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Getting laid to rest like this original blog mugshot

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the end of an era. Last Friday, eduClaytion took some time to say goodbye to you. Now it’s time for you to say goodbye to eduClaytion. Yes, it’s a bit of a somber day to be sure as we bid farewell to a dear friend. But let’s celebrate the good times like Kool and the Gang.

You know, it’s almost like eduClaytion–a brand that was born exactly one decade ago–has been a part of me for all these years. We are not mourning a loss but rather celebrating something that brought so much joy and love to so many.

A variety of some of the greatest bloggers and people around the internet today have offered their talents and time to pay tribute on this grave occlaysion. There has never been an event like this in the history of the internet. Boom. Eat your heart out Bill Gates. What? You’re here? That’s right Bill Gates, cuz it’s that big.

Knox McCoy, the Tennessee Tenderfoot himself, is here to serve as honorary officiant and start us off with a rhapsodic introduction.

The Blessing

Dearly beloved of the internet and beyond, we are gathered here today to remember a website that while it was torn all too early from our computer screens, will forever live on in the hearts and minds of those who came into contact with it.

Educlaytion.com was a brilliant website with a bright future, a sunny disposition and an ability to never meet a stranger. My most favorite memory of Educlaytion.com is that one night we were looking for a Blockbuster Video and ended up at an underground Pittsburgh Fight Club with a group of Japanese businessmen from Kyoto – and we all ended up eating breakfast together and becoming Facebook friends. That was classic Educlaytion.com.

Educlaytion.com was a lover of movies. Educlaytion.com was an adventurer. Educlaytion.com had a hellacious left hook. And Educlaytion.com was my friend. Educlaytion.com was a friend to all of us. Go now, peacefully and gently into that good night, Educlaytion.com, until we are to meet again.

~Knox McCoy

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Today’s first video eulogy is from Jared Hollier who wishes to pay tribute through song, an interpretive dance really.

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Ironic Mom Leanne Shirtliffe

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Thoughtsy & Larry Hehn

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Ellie Soderstrom

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Chad Gibbs, Jessie Cribbins, Piper Bayard, Renée Schuls-Jacobson, Chase McFadden

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Arty Arnold wrote an obit that was too good to miss.

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Jess Buttram

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Kim Wilson

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*Thanks to Kelly Kay for the great epitaph!

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Tell everyone what a great job they did and don’t forget to sign the guest book!*

*The guest book looks exactly like the comments section.

On Twitter #eduClaytionFuneral

Like any other departure, let’s start with the death announcement–hosted today by Leanne Shirtliffe–before we proceed.

THE EDUCLAYTION OBITUARY

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Knox McCoy once asked me what movie quote I would put on my tombstone. I said I would go with Morgan Freeman’s line from The Shawshank Redemption: Get busy living or get busy dying.

Hard for me to argue with that pick, but it’s time for a new epitaph, especially now that we’re laying ol’ eduClaytion to rest. So I thought it would be fun to let you all take a shot at writing a one-liner for the tombstone to this site. I’ve already got my official pick in mind but would like to offer a new DVD copy of The Shawshank Redemption to whomever comes up with the best alternative. It could be from a book or movie or just something you conjure from your own mind. Maybe you’ll even persuade me as you brilliant folks so often have in the past. Have fun with it and leave your ideas in the comments section.

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Oh I better cut this off before I get all weepy and start crying into a jar of peanut butter. As Dale Horvath told us in The Walking Dead, “Words are paltry things,” so I’ve put together a short video tribute for you as a way to all at once say thanks and goodbye and can somebody please for the love of all that is holy start producing videos for me that don’t look like they were  made by that super technologically inept relative we all have?

Sorry. I’m better now. I guess these emotions are making me all ragey and stuff.

Anyway, here’s the final vintage eduClaytion video. Be sure to read the obit and then share your thoughts and potential epitaphs in the comments section.

Be loved and blessed and share the rest.

Did you read the obituary?

What should the eduClaytion tombstone say?

If you would like to submit a video for next week’s funeral, simply read the end of the obituary at Ironic Mom’s site.

I have some fun funeral festivities in the works for the next couple weeks but wanted to take a minute today to write one last “normal” post. Mostly, I want to explain a bit of where this decision came from and what this man has to do with it.

Jeff Goins has been rampagin' ya'll

In a way, the decision to end eduClaytion came out of nowhere. I certainly never expected this when I launched a new version of this site at the end of February. At the same time I launched Clay-Morgan.com (which is also going away) because I thought I had some things figured out.

