Blue Ridge Muse, the studio, closes its doors at the end of next week, ending a failed experiment.

While sadness remains over ending a two-year tour at Floyd's Village Green, a sense of relief also comes into play. No more worrying about keeping books, cataloging expenses and going aobut the day-to-day busy work that comes from trying to keep a small business up and running.

Small business failures continue to rise nationwide even as the talking heads in Washington claim we are coming out of the largest recession since the Great Depression.

Maybe we are, maybe we aren't. Running a small business no longer concerns Amy or I. I intend to concentrate on early retirement, along with serving my existing web hosting and web site clients, covering county government and the courts for The Floyd Press, and shooting photos of high school sports for both the paper and parents.

Bue Ridge Muse the web site will continue as a local news/blog. So will my political web site, Capitol Hill Blue and my motorcycle blog, Road Kill Diaries. I'm working on some other web and video projects so staying busy won't be a problem.

One chapter ends, another begins. Life goes on.