Category Archives: blogging

Twenty five…

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It’s all coming to an end on December 8th. After this morning’s posts from the archive, there are only 25 old posts from MySpace in line to be ported over to WordPress. That means there’s only five weeks left in this Sunday morning routine. I haven’t done the math on how many archive posts I’ve made, but it feels like it’s something I’ve been working on for a long, long time. I’m actually a little sorry to have the end in sight. These early Sunday posts have become something I rather look forward to each week. Still, maybe it will be good to start covering some new ground on Sunday mornings. I guess we’ll find out on December 15th if my blogging chops are actually up to going to a full blown 7-day a week schedule without a built-in cheat on one of those days.

For now, go ahead and enjoy today’s selections from August 2008, where I’ve covered everything from a rebellious coffee maker to having one sick puppy.

A good month…

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With 1,233 visits, an average of 40 visits per day, and a one day record of 148 visits, October was a good month for jeffreytharp.com. The only sure thing I’ve learned from running a blog this long is that you can never expect success. It’s best to go into each post assuming that you’re writing to satisfy an audience of one: yourself. That’s why I’m savoring the high points when they come – especially since the last record setting month was back in May 2011. What that trend tells me is that apparently people like to see ranting about work (May 2011 I was in the final stages of escaping my previous employer) and raging about government ineptitude (This past October saw the latest government shutdown and endless incidents of political asshattery).

As tempting as it is to chase that trend, I don’t think that’s what I want to spend all my time writing about. The reason I’ve never settled into a topical niche is that I tend to be interested in whatever happens to go on around me on any given day. Maybe that’s a character flaw, but it does give me wide latitude when it comes to picking topics. I very much like having latitude.

So with that said, I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing around here for almost four years now. I’ll keep writing, you keep reading, and we’ll see if we can’t set a new record sooner rather than later. And because I don’t do it often enough, let me just say thanks to everyone who’s reading along at home, those who impart a snarky word from time to time, throw me a like, or even just shake your head in amazement that someone would bother to manage this much schlock on the internet. This is definitely the best non-paying job on the internet, but I still have a few surprises up my sleeve for the future so let’s go ahead and plan for the best being yet to come.

Having the world to yourself…

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I think Sunday mornings are my favorite part of the week. Even now when the days are shorter and the sun isn’t quite up at 7AM, I like being awake and moving. That brief hour between 7 and 8 is one of the very few times in a typical week when it legitimately feels like you’ve got the world to yourself. There’s no traffic moving yet, no email rolling in, no tweets, or Facebook posts that need liking. There’s just me, the dogs, a fresh pot of coffee, and a blog. It’s a pity that all days can’t start off like that.

This Sunday, I’m offering up the last of the posts from July 2008 and the first post from August of that year. There’s a nice little rant on July 28th if you’re interested in finding out why I don’t mind the price of gas being a little high. July 27th is a quick note on why I think formal term limits for Congress are a bunch of bunk. The other three posts in the set are a little more spur of the moment thoughts that never quite got fully developed, but still make of decent enough reading. As if I’d say there was every a post you should just go ahead and skip over.

Updates from the archive are the first productive thing I try to get to on Sunday mornings. Once they’re live here on WordPress, I feel like I can get on with Sunday – so enjoy the posts this morning and remember to check back tomorrow to find out what happens on Monday that will inevitably deserve to be written down for posterity.

Ah, Sunday…

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It’s the weekly day of rest that is generally anything but restful. Mostly it’s a mad dash around the house doing all the small jobs that don’t seem to get done through the week and I can’t bring myself to do on Saturday as a matter of principle. Throw in the fact that you can feel Monday breathing down your neck and there’s just not much to recommend it.

On the upside, Sunday morning means its time to delve once more into Ye Olde MySpace Archive to see what the cat drug in for the week. Straight from July 2008, we have a few rants about work, the pondering of a new puppy owner, and the pending revocation of my man card. They all feel like posts I could have written in the last six months. Like they say, the more thing change and all…

On an administrative note, the upcoming week is going to be touch and go. I’ll do my best to keep the posts on schedule, but if I drop a day or two I hope you’ll forgive me.

Feigned interest…

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Ah, Friday. One might think this should be the easiest day to feel witty and adventurous in your writing. Maybe it is for some, but for me between the rubber band of the week snapping back, dealing with the typical asshattery one encounters, and my always-present inner sense that something just isn’t right, Fridays are just about universally my hardest day to force something out of my brain, through my fingers, and onto the blank page. I’ve learned to embrace that Friday afternoons don’t give me the warm fuzzy that they seem to give everyone else.

