the way I see it, a blog post contains plenty of content/information, whereas a forum asks a question or makes a more brief statement, or otherwise is to short to make a decent blog, plus forums could be used for discussion

I agree with LWH on his interpretation of their respective functions.  However, the two areas should be merged as a long informative blog or a short question deserve equal attention and the way ANA has them separated makes it easy to overlook the Forum section.  I also think ANA should place the combined blog in a prominent place on their Home Page so the non-member public can read the input and responses and maybe, just maybe, decide they want to participate too.  An easy conversion right now with the one year free membership promotion.