But sometimes you need to take a few steps in the best looking direction so you can get off the path you’ve been on and see an even better route to where you want to go. When I finally arrived at this decision to kill my site, I knew the plan was necessary and good.

Some of you who also write on the internet might experience some of the same frustration/tension that I’ve felt with blogging over the past year. There are so many voices out there talking about platform and stats and SEO and content and it makes you want to scream sometimes. I started this site over 3 years ago because I wanted my words to have a home. I didn’t start with ANY plan and certainly wasn’t producing focused content. Then when people start telling you how to be a more effective blogger your stuck because you’ve got months or years of the wrong way built into your site. Yet I LOVE my site and the amazing community we’ve created here.

What do you do when you have a blog but lose focus, grow stagnant, or just want to start all over again? What if you have subscribers and Google juice? I understand this mindset and was wrestling with such thoughts, especially as the Killer Tribes conference rolled along a few weeks ago.

By the end of that day I could feel myself wavering like a madman, the blade in my hand held over my precious blog like the hand of Abraham over his only son Isaac on that mountain centuries ago. I figured I would only come close to plunging the steely point into eduClaytion but at the last moment someone would step out from the internet bushes and tell me to wait, that eduClaytion would live.

Instead, Jeff Goins appeared.

DO IT OR I'LL DO IT FOR YOU!!!

In case you’ve somehow managed to miss the GoinsBlitz hitting the internet lately, Jeff is a writer who has been skyrocketing as a leader in how to establish yourself in all the right ways. His new book You Are A Writer (So Start Acting Like One) has been busy kicking other titles off the top shelf over at Amazon in the past week, and EVERY writer needs to read it. This book is about how to thrive on the internet, and he’s established himself as a credible authority.

As I described my bloggy dilemma to Jeff that afternoon at Killer Tribes, he told me that he had been in the exact same position with a blog that was doing well like mine. But he made the decision to kill that old site. Then he began his current internet home GoinsWriter and the results have been astounding.

Jeff gave me the encouragement I needed to take this giant, scary step. I asked him to explain some of his thoughts in a nutshell for you today. Here’s what he said:

“I believe most people know what they need to do without someone having to tell them to do it. Trust that feeling. Obey it. Rip the band-aid off. It doesn’t hurt as bad as you fear it does. Moreover, when people consider the what-ifs or risk-taking, their minds almost always go to the negative side of things. But what about the potential positives? What if this works better than you imagined? What if it’s awesome? What if you’re amazing? Those are possibilities, too, you know.”

So true that we focus on loss more than potential gain. I know I have.

Until now.

I don’t have the space here to go into more detail but would love to chat with anyone about the decision or process or whatever. If you have questions ask away in the comments section or use the Contact page to get my email address and we can have an exchange that way. So many others have shared what they know with me, and I’m always happy to pay it forward if I happen to know anything too.

In the meantime, we have a death to plan! And it starts tomorrow–Obit Day. Be sure to come back for some fun and a little contest/giveaway as well. I won’t go away and leave you empty-handed. Unless you’re all the people who don’t win the one prize I have. But you’ll still have all the memories and stuff.

Finally, if you want to know more about this world of internet writing or how to connect with a lot of people authentically and quickly and in the process take on that nasty beast we all fear called, gulp, platform, then get Jeff’s book today and follow him on Twitter. You won’t be disappointed.

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“I don’t have the big plan, just small glances and every now and then I’m still unsure.” ~ Children 18:3

Hulk smash.

I jumped for joy when I learned that they were making TV movies of the character in the late 80s. The Incredible Hulk Returns introduced me to Thor, and I became an instant fan of his character also. Pretty comical to think of those cheesy, old network movies following the record-setting weekend of the new Avengers movie (which is absolutely as great as everyone keeps saying).

A year later, we were treated to The Trial of the Incredible Hulk* and my favorite comic book character Daredevil (who I DID collect a great deal of). I still have the VHS tape I made of that movie and watched many times in subsequent years.

Then another year passed and yet another TV Hulk movie was scheduled. But that third one carried the impossible title–Death of the Incredible Hulk. It had to be a trick, I thought, some kind of publicity ploy to invoke emotion and ratings. A pit expanded in my stomach as the story unfolded. I had seen the commercials. Would they really do it? Would they really kill my Hulk?