More grudgingly I’ve accepted the lack of a muse on Fridays because typically fewer people are around to read it anyway. Apparently Friday nights are still a big night for people to go do things. Me? Yeah, I’m more interested in getting home and hiding out from the multitude I’ve had to deal with during the week. I’ve always been a little jealous of you people out there who seem to be energized by being around other people. Personally, I find them perfectly exhausting… of course you knew that already. One of the many joys in life for an introvert who’s forced by the way the world works to at least feign a passing interest in socializing.

So what’s the point of this ramble on a Friday night? Well, your first mistake was expecting there would be some point; a moral at the end of the story. Sometimes there isn’t a point. I didn’t set out for tonight’s post to be anything deep or meaningful, so at least in that I can consider it a successful effort.

Sunday traditions…

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As often as not, Sunday dinner at my grandparent’s house meant roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, and all manner of home cooked food. While I may not have a dozen or more gathered around my table at 5PM on the dot, at least once a month, my house fills with the savory smell of roasting beef as I do my best to keep with tradition. Sure, I’ve made some tweaks to the recipes – I use more garlic than my grandmother would have ever dreamed of, for instance – but the underlying idea is still the same. Sunday dinner is important, if for no other reason than it’s a touchstone with the past.

While we’re on the topic of touching the past, I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you that this week’s posts from the archive are now available for your reading pleasure. Pulled into the present from the last half of June and July 2008, today’s posts are a bit more pithy than they’ve been in the last few weeks. They feature a few more explanations of some of the more colorful words and phrases that show up in my vocabulary from time to time. Get your dose of the archives soon, because from the look of things, in two months this particular Sunday tradition will be drawing to an end.

On schedule…

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It’s Sunday morning, and despite the continuing government shutdown, the looming debt ceiling debacle, and my general annoyance with both Congress and the administration, that means it’s the day we focus on the past instead of the future. This week’s posts from the old MySpace blog are from early June 2008 and cover a good range of issues from changing jobs, to having a lead foot, to the joys of having some kind of flu bug. No great rants this week, but it’s safe to say we’ll run into a few more of those before our Sunday visits to the archive wrap up over the next few months.

Unlike our government, I still believe in the importance of keeping things on schedule, so enjoy today’s blast from the past and check back tomorrow for what I’m sure will be another rants about Congress… or perhaps a diatribe against dentistry following my second root canal in the last seven days. I supposes it’s good to have a variety of topics, but I’d happily pass on either one of them.

Rough around the edges…

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I’d love to tell you that I remember anything from June 2008, but the fact is it must have been pretty unremarkable. I don’t recall a single event outside of what I’ve been reading while posting this week’s archive update. That doesn’t necessarily mean the old posts lack juice, though. A coupe of this week’s posts are real gems – maybe a little rough around the edges – but they’ve got good bones. Any time a post pops up that touches on a memory from my four years at Frostburg it’s almost always a good time. I’m sure there were some less than good times in there too, but I really don’t remember them. It’s reassuring to remember that no matter how stupid today seems, in a decade I’ll be looking back on this time fondly, having had enough time pass to suppress the worst of the bad moments.

Be sure to check out the posts on how certain phrases I still use came into being. I don’t know if they’ll give you any insight into how my brain works, but they’re good reads… and had the added benefit of setting me to wonder if there are any new words and phrases in my vocabulary that are worthy of an explanation. It’s always nice when these old posts point the way towards some potential new material, because let’s be honest, ginning up new stuff every day is tough.

Sunday morning coming down…

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I’ve been falling down on by blogging responsibilities this weekend. Between catching up on sleep from my aborted line-standing at the Apple Store and finally getting to spend a good chunk of time playing with this hard to procure new toy, there hasn’t been as much free time as you’d think during this three day weekend. Even so, the fourth thing I did this morning was make sure the Myspace Blog Archive Project was up to date on this Sunday morning – I came after letting the dogs out, feeding them, and making coffee. Even a dedicated blogger has to have priorities, no?

This morning’s archive selections close out the posts from May 2008 and are distinctly “slice of life” posts. No rants, no raves, just the minutia of what’s happening day to day. Hopefully it will be useful a hundred years from now to someone researching what life was like at the dawn of the 21st century. A boy can dream, anyway.

Now that I’ve had a full day with it, I’ve got a review of the iPhone 5s coming up. That will most likely make its debut tomorrow. The short version is this: If you’ve been considering picking up Apple’s latest flagship, go ahead and put your order in now. You’ll be waiting until October, but it’s going to be worth the wait.