1 Year of Blogging

According to my dashboard, this is my 365th post to this blog. That's 1 full year of blog posts... of course, being spread over 4 years makes it a little less of an accomplishment but I still think it's pretty cool.

Look Mom. I'm social!

I just cleaned up my del.icio.us tags. There are fewer now and hopefully easier to understand.

Hubris

So, now that blogging is fashionable, I like to scroll down the archives list of the blogs I read or discover to see how long they've been at it.

It is a secret source of pride for me when I see that I've been blogging longer than some of the sources that are now considered 'established' in the blogosphere.

Granted, I'm still living in anonymity but that is by choice.

My cousin's cousin

Just added a link to your blog Karen.

For everyone else, it's more for my own navigation since the blog is still invite-only.

Micro blogging

No, I'm not going to start using Twitter but I did have the perfect micro blog moment today.

In fridge: 2 liter coke, root beer, mountain dew; 20oz Dr. Pepper

Competent Writer

Life is what happens at the intersections.

That's my philosophical way of introducing my plan to write this summer. For the details keep reading.

First, with the season finales for most shows happening this week, I've decided to stop watching television. I've felt like I want more time to write, read, and play. And TV has just been keeping me from doing that.

Second, I picked up on a short story that I started writing a year ago, or maybe more. I've known how I wanted it to end, but there was a piece of the story between where I was and the ending that I wasn't sure how to handle. I finally just decided to write it out and finished that this week.
Building on that, the story is completely written by hand. It's been a very interesting experience doing it all by hand. I think that writing by hand will help me develop my own style. When writing on paper, everything that you write stays on the page. You can still revise, but you always know what your first thoughts were.

Third, I've been reading Stephen King's On Writing. Surprisingly, it's an interesting book if a bit sporadic. I'm still only half-way through but I can see that King really does have a passion for writing. And it's been a wake up call for me. Mostly because I've been using television and other things to give me an excuse for not doing the reading and writing I need to get better.
I also like his metaphor for the writing toolbox and very straight-forward definition of the pieces. I've never really been a horror fan but I might go back and read some of his books. In fact, The Shining has always interested me.

Finally, I know that writing is something that I want to do. It's been an uncomfortable dissonance in my life, feeling that I don't have enough time to myself (or rather time to do the things that I want) and so I've been funneling my free time into TV and gaming.

I guess this is like my blogging post. It's got to be an addiction if you really want to pursue it.

(This is the wife - Read the comments to see how much writing John already does. Although he doesn't realize it, he is one prolific guy.)

Rainstorms

Just wanted to do a quick explanation of a new feature on my blog. I'm going to be trying to ride my bike to work as much as I can. And, I'm keeping track of that in the bike section of my sidebar.

Unfortunately, I don't often check the weather online or on the TV. I just look out the window and see if it's raining or not. So, today, I rode to work in the morning but then it started raining around noon. So Mia had to come pick me up.

I locked my bike up in my bosses office, and hopefully I'll get to ride it home one of these days.

And I shall call him...

[09:36] xxxxxxx: You shall now be know as 'Blog-Boy'
[09:36] xxxxxxx: My Big Blogging Brother
[09:38] xxxxxxx: Mr. Bo Bloggitty
[09:38] johan5000: hahahah
[09:38] xxxxxxx: Bling Blang Blog Bladdah Bloo Bloo

Names removed to keep someone from feeling really, really embarrassed. ;)

Yearly Links

So, there are some blogs that do weekly links... I don't do that.

But, since I did want to link to some of the cool things that I use and since Zack posted some videos of Aida, I thought I'd do it now.

First, I think that Aida has a little Ethan in her.

Second, since our laptop hard-drive is getting full already (it's 60GB and we thought that would be fine), I haven't installed any chat programs except Yahoo! for video chatting with my parents. Instead I use Meebo

My dad turned me onto the TWiT podcast and I listen to it now while I ride to work. It's good because they provide perspective on all the new happenings online. A very grounded perspective.

And lastly, I want to put in a plug for Google Reader. If you aren't already using RSS feeds, you don't know what you're missing. And I can't explain it.

Happy Father's Day

This one's for you Dad.



Also, if you have a Google account, you should be able to log in to Blogger and update your profile to United States (and you can even keep it private). That might trigger an English page and you can still leave anonymous comments.

Blogs vs Bloggers

I was reading today at Marketing Profs. (sign-up req'd) about the dark side of blogging. The main theme was warning against the addiction of blogging.

This was in the context of using blogging as a platform for business, specifically trying to start or promote your own business through blogging. So, I'm going to take exception with some of the article.

Blogs and Bloggers are two different things. I have a blog, but I'm not a blogger. I update my blog for personal reasons, family reasons, friend reasons. I like doing it but as anyone who's followed my blog knows, I don't post every day.

I think, that this is also the reason that I don't twitter. I'm not trying to gather a following, I'm not trying to be a thought leader and give people frequent updates so they'll always know what's on my mind.

However, one thing that I did find true was the desire for feedback. Having a few friends and family that check my blog now, I'm always hoping some people will leave comments for me. I'll have to try and fish for them better.

I've toyed with the idea of becoming a blogger. But I keep resisting because I don't think that I want to get addicted.

Pick me up

So, yesterday, when I was having my stressful week, I cracked open the RSS reader and scanned through Logic + Emotion. I enjoy reading this one because I think it's insightful and because he posts cool graphics.

If your interested in marketing, you should check it out.

Dots

What is it with the dots?

I want to see more giant orange text ;)

Decisions, Decisions

Ok, more enlightenment has come to me over the last two days.

First, I learned that I need to get at some settings that I might not have control over with my Web host. So... I might have to move hosts, which I don't want to do.

Without getting at that setting, the switch that I made to my template, didn't work. But, when I reverted back to the old-style template that I had been using, something must have been updated because the comments are now showing. And I think that my archives are updating automatically... though I'm not sure why.

But, with comments now turned on, I have to make the decision about whether that is enough for me. I would enjoy the extras like books that I'm reading, an easier blogroll, and other widgets.

I suppose that most of it will depend on what my Web host gives back to me as an answer.

(And I need to restore my homepage that got over-written while I was messing around with things)

To Blog or Not to Blog

I read many blogs for work. My reading is focused mostly on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SEM (Search Engine Marketing), Web 2.0 technology, PR, and Marketing.

The blogosphere is huge. Just in those narrow topic areas, I have lots of content to skim through. (RSS Readers are your friend for this.) Lately, I've been getting more involved with some comments. Which has made me start to wonder if I should start a personal/professional blog.

Ah ha! Typing this up has reminded me of what I wanted to say earlier. I was searching out a few new blogs the other day, and found a few blogs by people that are in more of my position. They are not thought-leaders in the space, but are professionals with a few years experience.

What struck me is that these blogs linked to those thought-leaders. This is, of course, how bloggers get integrated into the blogging community. But, it's also a tactic to try and raise their sites visibility in the search engines and sites like Technorati. Which brings me to the point that I had wanted to make earlier but couldn't remember.

The value of the blogoshere is the creation of content and distribution of information through the network.

When bloggers get too caught up in talking about the blogosphere, they are no longer valuable to me. The bloggers that I respect the most are those that have knowledge of some space and are willing to share that information through their blog. This is also why I'm hesitant to add my voice professionally to the blogosphere. I'm not sure what I would add from my experience that is different from the voices already speaking.
Creating a blog for the purpose of increasing my own visibility might be useful in a future job search, but what value would I add to the conversation?

Maybe one day, maybe one day.