That night felt darker than most, and when the green monster fell from that plane my upcoming 13th birthday loomed larger than his massive arms. First they kick you off the children’s menus, then they kill the Hulk. The murder of my childhood was almost complete.

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You might think I’m telling this story because of the new Avengers movie, but there’s actually a different reason. I started thinking about the Hulk movies a couple weeks ago when the inevitable title of this blog post lodged itself in my brain. See, I arrived at a decision a short while back that was all at once a little scary and necessary and exciting.

This site, eduClaytion, is dying, and I’m about to kill it for good.

In less than two weeks I will have written my last post ever for this site.

Why?

That question is easy enough to anticipate, and I plan on answering it in detail tomorrow. I’ve seen posts in the past couple years where someone with a successful blog suddenly announces that they’re pulling the plug, and I used to think how could you do that?! I understand how they could do that a lot more these days.

The scary part of this process is gone for me, and I’m excited to pursue new opportunities. At the same time, we’ve built something here that I really love, and I’m not going to bail without taking time to celebrate.

So that’s what we’ll do.

After tomorrow’s post about why I’m ending eduClaytion (with a special appearance by one of the mastermind conspirators of this bloggy murder), we’ll spend the next couple Fridays doing things that I’ve never seen done on the internet. Let’s just say we’re going to lay this puppy to rest proper like.

For now, it’s reaction time. The diagnosis is severe, terminal even, but you still have time to say goodbye. I hope you’ll stick with us during the farewell festivities!

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*The Trial of the Incredible Hulk is the first Marvel movie production in which legendary creator Stan Lee makes a cameo.

What do you think of when you think of eduClaytion? What comes to mind when you consider this blog and your experiences with it?

This question has a point and is part of next week’s big announcement.

Go.

I’ve actually been traveling more weekends than not this year. Some of those events will have significant long-term consequences as ye shall see soon enough. In fact, one of those announcements will signal a change in the internet forever.

But for now, howz about I show you some of what I’ve been up to as I cheat on eduClaytion with some other interwebz hangoutz.

My first featured article for CBN Entertainment appeared the other day. Always exciting to get on such a well-read site. I may not know much about much, but I wrote about something I do know–How to Prepare for Summer Music Festivals.

Speaking of music festivals, I was back at Purple Door recently and spent some time with a few of my favorite guys in all of music. Here are some links for ya:

• Soul Glow Activatur and Na-Daddy of Family Force 5
• Tim Skipper from House of Heroes
• The guys from Ocean Is Theory

Nice warmup to what will hopefully be a hopping summer of music activity. More on that much later, like after a world-crushing May in which I make yet another major bloggish announcement.

You won’t believe what’s going to happen next.

In addition to being a safe place for the television obsessed, it’s also the internet love child of Knox McCoy and Tyler Stanton who are super swell.

I especially love TV Asylum because not only is it acceptable to reference 25 year old television sitcoms; it’s celebrated. Mr.  Belvedere, Dwayne Wayne, and TGIF are recognized as part of our national heritage. As someone who burned out on politics a couple years back, I’d much rather debate topics like Is Jeff Winger the Evolutionary Zach Morris? much more than which presidential candidate’s campaign promises are more misleading.

So I’m happy to tell you about my latest post which appears at TV Asylum about what makes Psych my favorite show on the telly. I hope you’ll check it out, and snoop around a bit while you’re there.

READ MY GUEST POST ON PSYCH AT TV ASYLUM

We started off in the only place that made sense–at college with Professor Morgan.

You know the Things had to get eduClayted

I always fall asleep on textbooks too

At university

Heinz Field, home of the Steelers, from classroom window

Of course, I spend lots of time making trips all over the place, so we hit the road for Nashville, Tennessee. On the way home a large sign in Cave City, Kentucky caught our eye. We stopped for a photo shoot that would make Boss Hogg gristle with glee.

Guntown Mountain ya'll. Pull over.

See?

Welcome to Dinosaur World. Spot the Things.

Leanne's Things hanging out in Kentucky. See 'em?

Another tribute to Where's Waldo

Oops

Insert your own caption here

You DON'T go to Cave City and skip Mammoth Cave

The Things go redneck

So many hours in the car made us all antsy.

Lax seat belt laws?

But we HAD to make one last stop.

It was late & rainy but the Things rocked Claysville

Out

It's Kim, the true artist behind all these great shots

Now as a special bonus, here’s an awesome picture of one of  the squirrel’s who visit me while I write.

Squirrels like Super Mario Bros. too

 Have you ever gone to Kentucky on purpose?