysis of driver suits and memorabilia comes from my personal experience from my personal collection. That’s something that is also a critical difference. Traditional journalism is focused on reporting the facts, and not becoming part of the story. If I were to write an analysis of a driver suit with no perspective on the design, it would be a totally different article than my normal articles. The way I do things, I discuss the driver suit and will discuss various aspects of the suit as compared to other suits, some in my possession, others I have seen in catalogs or eBay.

I guess there isn’t an answer that satisfies everyone, so I think that the answer is that there is no answer. Are bloggers journalists? You decide.

By David G. Firestone

I had planned something concerning bloggers for this week’s My Thoughts On, but then something was announced this week, and I postponed it to discuss it. Sprint has announced that after 2016, they would be leaving the Sprint Cup Series as the titular sponsor. Now this did not come as a shock to me, as the cel phone wars, or smart phone wars are heating up. Unless you’ve been living under a rock with no communication with the outside world, and since you are reading this, that is impossible, the major cel phone carriers are in the midst of a war for customers. Service is going up, prices are going down. The consumer wins in this war, because we are going to get better service and better rates in the long run. Sprint decided to stop with NASCAR as a result of this war.

There is no doubt that this will impact NASCAR, but I think that we will have an announcement of some kind before the end of the 2015 season. I would normally not speculate on who it will be, but I’m thinking it might be Coca Cola, or one of their other brands. This is not without precedent, as they already sponsor the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series in the NHRA. They are also the official soft drink sponsor of NASCAR, and have the pockets deep enough to fund the series. I also think that Coke would make a great sponsor, since they are as aggressive with marketing as they are. Could I be wrong, absolutely, but again this is mere speculation.

What I’m worried about would be an alcohol sponsor taking over, say Miller Lite or Coors Light. When the Xfinity Series was the Busch Series, they did not allow anyone under the age of 21 to race in it, and all that did was screw rookies who need experience out of a few years of their career. Futhermore, it makes marketing difficult as the stuff sold to kids can’t have the logo on it. I don’t know if NASCAR has rules in place or not, but I hope it doesn’t happen.

This will be an interesting story to follow, and I’m interested in seeing who steps up to sponsor the biggest racing series in America.