I’ve made it a point of pride to have something new on the blog every day in the year and a half since I was hired at the Roanoke Times and Virginian-Pilot, even during the down months of the football calendar. To date, I’ve done so.

But for the rest of this week that won’t be the case. I’m headed to Ireland for a golf trip with my dad and brothers. Needless to say, the blog will be the furthest thing from my mind.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

But I do want to put up a post to solicit input from you, the readers. I’m curious what you’d like to see on the blog, especially during the next few months, but also when football season starts again. What do you want to see more of? What do you want to see less of? Are there more research intensive things that I can delve into now that there’s more available time to do so?

I still have some plans for the next few months. When I return next Monday, I’ll get to the post-spring position breakdowns that I’ve done in the past. It might be a few weeks after the spring game, but it’s still relevant to take a look at how Tech left things off heading into the summer. And in the next few months, I hope once again to get beat writers of teams on the Hokies’ schedule to give some insight about the schools they cover.

But there’s a lot of other time to fill and plenty of ways to do it, so I’m looking for ideas. I’m not saying I’ll be able to do all of them, but I do want your feedback.

I’ll only be able to check comments periodically, so if they don’t post immediately, do not be alarmed (and please try to play nice). We’ll get things up and running on the blog again Monday.

There are times in life when sports don’t matter, a point driven home by yesterday’s Boston Marathon bombing. That was certainly the case with the shooting six years ago on Virginia Tech’s campus, a tragedy that nonetheless brought the community together.

Making my schedule for the week, I overlooked the fact that Tuesday was April 16. So when I scheduled my live chat, I didn’t think much of it. But I realize many Virginia Tech fans don’t feel like talking about football on a solemn day like this, so I’ve decided to push it back to Wednesday.

There are plenty of Day of Remembrance events planned, including a statewide moment of silence that will take place at 9:43 a.m. Virginia Tech has a full schedule of events on its website.

The memory of that day still sticks with anyone affected by it. Former Hokies and current linebacker Jason Worilds said he thinks about it all the time. Yankees outfielder Curtis Granderson changed his Twitter profile picture to Brian Bluhm, one of his fans and a victim of the shootings.

There’s plenty of days to chat about football. Today isn’t one of them.

I’ll simply end the post with this:

In conjunction with the esteemed Doug Doughty, we’ll be writing a “What Went Wrong?” story about Virginia Tech and Virginia this year for Friday’s paper, with several items for each team.

We’re also asking for input from fans about what they think the best way to fix things is. I get the feeling people will have some thoughts about this. This is certainly a “release the hounds” idea, but we’re asking for it anyway. Leave your thoughts in the comments section below. We’ll pick the best ones to run in the paper.

UPDATE: OK, plenty of responses on this one. I’ll probably have to cut it off at this point, just because we’ve had so many. Thanks to everyone who wrote in. But by all means, keep the conversation going in the comments section. Very interesting thoughts out there.

The Twitter account I inherited from The Virginian-Pilot and The Roanoke Times is fast approaching 6,000 followers, and I thank everyone who has helped me on that front. But I also realize that not everyone uses Twitter, or even knows how it works (my parents would certainly fit the bill in that regard).

So in an effort to help get the word out whenever I post something, I’m starting a Facebook page for our Virginia Tech football coverage. It’ll be your one-shop stop for Hokies football news, be it a blog post, a story in the paper that’s online or a picture gallery that some our excellent photographers put together after games.

It’s a simple premise. Click on the “Like” button and anytime I post something, it’ll appear in your news feed. This will make it easier for people to share stories or posts that they like and is a good forum to have a discussion with someone whose name isn’t an Internet pseudonym. I’d imagine the discourse is more civil without that shield of anonymity.

But bottom line is this: I want to make the information on the blog and in the paper easy to access in a timely manner on multiple platforms. If I write something about Virginia Tech football, it’ll be posted immediately on the Facebook page, just like it is with Twitter.

I had intended to do this before spring practice, but for various reasons things got postponed. Regardless, I intend to have something on the blog every day, even in the next few months when football news is scarce. I’ll begin my post-spring position-by-position reviews this week before taking an extended look at the teams on the Hokies’ schedule next year after that.

The blog would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, and to tell you to get off the Internet. It’s Christmas day, for goodness sakes. Shouldn’t you be spending it with your families?

Just kidding. But I will be taking the day off from blogging, ready to fire things back up on Monday with a new post.

On the docket this week: a closer look at Logan Thomas‘ first season as a starting quarterback, a look at Michigan’s defensive turnaround and examining how Tech might go about stopping — or at least trying to slow down — Denard Robinson.

I’ve got features on Jayron Hosley and David Wilson on tap as well. I’ll be headed to New Orleans on the 28th, with a week’s worth of material to get out of the Sugar Bowl, so continue to check back every day.